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How Meditation Changes the Brain and Body

well.blogs.nytimes.com

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Re: How Meditation Changes the Brain and Body

#31

Post by mkesper »

erdojo wrote: post #18

There is also a growing body of evidence that for some people mindfulness and meditation can cause intense and lasting anxiety and exacerbate depression. (Just one of several recent stories on the subject: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/jan/23/is-mindf... ) That has been my experience. I've done meditation retreats and the like. I do find it slows down my mind, but can also surface things that frankly I…

... can also surface things that frankly I'm perfectly happy to leave under the surface.

Mind you they _will_ hurt you over time if you just push them away. You probably should get professional help first before trying to meditate.

Re: How Meditation Changes the Brain and Body

#32

Post by DanBC »

LunaSea wrote: post #16
personjerry wrote: post #14

For those of you who consider meditation a bunch of mumbo-jumbo, I get it, for I felt (and sometimes still feel) the same way. But let me try to phrase meditation in the terms I understand it as. We often find ourselves in stressful or difficult situations, we are constantly bombarded by external worries, and we think it is difficult to deal with our problems. However, no matter how big external issues are, the way t…

> interpretations of the world are all in our head I don't think most people are stressed because of "interpretations" of the world rather than very real problems like paying the bills and terrible working conditions.

Paying a bill is sometimes stressful.

Paying a bill should never be so stressful that it causes a person to override their innate self-preservation and start thinking about suicide.

The problem is a real world problem. The reaction to it is in someone's head.

Sometimes people get overwhelmed by the feelings created by negative life events, and mindfulness style meditation is one way for people to calm those thoughts and emotions and allow them to work out more reasonable solutions.

This is important because sometimes cognitive behaviour therapy is sold as "fix your broken thinking". Imagine someone has a history of abuse - they often say that their thinking is a reasonable result of the abuse.

Re: How Meditation Changes the Brain and Body

#33

Post by personjerry »

LunaSea wrote: post #21
personjerry wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my understanding, our minds are are not literally filled with things in the real world (for they would not fit) but are instead filled with "thoughts" which "refer" to real things. But my "thought" of peanut butter, for example, might have significantly different "connotations" for me than for someone with an allergy to peanut butter. So what I'm saying is, these "thoughts" and what they "connote" to the individ…

So how would you alter your thought of a real problem if it seems legitimate to worry about it?

There's no one answer to that, because "how" is dependent on the individual and their relation to their thoughts (i.e. my thoughts are probably organized very differently from yours).

Furthermore, it is hard to claim that one would be able to "alter their thoughts" as directly as your sentence suggests, but meditation at least allows the recognition of separation between the "worry" in the mind and the "problem" in reality.

For some people, this recognition leads to a sense of control over that worry, which might be one example of your "how".

Re: How Meditation Changes the Brain and Body

#34

Post by sunyata »

achow wrote: post #4

The original research paper from Sci-Hub: http://sci-hub.io/10.1016/j.biopsych.2016.01.008 For those who are not aware of Sci-Hub: Setting knowledge free: Sci-Hub is The Pirate Bay for research papers http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/Sci-hub-research-pira...

Search is broken?

Re: How Meditation Changes the Brain and Body

#35

Post by rorykoehler »

personjerry wrote: post #14

For those of you who consider meditation a bunch of mumbo-jumbo, I get it, for I felt (and sometimes still feel) the same way. But let me try to phrase meditation in the terms I understand it as. We often find ourselves in stressful or difficult situations, we are constantly bombarded by external worries, and we think it is difficult to deal with our problems. However, no matter how big external issues are, the way t…

What you describe is the same as how I would describe riding my bike. I generally have a heart rate monitor on and I focus on keeping my cadence high and my heart rate steady (in whatever zone I am working in at the time). Up until 24 hours after riding I feel clarity in mind and body.

Re: How Meditation Changes the Brain and Body

#36

Post by [deleted] »

erdojo wrote: post #18

There is also a growing body of evidence that for some people mindfulness and meditation can cause intense and lasting anxiety and exacerbate depression. (Just one of several recent stories on the subject: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/jan/23/is-mindf... ) That has been my experience. I've done meditation retreats and the like. I do find it slows down my mind, but can also surface things that frankly I…

[deleted]

Re: How Meditation Changes the Brain and Body

#37

Post by sii »

erdojo wrote: post #18

There is also a growing body of evidence that for some people mindfulness and meditation can cause intense and lasting anxiety and exacerbate depression. (Just one of several recent stories on the subject: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/jan/23/is-mindf... ) That has been my experience. I've done meditation retreats and the like. I do find it slows down my mind, but can also surface things that frankly I…

It is a well known phenomenon depending on which body of literature on meditation you study. It is also one reason I avoid recommending meditation to people in general.

http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/dharma-wiki/-/wiki...

Re: How Meditation Changes the Brain and Body

#38

Post by ggreer »

erdojo wrote: post #18

There is also a growing body of evidence that for some people mindfulness and meditation can cause intense and lasting anxiety and exacerbate depression. (Just one of several recent stories on the subject: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/jan/23/is-mindf... ) That has been my experience. I've done meditation retreats and the like. I do find it slows down my mind, but can also surface things that frankly I…

> I've done meditation retreats and the like. I do find it slows down my mind, but can also surface things that frankly I'm perfectly happy to leave under the surface.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but to me, that sounds less like meditation and more like sitting with your eyes closed. If thoughts arise that cause feelings of fear, anger, shame, panic, etc… those thoughts and feelings can be noticed and observed (just like breathing or any other sensation). Once you do notice them, the experience is very different.

> Sometimes the best sanity-preservation mode is to ignore it until enough time has passed when we have the mental tools to face it.

I think Eugene Gendlin[1] put it best:

> What is true is already so. Owning up to it doesn't make it worse. Not being open about it doesn't make it go away. And because it's true, it is what is there to be interacted with. Anything untrue isn't there to be lived. People can stand what is true, for they are already enduring it.

– "The Listening Manual" in Focusing (1978), p. 138.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Gendlin

Re: How Meditation Changes the Brain and Body

#39

Post by agnivade »

glossyscr wrote: post #20

Meditation is a work-around only. As written in another post: I started one month ago and then I was frequently meditating with Headspace (which is awesome btw). While meditation helped me to go through hard times it never solved the underlying problem. It's like taking painkillers without addressing the real cause. I solved the real underlying problem few days ago and I feel like god again.

Just wanted to +1 that Headspace is a very good app for starters like me. Very useful is bringing a rhythm to things.

And once you get the hang of it, you won't feel any external force to drive you in meditation.

Re: How Meditation Changes the Brain and Body

#40

Post by Scarblac »

personjerry wrote: post #14

For those of you who consider meditation a bunch of mumbo-jumbo, I get it, for I felt (and sometimes still feel) the same way. But let me try to phrase meditation in the terms I understand it as. We often find ourselves in stressful or difficult situations, we are constantly bombarded by external worries, and we think it is difficult to deal with our problems. However, no matter how big external issues are, the way t…

I don't consider it mumbo-jumbo. But I feel it doesn't fit well with my Western mindset: it costs a lot of time, and is that really the best way to spend that time?

I'd rather go out and walk, and think about problems I want to solve. Or use the time to get something done.

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