I'm also a big fan of meditation - I believe it changed the way I perceive every day "threats" and allows me to see the roots of any problem I encounter instead of just allowing automatic subconscious defense mechanisms to kick in. That being said, in this study it seems that the experimental group really had a vacation AND meditation, so I'm not surprised they had better results.
Regular meditation may be more beneficial than vacation
41–50 of 214 posts
Re: Regular meditation may be more beneficial than vacation
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you drink coffee? Try 100% cutting out caffeine!
Any strategies to cut? If I don't drink my morning cup, I get bad headaches around the evening and basically stop functioning.
The painful way is pretty simple! Wait until you have a few days you can be "down" and just go cold turkey. I find I do OK the first couple of days, then get a pretty bad headache. When that's gone I'm back to normal.
Re: Regular meditation may be more beneficial than vacation
#43Mindfulness meditation is one of the pillars on which my life rests. If you have never done it before, realize that it's hard, especially if you fall anywhere on the ADHD spectrum, and it's just brutal for the first few weeks for anyone. As your brain becomes more still and your focus improves you'll notice your productivity improve. As the mental chatter drops you'll also notice the problems in your life, that you'v…
Just wanted to confirm this. I did it daily for two years, almost 8 years ago, and I'm pretty sure some of the effects stuck.
Second this. Don't do it as regular as I usd to because I don't feel like the effect is as profound anymore.
That is not to say that I don't feel like meditation works, but more to say that there seems to be a big change after a longer regular period of meditation, but then further improvements seems to slow down. But I can way more easily get into a relaxed state and calm my mind than I could before doing any meditation. I just don't do it as regularly anymore as I find the further incremental improvements to my everyday life to be smaller.
Re: Regular meditation may be more beneficial than vacation
#44I've been going through challenging times and have been confronted with somethings I've never had to deal with before. There are a couple of things that trigger anxiety in me on a daily basis now. I wake up in the middle of the night with little anxiety episodes. I'm unfocused at work because of what feels like underlying emotional issues. The only thing that's helped (I am trying to fix without medication) are the t…
If you think like me that NLP means NonLinear Programming, in this context it means Neuro-linguistic programming[0]: "Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is an approach to communication, personal development, and psychotherapy created by Richard Bandler and John Grinder in California, United States in the 1970s. NLP has since been overwhelmingly discredited scientifically, but continues to be marketed by some hypnotherapists and by some companies that organize seminars and workshops on management training for businesses."
Homoeopathy has also been discredited, the mind is full of corners the science cannot really explain.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-linguistic_programming
Re: Regular meditation may be more beneficial than vacation
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've noticed this too, some says it's a bad habit energy we've developed in our modern society, always running to the next thing, always looking to consume. It's as if there is a sense of uneasiness that comes along with stillness. Maybe we need to relearn the art of doing nothing? I've been out of full time work for a while (mostly voluntary due to travelling) and I can, after 6 months feel myself beginning to settl…
the consumption cycle is sustained because it benefits the powers that be. humans are insatiable , and as long as you are convinced that contentment requires "just one more thing," you will never be happy, you will always be hungry, and you will always want more. happiness isn't pleasure, because of hedonic adaption, pleasure eventually becomes boring and empty. happiness is contentment with what you have. it is esca…
Our innate insatiability brought us where we are today with all the subjective good or bad progress we have made as a species.
As far as the young people thinking that the big city is the key to the good life. Couldn't it just be that young people like beeing around young people. Big cities offer a lot of possibilities for socializing that you wouldn't get in a small rural city. Perhaps your drives or wants just change with age as your personal life changes - not because one is more right than the other. It just feels that way as you evolve as a human being.
Re: Regular meditation may be more beneficial than vacation
#46I still prefer holidays though.
Re: Regular meditation may be more beneficial than vacation
#47I've been going through challenging times and have been confronted with somethings I've never had to deal with before. There are a couple of things that trigger anxiety in me on a daily basis now. I wake up in the middle of the night with little anxiety episodes. I'm unfocused at work because of what feels like underlying emotional issues. The only thing that's helped (I am trying to fix without medication) are the t…
I'm curious why you felt the need to deal with the stress through a new set of tools?
You clearly already have a lot of skills for dealing with this kind of situations, namely meditation and Thai Chi.
Why didn't you fall back to those?
Re: Regular meditation may be more beneficial than vacation
#48Meditation is about clearing your mind of distractions. A vacation is supposed to be a chance to see the world and do things you normally wouldn't.
You should try to be stress free in your daily life. Your vacation should be a little stressful. All my best travel stories feature stress (or some conflict, or challenge, or misadventure, ...)
Sitting on a beach is nice, but it's also safe and boring. Go get lost somewhere.
Re: Regular meditation may be more beneficial than vacation
#49One thing that strikes me often with vacations of the average person is how much of a runaway it is. - Fed up with work, I need holidays. #### - Fed up with holidays, can't wait to get back to work.
Maybe this is an American thing. In Australia and Europe I don't think I've ever heard someone say something like this. I've heard people complain about being homesick or tired if it's a particularly long or active holiday but never heard someone wanting to get back to work.
I'm Australian and I am often very keen to get back to my desk to work on ideas towards the end of a holiday. My side projects somewhat interrelated with my work, so maybe that's one reason.
Re: Regular meditation may be more beneficial than vacation
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Any strategies to cut? If I don't drink my morning cup, I get bad headaches around the evening and basically stop functioning.
The painful way is pretty simple! Wait until you have a few days you can be "down" and just go cold turkey. I find I do OK the first couple of days, then get a pretty bad headache. When that's gone I'm back to normal.
This. The withdrawal symptoms of coffee usually last for about a week. The thing that is perhaps most surprising is that after that week you'll also feel less tired. Turns out that while most people consider coffee as a remedy to tiredness, it's the coffee itself that actually makes you more tired, so you need more and more of it, just like any other addictive drug.