Meditation
Also known as: Dhyana
From the Latin meditatio, 'to reflect on, study, or practice.'
Meditation is a family of practices that train attention and awareness, typically by focusing on a single object such as the breath, a mantra, or bodily sensation, or by cultivating an open, receptive awareness of whatever arises. Traditions vary widely, from concentration practices to open monitoring and loving-kindness meditation.
While often associated with sitting quietly with eyes closed, meditation spans a wide range of formats, including walking meditation, mantra repetition, guided visualization, and movement-based practices like Yoga Nidra. Modern research organizes techniques broadly into focused-attention and open-monitoring styles, though many traditional practices blend both.
Despite being treated as one activity in casual conversation, meditation covers meaningfully different techniques with different mechanisms: focused-attention practices like breath counting train sustained concentration, open-monitoring practices like Vipassana train non-reactive awareness of whatever arises, and loving-kindness practices deliberately cultivate a specific emotional state. Research findings genuinely differ by technique and outcome measure, which is part of why a headline like 'meditation reduces anxiety' can be true in one well-designed study and unreplicated in another, since the specific practice, dose and population all matter.
Go Deeper
Related Terms
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is the practice of paying deliberate, non-judgmental attention to present-moment experience, whether the breath, bodily sensations, thoughts, or surroundings. Rooted in Buddhist contemplative practice, it has been adapted into secular clinical programs and is widely used for stress, anxiety, and general wellbeing.
Yoga Nidra
Yoga Nidra, or 'yogic sleep,' is a structured, guided relaxation practice performed lying down, moving attention systematically through the body and breath to reach a state between waking and sleeping. It is used for deep rest, stress reduction, and, in some traditions, subtle-body exploration.