New to the forum. Has anyone tried meditation to help with hyper vigilance?
Hi emwc,
I've been meditating off and on for a few years now. I find it beneficial for most ptsd problems, including hypervigilence. The more regularly I meditate the greater the benefits. However, there have been times I've stopped because my symptoms were too severe and going inwards seemed to heighten the symptoms. I always come back to it though.
I was talking to my neuropsychiatrist about hypervigiliance last week. I had realised how illogical it was and how when I'm frantically trying to be aware of everything going on around me to be alert to any danger, I seem to be less able to recognise genuine threats. Despite using up mental resources and a lot of energy it had never protected me from harm.
He said "of course not - it's not a self-protective behaviour it is a brain dysfunction," he seemed amazed that I had ever imagined that this behaviour was a protective adaption, rather than counter-productive to being able to protect myself from danger.
I felt a bit of a fool.
All the best. I hope you can find a teacher or group to learn and practice with. Meditation is extremely simple, but that doesn't mean it is easy. It's common, even for people who have trained in a meditation practice to go off course and think they are meditating when they are not.
Hello and welcome to the forum, emwc! Thanks for joining.
Want to chime in here, because my experience is different.
For the longest time I thought I was meditating wrong. Whenever I tried I would end up going to a very dark place. Very unpleasant. I finally figured out that how I was meditating was triggering an EF.
The reason. When my abusive mom raged at me I was expected to keep still and not react. So when I kept still while meditating, the physical stillness set off an EF.
Now when I want to meditate I make sure that it is while I am moving in some way.