Meditation should calm you down. For a cohort of people it does the opposite.

A new Atlantic piece profiles Willoughby Britton, a Brown U psychiatrist who's spent 20 years documenting nuances of mindfulness.

In 2004, she ran a sleep study expecting to prove meditation helps people rest. Shockingly, her findings showed the opposite: meditators woke more often and spent more time in the lightest sleep stage.

Britton then, in 2017, interviewed ~100 meditators/teachers and identified 59 distinct symptoms, from paranoia to familiar faces looking foreign to a sense that the world isn't real to full blown hallucination. 1 in 10 meditators had effects that disrupted daily life.

Even the calm, working version appears to have a catch. Turning down anxiety and anger can mute joy and excitement.

None of this means meditation is bad! Britton (and others) found that - for most folks - it has numerous positive impacts like lower stress, better focus, and improved mood.

Point is…it's powerful. Keep sessions short, ease into them, listen to your body.

Note: I'm not a meditator - I was just unaware side effects exist until I read the research.

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Your smart phone can grab it for you.

Take a photo of any real-world text (a menu, a business card, anything), then go to the photo and tap any text in it.

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Or you can simply copy text and paste it wherever. Finger-fumble no more!

1. A refrigerator is a small winter that lives in your kitchen.

2. Most people's very last word of the year is "one."

3. Nobody has ever said "well, that escalated slowly."

4. We say "tuna fish," but never "beef mammal" or "chicken bird."

5. You never realize how little shampoo you actually need until the bottle is nearly empty.