Anxiety and unpleasant feelings when meditating

[Antimatter]

Hi all,

I've recently started meditating for about 5-10 minutes in the mornings and when I can a few minutes before I sleep as well. I've been suffering from an anxiety disorder for the last few years (without resorting to any medication) and thought meditation will assist dealing with it (my mind just never stops so it's been a difficult process).

Anyway, a few minutes into meditating I sometimes start getting these unpleasant head sensations, usually a dizziness or just weird awkward feelings that forces me to open my eyes and stop mediating, naturally starting to fill my mind with thoughts again in panic. It's nothing unbearable but it makes meditating rather uncomfortable when it happens, which is disappointing as I'm really trying to try into it.

The meditation technique I'm using is simply focusing on my breath, slowly breathing deeply into my stomach then slowly exhaling and repeating.

Should I just keep at it and hope this will eventually subside, or is there something I'm doing wrong here? Or perhaps try different techniques?

Thanks in advance for any advice .

[Biker Bill]

The thing with focussing on the breath, particularly if you're new to meditation, is that you're almost certainly interfering with the natural flow of your breathing. This may well induce anxiety, sweatiness etc. Your breath has a natural rhythm, it fluctuates, sometimes deep sometimes shallow. Forcing deep breathing during meditation is not conducive to relaxation.
Forget your breathing, it's working just fine as usual. Perhaps try focussing on a sound. Mantra meditation is probably the easiest way to begin a meditation practice. Try for twenty minutes. OK anything is better than nothing, but realistically, twenty minutes is a minimum for meditating. Five or ten minutes relaxation is always good at any time, but is it meditating....?
Be gentle with yourself. There's nothing particular that's "supposed" to happen. Whacky experiences aren't signs of "progress". Just do it, without expectations, every day. It'll start to come naturally and you'll look forward to it.
It's not called practice for nothing.....

[GilesC]

Agree with Bill.

[Antimatter]

Fair enough. I've always just read most people don't breath properly because of stress and deep breathing is very vital to general well-being.

Thanks for the advice, I'll change things up a bit and see how I go

[GilesC]

Occasionally taking some good deep breaths to ensure your lungs expel fully and fill up fully is certainly good for health, but continually doing it as part of meditation will cause your body to not breath naturally, and then the oxygen levels in your body will go too high or too low and that is where you get the physiological side-effects. The body is very good at natually knowing how much to breath, such as when you exercise and need more oxygen etc. so trying to force it to do something for long periods isn't good. The point of breathing meditations isn't to actually make the breathing regular or deep or whatever, but to just observe (bring the awareness to) the natural breathing, even if it goes shallow or deep, or slow or fast... just observe. Personally though I prefer a mantra based meditation as it cuts out the chance of effecting the way the body wants to naturally function.



Hugs

Giles