Because it is such a wholesome exercise and a largely internal process, meditation doesn’t typically come up in relation to evolving trends.
Overall, the practice is pretty simple, and although there are a variety of techniques the core of the practice remains the same.
However, that doesn’t mean that new ways of practicing meditation don’t come about now and then. And now, thanks in part to the age of technology we live in today, that’s exactly what’s happening.
Below you’ll learn about some of the biggest meditation trends we’re seeing both now and into the future.
1. Home Decor For Meditative Assistance
In one of the more thoughtful trends in general wellness trends we’ve seen is the declaration, “home decor goes woo-woo”. This actually speaks to the idea of improving your external decor to enhance the internal state of meditation. The article highlighted above says that people are increasingly borrowing design elements from places like yoga studios, and massage studios, and adapting that towards their homes.
Think of things like:
- Crystals
- Salt lamps
- Certain kinds of plants
- Incense
- Essential oils
- And more
These are all specifically put in place to help us chill out, which makes them helpful for meditative practices. We would expect and hope for this trend to continue, particularly given that more people are starting their very own meditation practices.
2. App-Based Meditation
We’ve written a lot about the great meditation apps you can find online. Programs like Headspace, 10% Happier, Buddhify, and more.
The very idea of a meditation app is still a relatively new concept, but since they are becoming more commonplace, and people are getting used to the idea, we can guess that this is a trend that will continue in the near future.
There’s still something to taking actual classes on meditation and learning proper technique from an experienced teacher. But since one of the main reasons people don’t meditate is because “they don’t have time”, an app can make things a lot more convenient, and make people more likely to meditate regularly.
3. VR-Based Meditation
Virtual reality is most often applied to larger-than-life games, like sprawling adventures, first-person shooters, and more.
But in reality, some of the more impressive VR games have been far simpler, involving fairly static settings or scenarios. A list of VR casino games illustrates this point rather well, pointing to five basic arcade games with graphics that are quite breathtaking and gameplay that is convincing in VR.
We haven’t seen too much in the way of VR meditation just yet, but if VR works well in such limited games, it follows that simple yet effective environments could be designed for meditation as well. Certain VR experiences are already quite soothing, and we can only imagine what they’d be like if that was the primary objective!
Think of things like VR yoga classes and meditation studios.
4. Discussions On Meditation
Talking about meditation has never been taboo, so to speak, but there have been times in recent history when it might have been considered a little bit strange.
It’s impossible to define when it happened but sometime in the last decade, things like yoga, home fitness, and, yes, meditation, became more ordinary topics.
We accept that our modern lifestyles require some extra effort if we want to remain healthy, and we acknowledge that things like yoga and meditation can keep the body fit, keep the mind sharp, and keep the soul relaxed.
This will continue to be more commonplace moving forward, but we would predict that more open discussion about meditative practices in social circles will become the norm.