Why is Meditation so Popular These Days?

Meditation and mindfulness are very much in the news these days, and it seems like all sorts of  people, including a long list of celebrities, are trying it. And it’s not just eccentric Hollywood stars and top athletes. Now even corporate moguls and politicians are advocating meditation.

Here is a fairly random and very incomplete list of high profile meditators:

Dan Harris – ABC Newsreader author of ‘10% Happier’

Arianna Huffington – CEO, Huffington Post

Oprah Winfrey – Oprah Winfrey

Steve Jobs – peacefully retired after making a dent in the universe

Mark Bertolini – CEO, Aetna Insurance

Padma Shree Warrior – CTO Cisco. Her name means ‘beautiful lotus warrior’ isn’t that cool?

William Ford – President Ford Motors (Grandson of Henry Ford)

Tim Ryan – US Congressman, Ohio

Russell Brand – crazy brilliant British comedian

The entire Seattle Seahawks football team, on orders from their coach Peter Carroll

All Four Beatles (see above photo)

Hugh Jackman – real name: Wolverine

Henry David Thoreau – pond sitting genius

Stevie Wonder – much loved musician

David Lynch – cult movie director

Jack Canfield – best selling author of recipe books for Chicken Soup

Aung San Suu Kyi – political leader finally allowed to be a political leader

Benjamin Franklin – $100 bill decoration

Orlando Bloom – professional elf

Tiger Woods – super athlete specializing in bullying golf balls

Heather Graham – funny actress

Sting – musician and serious tree hugger

Ricky Martin – singer and hearthrob for millions of Latina women. Bad luck ladies, he’s gay.

Meg Ryan – actress everyone loves.

But of course meditation is not the exclusive preserve of famous people. These days meditation is being used in schools, companies, veteran’s recovery programs, in prisons, on the menu of health insurance options, and even, briefly, in that bastion of conservatism, the British Parliament.

Meditation is not a new therapy invented in California. It’s been around for at least 7000 years, making it the most tested self awareness technique in the history of the world, with no harmful side-effects. And although meditation originated in India, it is now ubiquitous, popping up in spiritual traditions all over the world.

The real question is, why is meditation suddenly popular now? What’s changed?

I can think of several relatively recent historical events that would seem account for the ‘rediscovery’ of this ancient practice by the public.

The Beatles Learned Meditation

The rise of the counterculture, peaking in the late 1960’s when The Beatles learned meditation, (surely the public relations coup of all time), introduced the practice to an entire generation. It has been popular in the music and show-biz community ever since.

However, even after that generation of baby boomers and Beatles fans matured, meditation was still not main-stream. Although many prominent celebrities were meditating the practice was still widely regarded with scepticism and distrust.

Research

Around 2010 something shifted. A completely different community, including scientists, academics and corporate managers began to pay attention to the meditation phenomena. The blame for this sudden and rapid rise in interest can be laid at the door of one major culprit: Brain Research. Thanks to the development of more sophisticated brain monitoring technologies in the 1990’s, in particular the fMRI scanner, for the first time in history we were able to get a glimpse of what is going on within a living brain. Finally we had the tools to prove, even to a materialistic scientist, that meditation actually works.

What began as a trickle of research into the effects of meditation and mindfulness on the human brain has become a flood. Now more than 3000 peer reviewed studies support the long held claims of practitioners, confirming that meditation lowers blood pressure, improves concentration, increases empathy and compassion, boosts creativity and mental clarity, improves emotional intelligence and more.

Stress Pandemic

In is book, Lost Connections, Johann Hari describes the world wide, decades long and mounting, global pandemic of stress, anxiety and depression. He suffered from depression himself as a youth, and travelled the world speaking to experts and seeking to understand the causes and possible solutions, not just himself but for all of us.

This problem not limited to ‘developed’ countries. It has been going on for more than a generation, and Hari identifies the main culprits as a loss of connection to family, community, nature, meaningful work, and ourselves. And social media and AI are sure not helping!

As a part of the solution, Hari talks about meditation. That’s the part where we reconnect with ourselves. An ancient solution for a modern problem – it’s a pretty neat fit!

Meditation Apps.

Phone apps are designed to be addictive. Once an app is in your phone, it goes with you everywhere, and you tend to revisit it frequently, even daily. This can spell disaster if you’re a teenager checking Snapchat or Tiktok to see how everyone else seems to be beautiful and happy but you, or if you’re pretty much anyone wishing for peace of mind. But for spreading meditation apps are habit formation on steroids. And for once, this is a healthy habit! Talk about unintended consequences.

One of the most popular, Calm, reports 133 million downloads in 2023. There are now more than 3000 different meditation (ish) apps. The total number of users is in the hundreds of millions and is growing. There has never been anything like this for spreading the meditation habit. Ever.

And Now…

So with these four contributing factors: (say it with me now)

1. Celebrity adoption
2. Validating Research
3. An Epidemic of Stress and Anxiety
4. The Habit Spreading Power of Meditation Apps

The stage is set for our modern culture to fully embrace meditation. I predict that within five or ten years meditation practice will be as readily accepted a part of a healthy daily routine as exercising and brushing your teeth.

And how’s this for a remarkable bit of serendipity? Six months after I made the above prediction as part of a keynote address at a CISCO conference, ABC newsreader, Dan Harris, released a meditation video saying exactly the same thing, right down to the brushing your teeth and exercising line. Just remember who said it first…