Comment by actsasbuffoon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by actsasbuffoon | Hacker News Reader

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The problem I have with meditation is that I get too relaxed. If I clear my mind and let my muscles go limp then my heart rate drops very rapidly. I decided to experiment with it when I was waiting to have my wisdom teeth removed. They hook you up to a heart monitor to make sure the general anesthetic doesn't cause your heart to stop, and within a few minutes of meditation I managed to set the heart monitor's alarm off.

Through years of practice I've gotten faster at it, and now I can get into a reasonably deep meditation in less than 30 seconds. The problem is that after about a minute my eyes start to very painfully roll back into my head. It hurts like hell and is completely involuntary. Trying to keep them from rolling back prevents me from meditating.

I've looked around on the internet, but I've never managed to find an explanation of why that happens to me. Seems like I'm a pretty severe outlier on that one. Has that ever happened to anyone else?

A dropping heart rate is a sign that your mind is calming way down. The same thing happens to me. Heart rate and blood pressure both drop. It is connected to the breathing rate. If you can reduce your breath rate down to 1-2 times a minute you can feel extreme calmness but it will greatly lower the heart rate. Just do some vigorous yoga or exercises after the meditation session to get the blood pumping again. Not sure about the eye issue. Maybe try open eye meditation. Example of a yogi practicing open eye meditation: http://www.yogananda.com.au/galleries/py1/images/py1923.jpg

I have not had this problem, but I might suggest not trying to relax at all in your case. You are likely able to "relax" your heart well enough that you are actually causing yourself to start to pass out.

Relaxing your body as part of meditation is intended to help you quiet your mind, but if that in itself is a barrier, then you should try not doing that part.

You could instead practice allowing your thoughts to float away, and with your eyes open allowing yourself to "see" without perceiving. Let the goal of your meditation be simply being with the world where you are, without trying to judge or affect it.

My sister does this, using 'biofeedback'. She has some health issues, and when she's hooked up to the monitors, she'll play a game of controlling her different monitors. She also uses biofeedback to manage pain and some other health issues when meds don't work.

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