How Can I Improve My Meditation Posture?
The benefits of both meditation, and the Alexander Technique, are becoming more and more known and accepted by mainstream medicine. Some doctors are recommending meditation to patients with high blood pressure, patients with stress related conditions, heart disease, headaches, digestive disorders and more.
Good posture while you meditate, or your meditation posture, can be a challenge for those new to meditation, as well as those more experienced with meditation. Improving one’s meditation posture is important for people who meditate for ten minutes, and those who meditate for hours. The Alexander Technique can help with improving meditation posture, as it helps with improving posture in general.
In researching various instructions for proper meditation posture, a suggestion that keeps arising is ‘keep your spine straight.’ I understand what this meditation posture direction means. It is suggesting not slouching, the very picture of bad meditation posture. However, another picture of bad meditation posture is sitting rigidly upright in an attempt to avoid slumping.
The spine is not straight to begin with, so we can’t keep it straight. The spine has curves (cervical, thoracic, lumbar, and sacral) What we don’t want to do, and one example of bad meditation posture, is to exaggerate those curves. This exaggeration compresses the spine and manifests as poor meditation posture. Spinal compression may also lead to many other significant difficulties, such as pinched nerves leading to back pain or neck pain.
Good meditation posture should also not include the idea of sitting stiffly upright, with no oppositional down. This ‘good meditation posture’ likely adds excess tension and muscular restriction.
It is helpful to be more at ease both on and away from the cushion, chair, bench, pew, or floor. Why add tension to meditation because of your meditation posture? Why add tension to anything? So what should you do to improve your meditation posture?
Free your neck, which means free your neck of excess tension. It becomes easier once you cultivate the skill. Let your head rotate forward (slowly, slightly lower your nose) Allow the crown of your head to move up. Let your torso release into length and width. Breathe. Expand. When you release excess tension in your legs, they will move away from your torso. Allow your arms to move away from your torso. Let your sitting bones release down into your sitting surface.
These are a few Alexander Technique directions. As you learn to use the principles of the Alexander Technique to improve your meditation posture, you become aware of tensions and extra work, which heretofore were unconscious. Enjoy your meditation…more.
Please join in!
Do you find your posture a challenge to your meditation?
What are your thoughts on meditation posture?
Do you use Alexander Technique principles before or during your meditation?
Mark Josefsberg-Alexander Technique NYC
(917) 709-4648
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The thing is in meditation we should not focus on our surroundings or body, so it makes me wonder whether in this technique we are constantly focusing on our posture? or do we give our attention to our body only when we feel discomfort and pain?
Hi Serpico,
You’re right. We don’t want to constantly focus on our posture. That sounds pretty awful. Alexander spoke of ‘use of the self’, which goes beyond posture, and goes beyond the body. Just the word posture usually implies rigidity, which is exactly what we don’t want with the Alexander Technique. Also, the Technique is not just about the body; it is about the mind/body. Alexander described it as psycho/physical.
We also don’t give our attention to our body only when we’re in pain. The Alexander Technique and it’s principles are something you apply to your life whenever you think about them.
I think the way to approach this is when you’re meditating; meditate, when you’re playing music; play music. You can certainly apply the principles as you approach your pillow, or the floor, or a chair or a rock or the bandstand or whatever. If you periodically think about the Technique it will creep in to your daily life, and you can do anything with more ease. The AT could help when you’re meditating and when you’re not, which means… all the time.
Hello Mark,
I’m “shopping” for a bodyworker for my doctor! Can you give me a call so I can explain?
347.427.1390
917.656.2481
Many thanks,
Meryl
I certainly will call. Right now in fact.
Mark
I believe what we want to do with the Alexander Technique is to consciously apply the principles in a very gentle, non-forced way. you practice the Alexander Technique, just as you practice meditation. It doesn’t take very long for new habits to be formed. That’s what F.M. Alexander discovered for himself. The Alexander Technique and meditation form a beautiful blend.
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