Can daily 6 to 8 hours intensive meditation sessions cause mental health problems?

Question

My wife recently left me after 24 years of marriage. She had become addicted to meditation spending 6 to 8 hours in deep meditation each day. She became a different person and didn't seem to be able to relate on an emotional level. It was like she was drugged or flattened in personality. She was also trying to channel information from her higher self and my fear is that she may have gone too far and become mentally ill. Now she is cut off from me and our daughter.Can meditation have a down side?

Answer 1

"too much meditation can over-drive brain areas and drop us into another universe for awhile" Laurence O. McKinney, director of the American Instutute for Mindfulness. Arlington MASS.

Full article here http://www.webmd.com/content/article/31/1728_77081

hope this helps.

Answer 2

The answer by kremilly is beside the point. You have never stated that your wife was sufferng from something and the meditation exercise was undertaken for curative purposes. The other answer is more to the point but suffers from about the other universe you may fall into.Who knows it may not be a far better world than this.

Belive me there is . I am not a spiritalist. Meditation is purely a physical exercise says Aldus Huxley and agree with him but it perhaps openes some compatment of the brain which are till them closed. Huxley seems to think that we use only a fraction of the brain power just enough for survival. He feels that the overtly increased exposure to carbon-de-oxide inherent inthe beathing exercises perhaps opends some hiterto closed door of the brain making it more powerful to understand real nature of truth. While family relations love are all right in their place at the normal level when one rises to higher planes they perhaps lose some of the sheen or else they spread all over.I am sure your wife has not ceased to love you or her child but that the love has now become more universal covering all animate and inanimate things. Please try to understand her problem. There is a danger in this state to neglect physical needs. You say you have lived with her two quarter of a century. It is your duty both as a loving husband and father of her child to take care of the physical needs of your wife. Please ensure that she taken her food regularly and attend to her other physical needs to the best you can .You owe it to her. Would you not have done this for her had she been down with some incurable disease. I am sure you would have done.Only this time she has risen above such mundane things but as you know and I know the seat-the body-of the transacendental has tobe preserved.You are a lucky guy to have had her company for so long. If I were an Oriental I would have said that some merit in your past life has secured you this nearness. Please care for her.She may not even thank you in return but don't be nervous.A chronic patient sometimes abuses the nurse.

Answer 3

Hi Peter. Meditation does not cause mental health problems. Meditation on the other hand helps when people suffer from depression, anxiety, panic attacks. You have to get to the root of why your wife changed. Maybe through meditation she began to feel interested in herself, maybe she began asking questions about life and energies like God. I think there was already a problem and the meditation was not a cause. I am really sorry that your wife left you. I wonder if you can get her back by trying to understand her new world and communicating. All that I wrote is about meditation. However I do not know which kind of meditation she did nor who was the teacher. I wonder if the teacher brain washed her. [e-mail]

Answer 4

It certainly doesn't sound like a psychological well being difficulty; it sounds like by some skill your female friend had a clean adventure and loved it. possibly she said a bondage movie, study a suggestive piece of literature, did some study on line, or perhaps met someone with whom she had an 'adventure'. i'm not attempting to recommend something about your female friend, yet you've been at the same time for a lengthy time period, and he or she might want to are turning out to be drained of your recurring. sure, possibly you're going at it warm and heavy, yet she might want to not be almost as good about speaking her needs to you as you anticipate she is. As yet another woman who has had an extremely puzzling time explaining what i want to my boyfriend, i'd say that possibly she became attempting contained in the suitable way she knew to get you into her latest want. you're grossed out by technique of the very actuality she needed you to do something sexual that still lined her ***. So what? There are women accessible who're disgusted on the idea of putting a penis of their mouth. everyone is different--possibly you are able to sit down such as her, clarify gently what you probably did and did not like about the adventure, and recommend that you try new issues at a slower and larger forgiving %.. carry out a touch study on techniques of anal interplay, see if there is something you're waiting to attempt, and be as open-minded as accessible. also, recommend that she take a effective, warmth, thorough bath and freshen up very, o.k. next time...it received't scent. good luck to both absolutely one of you. It sounds like you want her very a lot, so do not provide up, in basic terms open up the lines of communication a touch more effective. i'm particular you 2 can stumble on a center floor and take even more effective excitement in both your sex existence and how nicely you realize one yet another.

Answer 5

Hello friend. Remember that medications are only to cope illnesses. Drugs won't make you be better, they will make you feel better. Unfortunately i would personally say that anything "foreign" to your body is not good to a short or long extent. Nowadays we have many medications that make things "easier" for one's eyes and beliefs, but the truth is that they are NOT good for you. There's nothing like organic food and exercise. I would totally recommend to lower doses as much as possible. She won't be the same person if she keeps having this medical behavior. I'm not saying for bad only. Maybe she becomes a better person, but at what cost? You are playing with your own health when you rely on drugs only.

Answer 6

You cannot relate to how she experiences life...

"Abundant character seems hardly satisfying."
- Lao tzu

Answer 7

sounds like it caused her some mental problems.