Shari B. Kaplan, LCSW, reframes meditation as noticing when your mind wanders and bringing attention back, not silencing thoughts. Each time you refocus, you strengthen gray matter. Customizing meditation to match how someone learns makes the practice more effective.
When I talk about meditation and mindfulness, I usually get, oh, I've tried meditating before and it didn't work. And I'll say, well, what didn't work? And they're like, well, I couldn't quiet my mind down. I go, but that's why they call it a practice. So just in case you don't know, one of the benefits of meditation is that your mind wanders and you pull it back and then it wanders and it pulls it back. And that's how it helps to develop more gray matter in the brain is because you're wandering and you're pulling it back. Then there's the next level, which is if you understand what their learning challenges are and what their learning strengths are, you can design meditations that actually help people based on their strengths. So I think the type of mindfulness and meditation exercises can then be utilized if you understand someone's learning style.
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