Meditation and tremors

[rebtar]

I'm sure there's a lot of meditators in our community. It's good for anxiety and in general restorative, a great antidote to stress. I've meditated on and off over the years, but now with a tremor I find it almost impossible. As soon as I start to get settled my (resting!?!) tremor distracts me and I can't get my attention on my breath or anything else. I can't relax. I'm sure others have gone through this, any advice would be most welcome.

[firefly0780]

I experience the same but persist. I find it's a matter of acceptance rather than resistance. When you have tremors and get annoyed by them they will persist as you're adding tension to the mix. I find I have to direct my thoughts away from them and eventually I win.

[Dsg3]

I'm not sure because I become very shaky if stressed. I just try to finish whatever I'm having to do, quickly so I can get home and back into bed.

[HeartSong]

Rebtar, have you ever done alternate nostril breathing in connection with your meditation? I have found that doing just a couple of minutes of it just before I do any other meditation settles and centers me for the remainder of my meditaiton.

[lempa_nik]

Hi Rebtar,

I'm a lifelong meditator. My tremors on my left side--my main symptoms so far--were/are a big obstacle to calming my mind. I mitigate their effect by using the fact that resting tremors go away as long as we parkies are making INTENTIONAL movements with the affected limb. My trick, which I learned from others on this site, is to run my affected left hand round and round smoothly on my knee. Then my hand calms down and stop jumping/jerking around so it's a lot less distracting. Not a perfect solution, but it's a big improvement!

I can use my unaffected right hand to count off my beads--I do so-called "Hindu" japa meditation, where a person repeats a name of God, or a mantra addressing God, over and over while counting repetitions on his/her string of beads. (Of course, similar practices are found in many religions, including Christianity.) If both your hands have a tremor, then you can move both hands (minus the beads) symmetrically on your two knees.

[rebtar in reply to lempa_nik]

Thanks for the suggestion