Meditation Is Amazing
Jacob Felder, RYT

Meditation is amazing. When I started practicing yoga in 1969. I first learned deep relaxation techniques in 1975. Little did I realize at the time, I suffered from the beginning stages of chronic fatigue. Deep relaxation twice a day, usually ending in a slumber got me through the work day for many years. I had tried meditation off and on over the years, but always found myself thinking along the lines of, “How much longer do I have to sit here and when is something going to happen?” Have you ever had that experience? If so, then you probably know the next feeling, “I just can’t meditate!”

Well, about eight years ago I began reading Teach Yourself to Meditate by Eric Harrison. His book was the first I had ever read that broke meditation down into scientific terms. What he had to say made a lot of sense to me. Basically, meditation is a very natural biological process involving simple changes in the frequency of brainwaves. No promises of fantastic spiritual experiences. No promises of sudden and forever happiness. Just a change in brainwaves from normal waking consciousness to a very relaxed state of mind, also known as Alpha brainwaves or light meditation. And if you want to take it a step further, then you would take this relaxed state of mind into the first stage of sleep known as Theta brainwaves or deep meditation.

I had the light meditation down pat from all the years of deep relaxation techniques and yoga. However, like most folks on the yoga path I really wanted to experience the deeper states of meditation. So one day I decided to sit up and relax deeply, but without allowing myself to drift off to sleep. The sights, the sounds, the feeling of spaciousness, and more than anything the deep-seated feeling of peace and calm were amazing. It was conscious awareness without all the busy crazy thoughts. It was so wonderful that I didn’t even talk about it until I was doing it consistently. It kept happening over and over until I was sure that I had gained enough control to remain stable in Theta on a regular basis.

Meditation is wonderful enough in and of itself, but along with many other benefits I found that it relieved - not cured, but relieved - my daily fatigue much better and more efficiently than the deep relaxation and naps ever did. What was the difference? With meditation I gained relief from the fatigue in a shorter period of time, generally about 20 minutes with none of the groggy after effects of a nap. Also, I feel refreshed for longer periods of time than when I simply relax or nap. There is a good reason meditation doesn’t make you groggy like naps do. When we nap our brainwaves slow down to deep sleep, very slow Delta brainwaves. When we meditate the brainwaves do slow down significantly, but not enough to loose our conscious awareness because Theta brainwaves are not nearly as slow as the Delta brainwaves. In other words, our minds do not need as much recovery time “waking” from Theta as from Delta.

As for spiritual experiences and lasting happiness is concerned, you make out of meditation what you want. If you want a spiritual experience, then you can read that into your meditation experience. Happiness? Meditaters usually enjoy a higher level of overall satisfaction just in the fact that serotonin is released into the body during Theta, resulting in a feeling of overall peacefulness and wellbeing. You could practically say that spiritual experience and a relatively higher level of happiness is a byproduct of meditation.

After finally learning to meditate successfully, I embarked upon a mission to teach others, consequently developing a method that I now call The Awareness Approach. It is a simple method in which you get used to seeing, hearing, and feeling the subtle changes in mind and body as you fall asleep at night or at any other time. It works by increasing your awareness and familiarity with the different changes in brainwaves (states of consciousness). With this familiarity, you begin to recognize changes in consciousness and gain enough control to develop the ability to hold stable in Theta, the deeper state of meditation that we so often hear of, but often alludes us.

Over the past six years I have successfully trained over two hundred people to meditate, almost all of them learning the deeper states. Whenever I cross paths with one of my former students I like to ask if they are still using their meditation skills. The answer is almost always something like, “Yes, of course. It’s so easy I can’t imagine not meditating any more.” Besides people who want to learn for the sake of getting a break from the business of mind, I’ve seen cardiac arrest survivors lower their blood pressure, fibromyalgia victims get relief, cancer survivors finding a new source of comfort in their lives, anxiety attack victims finding relief from anxiety. The most common report I get is people getting better nights' sleep. And the list goes on. Meditation has certainly made my life better. I’m so glad that it works so well for me and for so many others. Yes, meditation is amazing.

Jacob Felder,RYT will be teaches Meditation: The Awareness Approach in Greensboro and Winston-Salem. For more information contact him at 336-407-8602 or yogajacob@hotmail.com.
Visit www.jacobfelder.com.