Why Meditation Can Make Things Worse (And What to Do Instead)

For the past decade, meditation has been presented as a universal good. Sit. Breathe. Observe your thoughts. It’s simple, free, and backed by science. What could possibly go wrong?

A lot, it turns out.

New research published in Clinical Psychological Science (2025) found that nearly 60% of meditators experienced some form of meditation-related adverse effect, and approximately one-third found them distressing enough to interfere with daily functioning.

These aren’t isolated cases. They’re a structural feature of a practice that asks people to sit with their internal experience — without structure, without guidance, without a protocol for what happens when that experience becomes overwhelming.

The 2025 Clinical Psychological Science study surveyed meditators across skill levels and found that adverse effects were common across the board — not limited to beginners or people with diagnosed conditions.

The Research That Changes the Conversation

The study, led by psychologist Nicholas Van Dam at the University of Melbourne, recruited meditators across skill levels — from beginners to advanced practitioners — and found that adverse effects were common across the board.

The effects included:

Anxiety — meditation sometimes amplifies the very condition it’s meant to treat
Depression — particularly in individuals with a history of mood disorders
Dissociation — a sense of detachment from self or reality
Traumatic re-experiencing — the return of intrusive memories or sensations

Critically, the research identified that childhood trauma and subclinical PTSD symptoms predicted both worse treatment outcomes and a greater likelihood of meditation-related adverse effects.

This is the part of the wellness conversation that doesn’t make it into the marketing.

Why Open Monitoring Is a Risk

The reason lies in the structure — or lack thereof — of the meditation practice itself.

Most popular meditation formats use open monitoring: sit quietly, observe whatever arises, and return your attention to the breath when you notice it’s wandered. This is presented as simple. For many people, it is.

But for people with trauma history, anxiety disorders, or certain personality structures, open monitoring is the opposite of safe. It asks them to drop their defenses — the same defenses that protect them from overwhelming material — and sit with whatever emerges. No containment. No protocol for what to do when the material is too much.

As one researcher put it: “For people whose internal state is overwhelming, that’s not peaceful. That’s a threat.”

The Structured Alternative

This is where the structure of hypnosis and visualization becomes a safety feature.

Unlike open-monitoring meditation, a guided hypnosis and visualization session follows a contained, four-phase structure:

Phase 1: Induction — Progressive relaxation that builds a somatic “yes-set.” The nervous system is guided into safety before any deeper work begins. If you’re holding tension in your chest, the induction addresses your chest. If it’s in your shoulders, it starts there.

Phase 2: Deepening — Fractionation techniques increase absorption gradually. The critical filter of the conscious mind is relaxed systematically, not dropped abruptly. The pace is controlled by the protocol, not left to whatever arises.

Phase 3: Suggestion — This is where repatterning happens, but it happens within a structured linguistic framework. Suggestions are positively framed — installing the desired state rather than negating the unwanted one. There is no “don’t feel anxious.” There is “feel calm.” The difference matters for the nervous system.

Phase 4: Awakening — The session doesn’t end abruptly. It includes a structured return to full alertness with future-pacing that bridges the new state into daily life.

Each phase contains the one before it. There is no point in the session where the user is asked to sit with unstructured internal experience. The protocol provides the container.

The Personalization Factor Amplifies Safety

The research on meditation adverse effects points to a deeper issue: one-size-fits-all mental training doesn’t account for individual differences in trauma history, nervous system sensitivity, or cognitive style.

Structured hypnosis and visualization addresses this through personalization — not just in the content, but in the structure itself.

The induction is calibrated to your specific tension pattern, not a generic body scan
The deepening matches your depth preference, not a fixed counting sequence
The suggestion uses your language and metaphors, not generic affirmations
The awakening is paced to how you respond, not a script

This is a fundamentally different risk profile from open-monitoring meditation.

What This Means for Your Practice

If you’ve been told to “just meditate” and found that it made you feel worse, you’re not broken. You’re not doing it wrong. You may be someone for whom unstructured open monitoring is not the right tool.

This doesn’t mean you can’t benefit from contemplative practice. It means you need a practice that matches your nervous system — one with structure, containment, and personalization.

The research on meditation adverse effects doesn’t invalidate meditation as a practice. It does invalidate the claim that meditation is universally safe and universally beneficial. Like any intervention, it has indications and contraindications.

Guided hypnosis and visualization is not meditation. It’s a different category with a different structure, a different risk profile, and a different experience. For people who want a structured, contained approach to calm and focus, it may be the better fit.

Adam Shaaban is the founder of Oriamind. LinkedIn · X / Twitter

How to Apply This

If you’ve tried meditation and found it made your anxiety worse:

Try a structured protocol instead — one with a beginning, middle, and end, not open-ended observation
Look for sessions that start with progressive relaxation (induction phase) — this provides the containment that open monitoring lacks
See if the body-targeting approach works better — sessions that address where you physically feel the anxiety rather than asking you to observe it

This article is part of our AI hypnotherapy & behavioral change series.