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Regular meditation may be more beneficial than vacation

health.harvard.edu

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Re: Regular meditation may be more beneficial than vacation

#51

Post by elcapitan »

not_an_account wrote: post #25

Mindfulness 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…

> I rarely talk about meditation in professional circles because, for one, people think it's weird

No, it totally makes sense. Long walks in the woods or long runs are almost like meditation for me, and it is definitely like vacation for the mind.

I just wonder where to get started with actual meditation - I have to admit I find the predominant literature about that topic extremely esoteric, and that's something that easily puts me off.

Any tips what a good starting point would be?

Re: Regular meditation may be more beneficial than vacation

#52

Post by tedks »

ephextom wrote: post #32
origami777 wrote: post #13

I'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…

One of the pages [1] on The HeartMath site references Dr Bruce Lipton. If you're interested in understanding more about the interplay between experiences, emotions, physiology and genetics, I can strongly recommend his book, The Biology of Belief [2], and his many interviews and presentations that can be found on YouTube. His research and writing focuses on the notion that subconscious beliefs are the major influence…

>All this stuff draws contempt from curmudgeonly skeptics (of which I used to be the worst kind), but from painful experience I've found these techniques to be far more effective than any of the more conventional approaches I'd tried previously.

Yes, throwing away your critical eye towards the world in favor of starry-eyed credulity can certainly kick the placebo effect into overdrive. If you're constantly questioning whether something is working, it will probably not feel like it's working, whereas if you wholeheartedly believe, you will likely carry that through into your perceptions. This of course has nothing to do with the actual efficacy, it's just that you're selectively perceiving so as to confirm your pre-existing notions; when the object of all of this effort is your own mental state this can be confused with the technique itself being effective. In reality, people like being successful, and feeling like you are winning at one thing makes you more likely to think you can win at other things. Rinse repeat. Confirmation bias is lovely when you can weaponize it like this. The sad thing is you have to kill the most valuable part of your human self in the process. RIP.

Re: Regular meditation may be more beneficial than vacation

#53

Post by origami777 »

ephextom wrote: post #32
origami777 wrote: post #13

I'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…

One of the pages [1] on The HeartMath site references Dr Bruce Lipton. If you're interested in understanding more about the interplay between experiences, emotions, physiology and genetics, I can strongly recommend his book, The Biology of Belief [2], and his many interviews and presentations that can be found on YouTube. His research and writing focuses on the notion that subconscious beliefs are the major influence…

Thanks for the recommendations! I will investigate further. I'm amazed at how powerful these activities can be. And I'm glad that I gave them a chance. It is really easy to be dismissive of stuff like this. Having an open mind, giving them a chance, has made a world of difference for me.

Going through hard times, and seeing how fragile mental wellbeing can be, has given me a great appreciation for the work that these doctors are doing. I'm grateful you took the time to share.

Re: Regular meditation may be more beneficial than vacation

#54

Post by origami777 »

tedks wrote: post #52
ephextom wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the pages [1] on The HeartMath site references Dr Bruce Lipton. If you're interested in understanding more about the interplay between experiences, emotions, physiology and genetics, I can strongly recommend his book, The Biology of Belief [2], and his many interviews and presentations that can be found on YouTube. His research and writing focuses on the notion that subconscious beliefs are the major influence…

>All this stuff draws contempt from curmudgeonly skeptics (of which I used to be the worst kind), but from painful experience I've found these techniques to be far more effective than any of the more conventional approaches I'd tried previously. Yes, throwing away your critical eye towards the world in favor of starry-eyed credulity can certainly kick the placebo effect into overdrive. If you're constantly questionin…

Interesting points. Can you expand on your last sentence? What part is being killed?

Re: Regular meditation may be more beneficial than vacation

#55

Post by zuzuleinen »

elcapitan wrote: post #51
not_an_account wrote: post #25

Mindfulness 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…

> I rarely talk about meditation in professional circles because, for one, people think it's weird No, it totally makes sense. Long walks in the woods or long runs are almost like meditation for me, and it is definitely like vacation for the mind. I just wonder where to get started with actual meditation - I have to admit I find the predominant literature about that topic extremely esoteric, and that's something that…

I recommend HeadSpace https://www.headspace.com/. I think it's great that you start slowly and guided which is perfect for a beginner.

Re: Regular meditation may be more beneficial than vacation

#56

Post by dschiptsov »

Loic wrote: post #44
origami777 wrote: post #13

I'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 hypnoth…

To be honest, the very first books - The Structure of Magic - are much better than later "practical" and manipulative stuff. The notions of "patching reality" - what we call today the Confirmation and Self-serving biases (deletion, distribution) and "framing effects" are correct in general.

Programming, or what they call "re-framing" works to some extent, by "unlearning" some wrong concepts acquired through social conditioning and biased perceptions, by re-framing (transforming) them into more closely related to actual reality. Anchoring is already crap (but use of amulets and "things of power" is exactly this). So are the supposed correlations between looking patterns and modes of thinking (while naive people (children) some times show such correlations).

The core ideas of early NLP, including re-framing, were nothing new. The prophets of old times seemingly did exactly this - they succeeded in re-framing of traditional views and beliefs.

The later "technique" stuff, is nonsense. It apparently worked because hypocrisy, manipulations, reading and use of so-called body language are as old as humanity. Again, priests of any kind are famous practitioners of such manipulative techniques. Nowadays businessmen and politicians are using similar tricks, as if we are still in ignorant middle ages.)

Re: Regular meditation may be more beneficial than vacation

#58

Post by digler999 »

ephextom wrote: post #32
origami777 wrote: post #13

I'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…

One of the pages [1] on The HeartMath site references Dr Bruce Lipton. If you're interested in understanding more about the interplay between experiences, emotions, physiology and genetics, I can strongly recommend his book, The Biology of Belief [2], and his many interviews and presentations that can be found on YouTube. His research and writing focuses on the notion that subconscious beliefs are the major influence…

> His research and writing focuses on the notion that subconscious beliefs are the major influence on our perceptions,

I think there's definitely some truth to this. Here's a concrete example from my life: I have anxiety in crowded grocery stores, which hampers my ability to shop for food and eat healthy. On the surface, thats "social anxiety", but digging deeper, for me it's about some deeper baggage I have about being ignored. The people intruding my space at the supermarket are activating this subconscious fear/pain because they seem to "ignore" my physical presence.

Very fascinating how the layers of psychology/physiology meet. I will look into Liptons work some more.

Re: Regular meditation may be more beneficial than vacation

#59

Post by qznc »

nhaliday wrote: post #39
origami777 wrote: post #13

I'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…

Alternative viewpoint: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/17/heartmath-considered-in... , "HeartMath Considered Incoherent" Normally I wouldn't attack something that someone else feels is helping (even placebos can be helpful for some people), but this is the top comment.

HeartMath sounds like a good base with a lot of esoteric bullshit thrown on top.

Maybe breathing in a consistent rhythm to get a coherent heart rate variability (HRV) is the sole magic behind meditation, HeartMath, etc?

Here is a good TEDx talk by Alan Watkins on HRV: https://youtu.be/Q_fFattg8N0 (there is also a part 1, but part 2 has the good demo)

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