Meditation Explained

Have you ever felt deterred from meditation due to an impression that you might be asked to sit still and “clear your mind”? Most of us feel this is unobtainable, and rather than risk failure we avoid meditation entirely. 

There can be some misunderstandings about the purpose and practice of meditation, which unfortunately can cause many to miss out on its benefits. The goal of meditation is not to totally clear the mind—you wouldn’t want an absolutely clear mind, just as you wouldn’t want your heart to stop beating. However, meditation can be used to harness activity in the mind to improve the ability to problem-solve and increase the body’s resilience to stress,^1,2 which in turn contributes to such physiological effects as improving inflammatory markers and hormone regulation during and after stress, enhancing the quality of sleep and recovery, and decreasing body fat. 

Research shows meditation changes the structure and function of one’s brain to increase learning, cognition, and emotional regulation and lessen anxiety, fear, and stress.³ It is in everyone’s best interest to use the power of the mind for the greatest good. 

Mental Training

The mind instinctively weighs pros and cons before taking any action. As wonderfully complex as the mind is, without neurologic and emotional training such as that offered by meditation, an impulsive action could turn out to be reckless or even deadly. 

Just as an untrained puppy is apt to run around with many distractions, an untrained mind may be apt to meander without focus. If the puppy is to be an attentive companion, it needs consistent training. Similarly, if the mind is to have the habitual ability to center concentration, it needs consistent meditation practice.

According to psychologist Amishi Jha, a neuroscientist and one of the leading researchers in mindfulness and meditation, “Wherever attention goes, the rest of the brain follows.”⁴ The power of that kind of attention affects perception, and perception affects how one performs under pressure. 

Stress and a wandering mind negatively affect attention and fog judgment when it’s needed most. And what job requires acute attention to detail and fast, accurate judgment for actions that can mean the difference between life and death? Emergency medical services.

Of Two Minds

Have you ever had a conversation with yourself? For example, have you ever been lying in bed as one part of your mind cycles through the lyrics of a song while another part of your mind yells, “Be quiet and let me sleep!”? What are these two parts of the mind having the argument? 

Eastern philosophy teaches us that one part of the mind identifies with the basic elements that make up who we are on Earth—e.g., male or female, tall or short, rich or poor. We’ll call that part of the mind ego. The other part is the higher or “all-knowing” part of the mind that does not judge but rather observes and accepts. We’ll call that part of the mind consciousness. Consciousness is of the same part of the mind as gut instinct, unexplainably knowing the right answer in a tough situation.

Meditation offers exercises and techniques to strengthen the consciousness part of the mind. Strengthening the conscious mind means getting to know it better, trust it, and give it a platform where it can observe the ego as it runs around without a leash. This same platform of meditation then gives you the power to put the leash back on and tell the ego to “sit and stay.” Meditation allows a nonreactive observation of what is true about every given moment, without the need to judge it or change any part of it.

Translating It to EMS

Matt Charnetski was a critical care and 9-1-1 paramedic in Central Iowa. He currently works as the director of simulation-based education and research at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire. He shared why he started, how he practices, why he thinks meditation is difficult for the EMS culture to embrace, and at the same time why he thinks it should:

“I was really struggling with a lot of mental health and focus problems and looked to meditation to try to alleviate my anxiety and difficulty sleeping,” he says. “Much like mobility work for my body, if I had found meditation a little earlier, I might have [stayed on the job] a bit longer. Practicing meditation made me more comfortable in my own skin, personally and professionally.

“The pop culture version of meditation is always a little bit ridiculous and depicted in a kind of silly way. Sometimes I get a little turned off by some of the fuzzy-wuzzy woo-woo. My experience in EMS is that we tend to be pragmatic and want to focus on the issue at hand. Relating meditation back to a practical function makes a huge difference. 

“It takes a little practice and time to become familiarized with the techniques and get in the habit. Trying to sit and do a long meditation session right out of the gate sets you up for failure. I try to do 3–4 longer sessions of 15–20 minutes every week. And then I try to fill in the rest of the days with a quick five-minute check-in at least once a day. I slow down and meditate, focusing on the reaction in my body, trying to identify the stimuli. I think focusing on practical applications and starting with little bites of time will make the biggest difference.

“Being a paramedic is hard for all the reasons we all talk about, but it also takes a toll on you over time. And it’s not always the big, bad, and obvious things. We cringe when people ask what’s the worst thing we’ve ever seen. But I think the constant sense of vigilance, of being on the verge of being called and needing to be 100% ready whenever that call comes, that’s the thing that really starts to chip away at you. Meditation and practices like it are about increasing resilience and capacity. It won’t make you bulletproof, but it can increase your capacity to carry and manage that load, physical or mental.

“There is no question in my mind meditation would be beneficial for EMS.”

Start Meditating Now

You already have everything you need to start a meditation practice. You can meditate seated or lying down, standing still or moving. Although no prerequisite training is required, guidance from a teacher is helpful. 

When one sits to meditate, he or she is asked to focus on a specific technique or “meditation object” given by a teacher or whomever is guiding the practice. Examples of these techniques include repeating a phrase to yourself—traditionally called a mantra—creating measured breath patterns, internal visualization, observation of your own movement, or observing an outside object such as a candle flame. 

While the conscious mind focuses on a meditation object, it can simultaneously observe the ego mind as it naturally wanders. Thoughts may include: I’m bored. Am I doing this right? What time is it? I’m hungry. Did I just fall asleep? Is falling asleep bad in meditation? The point is for the conscious mind to recognize these thoughts, then systematically and calmly return to the meditation object. That is how one trains to stay in the meditation driver’s seat. If we negatively judge ourselves for having distractions, needless frustration occurs. 

In the same way a dog’s chew toy provides the ability for our four-legged friends to focus attention, a meditation technique can provide our way to one-pointed focus, the meditation technique being the “chew toy” for the mind. The more one meditates, the more one can recognize when the ego is “off leash,” running to destructive patterns and thoughts, but then the more easily one can use tools to bring it back and “heel” at the desired focus.

As a guide try the simple 15-minute audio meditation available here. In this exercise the meditation object is inward visualization. All you need to do is listen and watch your thoughts, and you will be successfully performing the practice. Then the next day do it again. You will have become someone who meditates. 

References

1. Greenberg J, Reiner K, Meiran N. “Mind the Trap”: Mindfulness Practice Reduces Cognitive Rigidity. PLOS One, 2012; https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0036206. 

2. Rosenkranz MA, Lutz A, Perlman DM, et al. Reduced stress and inflammatory responsiveness in experienced meditators compared to a matched healthy control group. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 2016 Jun; 68: 117–25. 

3. Walton AG. 7 Ways Meditation Can Actually Change the Brain. Forbes, 2015 Feb 9; www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2015/02/09/7-ways-meditation-can-actually-change-the-brain. 

4. Kovacs M. Time to pay attention: What can stop your mind from wandering at work? SmartCompany, 2018 Jun 14; www.smartcompany.com.au/people-human-resources/productivity/mk-time-to-pay-attention-what-can-stop-the-mind-from-wandering/. 

Olivia Mead is founder and CEO of the nonprofit organization YogaShield Yoga for First Responders (YFFR). YFFR offers tools such as yoga, breathing, and mindfulness in a manner that is job-specific and culturally informed for public safety for the purposes of processing stress, building resilience, and enhancing performance. Mead has traveled around the country training thousands of first responders and military personnel in the methodology she developed for YFFR. Her work has been featured by O, CBS This Morning, National Geographic, Reebok, and more.