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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

#81

Post by blubb-fish »

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 I go through a tough time where anxiety is already impairing my life, sleep, communication then my first aid method is concious breathing twice a day for five minutes. It works immediately and levels down my stress significantly after about three days.

You breathe slowly in for about 15 seconds, hold breath for about 10 seconds and breathe out for about 35 seconds - mileage may vary. For five minutes.

The impact is not as fundamental and profound as with dedicated daily meditation but it does the trick and actually builds the basis required for actually sitting down and doing more subtle mental work.

Cheers

Re: Regular meditation may be more beneficial than vacation

#82

Post by nf05papsjfVbc »

snissn wrote: post #18
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…

Do you drink coffee? Try 100% cutting out caffeine!

I second this. When I am under stress, the caffeine heightens the feeling of anxiety and on really stressful days, I can feel my heart pounding...

Re: Regular meditation may be more beneficial than vacation

#83

Post by q-base »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #68

There was some useful discussion of meditation on HN a few years ago [1]. Reading it, I was surprised by how many people here use meditation and benefit from it - professionally as well as personally. This [2] post by twotimesposter is a particularly good answer to the question of "how to meditate to achieve mindfulness?". So much so that I bookmarked it. Really must get around to trying it. [1] https://news.ycombina…

No need to make such a big deal out of doing it or getting around to doing it. As someone else recommended take the free Headspace 10 day course or search Jon Kabat-Zinn, he has some videos where he teaches mindfulness in front of an audience.

If you make it too big a "thing" both "it" and you will fail and not achieve whatever you have set your mind on it achieving.

Re: Regular meditation may be more beneficial than vacation

#84

Post by wodenokoto »

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…

Link for the lazy: http://store.heartmath.org/Books-Stress-Solutions/transformi...

Re: Regular meditation may be more beneficial than vacation

#85

Post by mtrimpe »

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…

At its core NLP is basically little more than a notational system for mental processes which is a pretty hard thing to discredit scientifically.

It's true that that most of the NLP community revolves around cargo culting a few of these processes though (which most likely indeed aren't scientifically valid.)

Saying that that discredits NLP as a whole is roughly equivalent to saying a programming language is inherently bad because a lot of shitty software has been written in it though.

Re: Regular meditation may be more beneficial than vacation

#86

Post by aaimnr »

dschiptsov wrote: post #36

And meditation is? Sitting in a public place in yoga pants holding fingers in a mudra? Vacation defined as? Does vacation include visiting Buddhist countries and Indian meditation retreats? How long a vacation should be? Hint: meditation requires a profound changes in ones assumptions about his own nature and conditioning. That's why the teaching of the Buddha has been a philosophy, not a book of asanas. Meditation i…

The course mentioned by parent is definitely worth watching for anyone interested. Lot of valuable information both on neuro/psychology of meditation and Buddhism.

I wouldn't agree with the statement that medidtation requires profound changes in ones assumptions. One can start with just a simple instruction, eg. "don't think about the breath, but watch for sensations that constitute the experience of breathing" and, as they develop mindfulness, incporporate more and more conceptual knowledge about what Buddha called Right View while testing it in practice.

I guess you're right, though, that without right information you could possibly sit in your yoga pants and mudra (vide any stock photo with 'meditation' tag) and don't get anywhere for years.

Re: Regular meditation may be more beneficial than vacation

#88

Post by aaimnr »

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…

For anyone put off by the more esoteric stuff written on the topic, I'd recommend Sam Harris (as mentioned here already), Shinzen Young, but above all, Culadasa. He's a professor of Neuroscience and _very_ accomplished meditator. He's written THE definite book on meditation that uses models of the mind originating from both neuroscience and most noble meditation traditions.

https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Illuminated-Complete-Meditation-...

It's suitable both for beginners and advanced practitioners as it describes the progress of the practice in 10 very clearly described stages.

For those that don't yet have enough motivation, I'd second the Headspace app created by a former Thibetan Buddhist monk. It's really well made and contains a number of different meditation techniques provided in a guided meditation format.

Still, I'd switch to the Culadasa book and unassisted practice as soon as you start grasping the benefits you're getting from meditation and your motivation increases.

Re: Regular meditation may be more beneficial than vacation

#89

Post by littlethrowaway »

mettamage wrote: post #77
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…

__Meditation: the summary for technical people__ Yea I'm making this up. I'm enthusiastic about it, my username even reflects that I meditate ;) .. Introductory Level Witty, scientific book: Search Inside Yourself - Chade-meng Tan (he used to be a software engineer, now he's trying to set up the conditions for world peace) Take any MBCT, MBSR or 5-week or 8-week mindfulness course .. Beginner Level Retreat practice:…

Be quite careful giving advice about meditation. Under your "beginner" heading you suggest Dhamma - the 10 day 9 day silent course (I'm assuming vipassana is an example of this).

I did a vipassana course after a similar suggestion. In me it triggered a full blown manic-psychotic (bipolar) episode. There had been no history of this in my family (or myself) before that point.

If you're interested, I made a bunch of podcasts detailing what it was like to be manic -> depressed -> better here: [0]

While I'm not saying it's necessarily bad advice, I suggest that anyone contemplating a 10 day silent retreat has prepared by doing a _lot_ of meditation before hand and to be aware that there can be consequences.

[0] http://livingvipassana.blogspot.com

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