“More than fifty published studies have documented meditation-induced mental health problems, including mania, dissociation, and psychosis.”

— from an important article by David Kortava in Harper’s: Lost in Thought: The psychological risks of meditation.

As a community, we’ve long said that to start meditating, you should focus only on a minute or even two, and work up to increased amounts of time.

My takeaway from this article is that we might do well to suggest limiting meditation to 20 minutes per day or less, without strong guidance and support.

We don’t suggest starting a running practice by running a marathon on day one. Common sense says we shouldn’t expect people to start from zero (or nearly there) and launch themselves into a 10-day meditation retreat.