Pillar · 10 of 12
Meditate
Yes / no, once a day
Note: Each of these pillars is personal, one of the things that make you you, so I'd recommend changing their contents. I'll keep what I write about the pillars short.
"The Meditate pillar"
I would love to sing meditation's praises with something like "Is there anything as lovely as pressing pause on everything during the day, diving into your inner world and swimming in that turquoise ocean?" It deserves it, too! But as I mentioned in my chill exercise, it's a pillar I find hard to practise. The one and only reason it is a pillar for me is that it comes as an oasis in the desert to the scattered attention and the floods of thought my fast-running mind creates. If meditation means nothing to you, if you don't think it's worth a place among your 4 Pillar exercises, or if you've never tried it, chill, one of the core exercises, will be enough for you.
Research
Research: Meditate
What the large reviews of meditation programmes found, and why finding it hard is normal.
These notes are a starting point for the author's own reading; nothing here is medical advice.
The largest careful review of meditation programmes found moderate evidence that mindfulness programmes reduce anxiety, depression and pain, and little evidence that they beat active treatments such as exercise or therapy (Goyal and colleagues 2014). A review of the brain-imaging work describes changes in attention, emotion regulation and self-awareness with practice, while noting that many of the studies are small (Tang, Hölzel and Posner 2015). The programme most of this research is based on is described in Kabat-Zinn (1990). The author's honesty about finding it hard matches the field: dropping out and not practising at home are common problems in these trials.
References
- Goyal, M., and colleagues (2014). Meditation programs for psychological stress and well-being: A systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA Internal Medicine.
- Tang, Y.-Y., Hölzel, B. K., and Posner, M. I. (2015). The neuroscience of mindfulness meditation. Nature Reviews Neuroscience.
- Kabat-Zinn, J. (1990). Full Catastrophe Living. Delacorte Press.
Notes last touched October 16, 2026