A Guide to Using Meditation to Calm the Mind

We’ve all experienced one of those exhausting days where we’ve felt pulled in a million directions. Between work demands, family life, and those unpaid bills, we’re not only physically wiped, but mentally drained  too.

We may supplement our day with an extra coffee or matcha, but that is only a temporary fix. We end up feeling tired – but wired – and still need to make it through the rest of the day.

If we had to summarize the feeling in one word, it would not be “calm.” We are anything but calm. Our mind is racing, chasing one thought with another, creating an incessant loop of worry and anxiety.

In this article, we’ll talk about why the mind can oftentimes feel frenetic and disjointed, and how we can use meditation to calm the mind.

I was recently interviewed by Well+Good on why we feel so overrun with our thoughts that the mind can start to feel like a “monkey mind.”

Here are a few excerpts from our interview:

1. What is monkey mind, in your own words?

“Monkey mind” is a mental experience where we feel distracted, scattered, and overwhelmed. The mind feels like it’s in “thinking overdrive” and often lacks completeness of action.

For example, we could have one idea or thought pop up, and then in the middle of that thought, another stream of thinking pulls the attention away from the first thought. This happens a few more times, and suddenly, the mind is flooded with many different thought streams. We lose focus and start to feel rudderless in our thinking.

The result of this experience is we can feel like we’re spinning around in mental circles all day without feeling like we’re accomplishing much. The experience of a monkey mind can be frustrating, anxiety-provoking, and utterly exhausting for the mind – and the body.

I spend three months a year in India teaching and facilitating meditation retreats, so I can absolutely understand where the term “monkey mind” comes from! The monkeys in the Himalayas in Northern India, where I spend most of my time, are super active. They leap from tree to tree and scan for opportunities for food, interaction, and a place to rest. They constantly move from one place to the next, much like our thoughts do inside an unsettled mind.

2. Is monkey mind something that everyone deals with? What is the problem with it?

We’ve all dealt with monkey mind from time to time, and many of us feel our minds wander  in our daily lives. In a given day, an average person experiences tens of thousands of thought processes in their mind. Paired with the shear stress overload many of us feel daily, a foundation of stress colors our thoughts in our inner awareness.

Our mind, which could be using the process of thinking for expansion of happiness, more ease and fulfillment, and increased problem-solving, is instead being used to process stressful memories. As a result, the majority of our thinking is repetitive and negative. We use our thoughts to review the past, rehearse the future, and as a result, we miss out on the present moment, where our lives are actually enjoyed. This causes the mind to feel like it is in a washing machine of distracted thinking.

Not having access to the present moment due to the monkey mind syndrome of constant thinking can strip us of the joy found in daily life experiences, such as being present for our friends and family, enjoying a peaceful moment throughout the day, or even being focused at work. That’s where the practice of calm mind meditation can help us find serenity amidst life’s hustle and bustle.

3. What is the approach to wandering thoughts (aka monkey mind) in Vedic Meditation? Does the approach differ from Buddhist meditation?

In Vedic Meditation, we acknowledge that the monkey mind is there and don’t make too much fuss about it. We don’t fight against it.

In the Vedic worldview (the worldview that comes from India that dates back 5,000+ years), there is a layer of our awareness underneath all the thoughts and worries of the mind that is still, quiet, and at peace. We can uncover that layer of awareness if we have a settling mental technique to cut through and release the stress to access that silent layer of consciousness.

This is where Vedic Meditation comes into the picture. We assign every meditator a personalized mantra, or sound vibration, that naturally cuts through buzzy, monkey-mind thinking and towards that deep, quiet layer that underlies all thinking. Inside Vedic Meditation, we achieve a state of relaxation called “restful alertness,” where the mind is silent but fully awakened and engaged in the experience of silence. The experience of that state is the exact opposite feeling of being trapped by the monkey mind.

Buddhist-style meditations have the approach of being a kind shepherd to the thoughts. Like the Vedic worldview, the Buddhist worldview sees thoughts not as an enemy but as a natural occurrence in the mind. Buddhist meditation techniques place value on being a compassionate ally to the thinking and making friends with the mind through witnessing thoughts and other mindfulness practices.

Vedic Meditation also embraces the approach of making friends with the monkey mind but takes it one step further. Practicing mindfulness, we say, “Let the thoughts be there but let’s transcend, or step beyond, thinking altogether.” When we step beyond thinking, we access the source of all thoughts: that quiet, silent layer of awareness.

4. How can meditation help monkey mind?

Vedic Meditation is extremely helpful to the monkey mind.

For me, it has been the best meditation to calm the mind  that I’ve experienced for nearly two decades. Vedic Meditation is practiced for 20 minutes, twice a day. And in those practice sessions, we rest the body so deeply that we not only transcend the thinking layers of our mind, but we also release a lifetime’s worth of stress accumulation at the same time.

So while the mind is taking a nice dive into complete stillness and enjoying a break from the monkey mind, the mind and body are releasing all the stresses that cause the monkey mind to be there in the first place.

Coming out of Vedic Meditation, a meditator feels refreshed and clear-headed. The agitation of the monkey mind has settled quite a bit, and they can tend to the day’s activities with more present-moment awareness and feel more mentally grounded.

It’s worth noting that  Vedic Meditators begin to dissolve the layers of stress that  trigger the mind to over-excite into the monkey-mind state in the first place. In meditation, we replace that layer of stress with a new foundation of stillness and happiness that allows thoughts to come and go easily and calmly.

5. Can you share a personal anecdote (or an anecdote from one of your students) about your own journey dealing with wandering thoughts in your meditation practice?

One of the essential parts of teaching Vedic Meditation to a new meditator is building a trusting relationship with the mind and thoughts.

First, I teach my students that our mind is a product of either our stress or bliss levels. We also teach that thoughts are not the enemy inside meditation and that a wandering mind inside meditation does not indicate that you’re doing it incorrectly.

Then, we introduce the mantra into the meditation and show the new student how the mantra can settle the mind naturally and effortlessly.

My relationship with my monkey mind has been a fascinating one. With so much stress and fatigue, I was in my mid-30s approaching burnout. My thoughts of anxiety and worry felt, at times, all-consuming, and I came to meditation looking for a way to coexist with what felt like “enemy territory” – my own mind!

Within the first week of learning Vedic Meditation, my mind felt quiet again for the first time in decades. It would take another few months of consistent meditation for that feeling to last the entire day, but I could already see the light at the end of the tunnel. I was starting to feel the natural happiness and calm I knew I should have been feeling all those years but couldn’t quite access it.

Vedic Meditation was the key for me to befriend my thoughts and celebrate this unique and intricate mind-body connection within us all.

To learn more about how Vedic Meditation can help you calm your busy mind, join me for a free Introductory Talk.