Meditation has become one of those things we are told to do for almost everything. Feeling stressed? Meditate. Anxious? Meditate. Can’t sleep? Meditate. Can’t stop thinking? Definitely meditate.

Meditation can be helpful. For many people, it can reduce stress and improve attention and emotional awareness. The problem is not meditation itself. It is the idea that one practice can be applied to almost every psychological problem.

Because sometimes meditation can make things worse.

When we sit quietly and turn our attention inward, we become more aware of our thoughts, emotions and bodily sensations. For some people, this can be calming. For others, particularly those who are already anxious or prone to rumination, it can mean becoming even more focused on what is happening inside. Someone who constantly checks their heartbeat, breathing or anxiety levels, for example, may not benefit from spending another twenty minutes monitoring them more closely.

This can also matter for people with trauma. Paying close attention to bodily sensations can sometimes bring difficult emotions or memories closer. There is a difference between noticing an uncomfortable feeling and being overwhelmed by it. If someone is already emotionally flooded, asking them to sit quietly and observe their feelings may not be the most helpful intervention.

Meditation sickness is not new. Buddhist traditions have recognised for centuries that intensive meditation can sometimes have unwanted psychological effects. Modern research has also reported anxiety, dissociation, depersonalisation, hallucinations and, in some cases, psychosis. This does not mean meditation is dangerous for most people, but it does challenge the idea that more meditation is always better.

We can also see the problem with applying mindfulness universally. The large UK MYRIAD trial introduced a mindfulness programme across 84 secondary schools, involving more than 8,000 young people. Overall, it did not improve mental health or wellbeing compared with usual teaching. Among young people already at higher risk of mental-health difficulties, some measures actually worsened slightly, although the differences were small and not clinically significant. The researchers concluded that mindfulness should not simply be treated as a universal intervention for all young people.

There is also a difference between accepting an emotion and sitting with it indefinitely. Learning to tolerate difficult feelings can be useful, but sometimes we need to regulate first and reflect later. That might mean going for a walk, exercising, listening to music, talking to someone, getting outside or doing something practical. For some people, movement is more regulating than stillness. For others, connection with another person works better than being alone with their thoughts.

This points to a bigger problem with the way we sometimes approach mental health. We like simple answers. A useful practice becomes the solution. Meditation, exercise, breathing exercises, gratitude, cold water — suddenly one thing is supposed to fix everything. Human beings are not quite that convenient.

Balance is often more useful than finding the perfect technique. Sometimes we need to go inward and understand what we are feeling. Sometimes we need to stop analysing and get on with our day. Sometimes we need stillness; sometimes movement. Sometimes we need to sit with an emotion; sometimes we need a distraction until we are in a better state to deal with it.

Psychological flexibility means having more than one way of responding. It also means paying attention to whether something is actually helping. If meditation repeatedly leaves someone feeling more anxious, detached, overwhelmed or preoccupied, the answer does not have to be to meditate harder. It may simply be a sign that a different approach is needed.

This does not mean throwing meditation out. A short, gentle practice can be very different from intensive meditation for long periods. What works for one person may not work for another, and what works for us at one point in our lives may not work at another.

Meditation is a tool. It does not need to become a universal prescription.

The goal is not to become so good at meditation that we can calmly meditate our way through everything. It is to have enough flexibility to know what we need at different times. Sometimes the answer might be to sit quietly and breathe. Sometimes it might be to get up and go for a walk. And sometimes the healthiest thing we can do is stop trying to fix ourselves and simply get on with living.