• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

FHE Health - Addiction & Mental Health Care Homepage

Drug, Alcohol and Mental Health Treatment

ContactCareers

Call for Immediate Help (833) 596-3502

MENUMENU
  • About
        • About FHE Rehab
          • About FHE Health
          • Our Staff
          • Locations We Serve
          • Testimonials
        • Our Campus
          • Gallery
          • Our Videos
          • The Health and Wellness Center at FHE Health
        • Our Locations
          • Alcohol Rehab
          • Detox Center
          • Drug Rehab
          • Mental Health Center
          • Outpatient Rehab
        • Careers at FHE Health
          • Employment Opportunities
        • Our Expertise
          • Accreditations
          • Educational Opportunities
          • Community Impact Award
          • First Responder Families Podcast
          • First Responder Paws
          • Education Scholarship
  • Addiction
        • Treatment Programs
          • Treatment Program Overview
          • Alcohol Addiction
          • Drug Addiction Treatment
          • Behavioral Addiction
        • Levels of Care
          • Continuum of Care
          • Addiction Detox
          • Inpatient Addiction Treatment
          • Outpatient Addiction Treatment
        • What We Treat
          • Alcoholism
          • Amphetamines
          • Benzodiazepines
          • Cocaine
          • Heroin
          • Opioids
          • Sedative
  • Mental Health
        • Mental Health Rehab
          • Mental Health Rehab
          • Onsite Psychiatric Care
          • Dual Diagnosis
        • Levels of Care
          • Residential Mental Health Care
          • Outpatient Mental Health Care
        • What We Treat
          • ADD & ADHD
          • Anxiety Disorders
          • Bipolar Disorder
          • Depression
          • Eating Disorders
          • Personality Disorders
          • PTSD
          • Schizophrenia
          • Substance Use Disorder
          • Trauma
  • Programs
        • FHE Programs
          • Specialty Program Overview
          • Restore (Mental Health)
          • Empower! (Women's Program)
          • Shatterproof FHE Health(First Responders)
          • Compass Program
        • Support Programs
          • Alumni
          • Family Support
        • Therapies
          • Acupuncture
          • Breathwork Therapy
          • CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy)
          • DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy)
          • EMDR Therapy
          • Expressive Arts Therapy
          • Individual Therapy
          • Group Therapy
          • Gambling Therapy
          • Massage
        • Medical Care
          • Medical Integration
          • Ketamine Infusion
          • IV Vitamin
          • Fitness & Nutrition
          • Medication-Assisted Treatment
          • Medication Management
        • NeuroRehab Services
          • Neuro Rehabilitation
          • Neurofeedback Training
          • Neurostimulation Therapy
          • EEG Brain Mapping
          • Insomnia Treatment for PTSD
  • Resources
        • FHE Guides
          • Understanding Drug Abuse
          • Signs of Addiction
          • The Disease of Addiction
          • Confronting Addiction
          • Staging an Intervention
          • Rehab Success Rate – Does It Really Work?
          • Withdrawal Timelines
          • Life After Rehab
          • LGBTQ+ Community Resources
          • Veteran Resources
          • FHE Podcasts
          • Remote Resources Toolkit
        • Learning Center
          • Help for You
          • Help For Loved Ones
          • Help For Alcoholism
          • Help With Substance Abuse
          • Behavioral & Mental Health
          • Life in Recovery
          • Rehab Explained
          • Addiction Statistics
          • Our Research Articles
          • View All Articles
        • The Experience Blog
          • Addiction News
          • Alumni
          • Community Events
          • Expert Opinions
          • FHE Commentary
          • FHE News
          • Treatment Legislation
          • View All Articles
  • Admissions
        • Insurance
          • Blue Cross Insurance
          • Beacon Health / Value Options Insurance
          • Cigna Insurance
          • Humana Insurance
          • TRICARE Insurance
        • Admissions
          • Steps to Addiction Help
          • Will Insurance Cover Behavioral Treatment?
          • Self-Pay Rehab
        • FAQ
          • Keeping Your Job in Rehab
          • Example Day in Rehab
        • Contact Admissions
          • Contact Us
          • Secure Payment Form
  • Contact
  •  
Home > Featured in Recovery > “I Can’t Meditate” and Overcoming Common Barriers to Quieting Your Mind

January 27, 2023 By Chris Foy

“I Can’t Meditate” and Overcoming Common Barriers to Quieting Your Mind

Mastering Meditation: Overcoming Mindfulness Barriers

Meditation has long been a popular way to maintain a peaceful mind and deal with issues plaguing your mental well-being. However, achieving a meditative state isn’t always easy. Obstacles to meditation come in many forms, and many people struggle with achieving the correct state of mind. In this article, we provide meditation help by outlining some of the most common obstacles to meditation, providing hints on overcoming them and suggesting some alternatives.

Tips to start meditating

Common Obstacles to Meditation

Many people who try meditation need help with learning how to meditate, but don’t think to ask for help before saying “I can’t meditate” and giving up completely. There’s almost always a simple reason behind difficulty meditating that can be overcome. Even if your obstacles to meditation are tougher to get past, it may just require a bit more work. Here are some common problems that may be blocking your ability to meditate.

Stress

This may sound like an odd one, as many people meditate to reduce stress, but stress can prevent you from reaching a meditative state. The reason for this is that chronic stress forces your mind into a primitive fight or flight response, which is the furthest you can be from the restful state you’re trying to achieve. To alleviate your stress enough to begin meditating, you can try deep breathing exercises to get yourself into a more restful state. Alternatively, take a gentle walk in the park or another green space, which can also calm your mind.

Exhaustion

At the end of a stressful day at work or after a challenging workout, you might think it’s a good idea to meditate to relax and unwind. Unfortunately, this is not the best time to meditate. Achieving a meditative state requires keeping your awareness levels up, and your brain needs energy to do this. Your body allocates energy based on need, and when you’re exhausted, it’s going to prioritize sleep. Try meditating in the early morning after a good night’s sleep instead. This will have the added benefit of clearing your mind, ready for the day’s labors.

Hunger

When meditating, you need as few distractions as possible so your mind can focus properly. Being hungry can be a huge distraction. As your blood sugar levels drop, your brain doesn’t want to think about anything besides finding food. If you’re meditating early in the morning and struggling, try having a light breakfast first — but nothing too heavy, as that can make you sleepy, causing another barrier to meditation.

Pain

Whether physical or emotional, pain can be a force that overwhelms all of your thought processes. Although meditation can be a way of managing acute or chronic pain, pain can also form a strong barrier against it. There are two approaches to overcoming pain as a block to meditation. Firstly, ensure you’re taking advantage of your available pain management aids and try to meditate in a position that minimizes your pain. Secondly, a more challenging approach is to use the pain to focus your awareness, becoming aware of the pain but not suffering through it. This second approach may require some help from an expert.

Strong Emotions

Powerful emotions are a sure way to derail your meditation. If you just received some bad news, it’s probably not the best time to attempt meditation. Equally, if you’ve just returned from a joyful celebration, you will need some time to come down from an emotional high. Let the emotions run their course and then attempt meditation when you feel more balanced. In the case of string anger, you might want to meditate to control it, but it’s a good idea to do some deep breathing first to calm yourself down.

The Benefits of Meditation

Although meditation was looked down on by medical professionals for many years, many are now becoming aware of its benefits for both mental and physical health. These include:

Managing Anxiety and Depression

By regulating breathing and slowing down your thoughts, meditation works to alleviate the worst symptoms of anxiety and depression. Studies by researchers at Harvard also found that changes in MRI patterns linked to reductions in the symptoms of depression that began during meditation continued even when patients were no longer meditating.

Managing Stress

When you’re under stress, your brain produces cortisol, a hormone involved in fight-or-flight responses, and maintains it at a level that can be detrimental to your physical health. Meditating reduces your production of cortisol, leaving you feeling less stressed. Meditating regularly can dramatically reduce your stress levels, although it’s always best to attempt to address the causes of your stress.

Boosting the Immune System

By reducing your stress levels, meditation also boosts your immune system. With less cortisol flowing through your system, your body is much better able to fight off infections. This also reduces inflammation, chronic pain, and the risks of heart disease.

Lowering Blood Pressure

There is ample evidence to show that stress increases your blood pressure, so it’s no surprise that meditation, by reducing stress, also reduces your blood pressure. This in turn reduces your risks of heart attack, strokes, and sudden death. A study by the British Heart Foundation found that subjects practicing transcendental meditation had a 48% lower risk of suffering heart attacks or strokes.

Alternatives to Meditation

Of course, it’s possible that due to one of the reasons mentioned earlier, you may find it impossible to meditate. For example, if you have particularly high-stress levels or you have pain that makes it impossible to focus. In that case, there are alternatives to meditation that can help you focus and find mental restfulness. You might want to try one of these:

  • Walking. In a park or around nature is best, but anywhere that isn’t too noisy or full of distractions is good.
  • Coloring books. Focussing on a simple task like coloring allows the mind to find rest.
  • Cloud gazing. Lying on your back, just looking at the sky and making out shapes in the clouds can be extremely relaxing.
  • Drumming. This focuses your mind on maintaining a rhythm. Some therapists offer group drumming sessions as a means of calming patients.

Essentially, any activity that requires focus without too much mental effort can be an alternative to meditation. Some of these may even help block any obstacles to meditation you are experiencing.

It’s Okay to Seek Help

While meditation is an excellent way of assisting with mental health issues and may be all you need if your problems are mild, it’s okay to ask for help if you’re still struggling.

Stress, anxiety, and depression are common in today’s society and can blight lives, but help is available should you need it. At FHE Health, our experienced mental health practitioners are here for all your needs in recovering from these mental health conditions, so don’t hesitate to reach out today for a consultation.

Filed Under: Featured in Recovery, Life in Recovery

About Chris Foy

Chris Foy is a content manager and webmaster for FHE Health with years of experience in the addiction treatment industry...read more

Primary Sidebar

Learning Center

  • Help for You
  • Help For Loved Ones
  • Help For Alcoholism
  • Help With Substance Abuse
  • Behavioral & Mental Health
  • Life in Recovery
  • Rehab Explained
  • All Articles

Sign up for the Blog

Our Facilities

Take a look at our state of the art treatment center.

View Our Gallery

The Experience Blog

  • Addiction News
  • Alumni
  • Community Events
  • Expert Columns
  • FHE Commentary
  • FHE News
  • Treatment Legislation
  • All Articles

Footer

FHE Health

© 2025 FHE Health

505 S Federal Hwy #2,
Deerfield Beach, Florida 33441
1-833-596-3502
youtube facebook instagram linkedin twitter
  • Contact
  • Careers at FHE Health
  • Privacy Policy
  • Sitemap
A+ BBB and Top Places to Work - Sun Sentinel

Copyright © 2025 · FHE Theme On Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

Manage Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage {vendor_count} vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}

The FHE Health team is committed to providing accurate information that adheres to the highest standards of writing. If one of our articles is marked with a ‘reviewed for accuracy and expertise’ badge, it indicates that one or more members of our team of doctors and clinicians have reviewed the article further to ensure accuracy. This is part of our ongoing commitment to ensure FHE Health is trusted as a leader in mental health and addiction care.

If there are any concerns about content we have published, please reach out to us at marketing@fhehealth.com.

833-596-3502

Text/Call Me