Happy New Year to you! 😊
I suffer from internal vibrations and PPPD and I've been trying to use meditation to calm my nervous system. Could any of you please suggest what I could do to further this and work on the amygdala too please? I also suffer from chronic fatigue.
Thanking you 🙏 Louise
Meditation is not a substitute for medical treatment. From a quick glance at the diagnostic criteria and treatment paradigms for PPPD, it seems that rehabilitation exercises and cognitive behavioral therapy are the typical approach, and meditation could supplement both of those — pay particular attention to posture and rising thoughts while you sit — but talk with your therapist about integrating them. If sitting upright for extended periods is too difficult, try pushing your cushion against a wall and leaning into it for support.
Generally speaking, meditation at the biophysical level is useful for relaxing and reintegrating the body-mind complex, which should help with anxiety and disorientation over the long run. But you'll get more benefit from it if you reach beyond the biophysical level. Don't merely look for symptomatic relief; try to still your mind properly.
In the west, we have this odd idea that meditation is only sitting on a cushion. The Buddha indicated otherwise:
MN38:36.1: They act with situational awareness when going out and coming back; when looking ahead and aside; when bending and extending the limbs; when bearing the outer robe, bowl and robes; when eating, drinking, chewing, and tasting; when urinating and defecating; when walking, standing, sitting, sleeping, waking, speaking, and keeping silent.
In addition, the Buddha has excellent advice about perceptions:
SN12.70:16.3: You should truly see any kind of perception at all—past, future, or present; internal or external; coarse or fine; inferior or superior; far or near: all perception—with right understanding: ‘This is not mine, I am not this, this is not my self.’
I don't have PPPD, but I am going blind and suffer from double vision. Heeding the Buddha's advice, I understand these double visions as ‘This is not mine, I am not this, this is not my self.’
Oddly, the distortion of perception has actually helped me understand the fickleness of perception. Perceptions come and go. They are impermanent and unsatisfactory.
Please do consult a doctor for medical conditions. And as you wait for medical resolution, simply be aware of the perceptions, using them or enduring them as they serve your practice for yourself and others.
This is not medical advice and you seek a doctor for your condition. The way I understand that Samatha meditation will not help with this condition. Samatha meditation generally suppresses your feelings and awareness. However, Vipassana meditation will help you as it promotes body awareness. Generally in Vipassana meditation, you learn to accept the way you and your body as it is with awareness. Also, make sure that you have good eating habits and a good daily exercise routine.
WEll if you feel dizzy all the time, stay in bed to cultivate samadhi with anapanasati. The best time to calm the kaya-sankharas and Citta-sankharas is precisely at wakeup before there is lots of mental proliferation and loss of physical energy (people who ''meditate'' after 9h of work are just too exhausted to be good at mediation).. And in your case, lying down would be the posture where you feel the least dizzy. IT's all win.
