Much of the research around meditation and mindfulness has serious flaws
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Re: Much of the research around meditation and mindfulness has serious flaws
#2As somebody with clinical anxiety, I have been prescribed CBT and Mindfulness on the NHS, I think this piece misses several key points.
For one thing, NICE (the UK NGO responsible for analysing evidence and making recommendations on the efficacy of treatments and their cost effectiveness) and an all-party Parliamentary group found signifcant evidence to recommend Mindfulness as a treatment for anxiety and mild depression along with traditional cognitive-behavioural therapy and SSRIs.
Secondly, mindfulness feels, to me, closely related to CBT, a tried and true therapy. It appears to be very closely related to CBT in what it helps to control: intrusive thoughts. The increased focus on meditation is why it's more effective for anxiety and mild depression.
It's most certainly NOT recommended for serious cases of clinical depression. As often, selected application of evidence and over-generalisation is the problem here.
Mindfulness can help with a range of relatively-minor mental health issues, and it can also help prevent relapses in those that have recovered. For those of us who have been helped that's really not something to diminish.
It's not that there's no evidence for its effectiveness at all. There is.
(Disclosure: Mindfulness helped my anxiety a lot. I believe it to be more than placebo, but then I would, wouldn't I?)
Re: Much of the research around meditation and mindfulness has serious flaws
#3I'm shocked that a relatively new clinical practice with only moderate evidence behind it would be overhyped to sell magazines. Shocked I tell you.
I was introduced to mindfulness practice as a therapy for depression several years ago at my university. They were clear it was a new approach for clinical use (though building on a long history of meditation) and that although the initial research results were promising it was still very much a developing area. For what it's worth, I've personally found it one of the more effective techniques I've been taught for relapse prevention. I support both its ongoing use and a robust attitude to demanding high-quality evidence for/against it.
The article is just describing the hype cycle for technology as applied to psychological therapy: "hey, I've a new idea" -> promising early results -> hype -> "this new approach will solve everything" -> ["actually this sucks" NOW HERE] -> "well, perhaps it's helpful for this area (for some people) (some of the time) -> "hey, I've a new idea" -> ...
Re: Much of the research around meditation and mindfulness has serious flaws
#4I'm shocked that a relatively new clinical practice with only moderate evidence behind it would be overhyped to sell magazines. Shocked I tell you. I was introduced to mindfulness practice as a therapy for depression several years ago at my university. They were clear it was a new approach for clinical use (though building on a long history of meditation) and that although the initial research results were promising…
The "trough of disillusionment". Great term! http://www.gartner.com/technology/research/methodologies/hyp...
Re: Much of the research around meditation and mindfulness has serious flaws
#5As somebody with clinical anxiety, I have been prescribed CBT and Mindfulness on the NHS, I think this piece misses several key points. For one thing, NICE (the UK NGO responsible for analysing evidence and making recommendations on the efficacy of treatments and their cost effectiveness) and an all-party Parliamentary group found signifcant evidence to recommend Mindfulness as a treatment for anxiety and mild depres…
> Secondly, mindfulness feels, to me, like an offshoot of CBT. It appears to be very closely related to CBT in both its approach and what it helps control.
Really? When I meditate I need to turn my thoughts off. With CBT you reframe your thoughts by a process of what I'd like to call creative thinking and empiricism. So for me, it's not an offshoot of CBT, since mindfulness is not concerned with thoughts but with being mindful on whatever your object of mindfulness is (in 95% of the cases it's your body).
Also, mindfulness was ripped out of Buddhism. Mindfulness was "Buddha's" invention on top of Hinduism -- as I understand it. Hinduistic meditation focuses on concentration (note: I stand corrected if I'm wrong), whereas Buddhistic meditation shifts (eventually) towards mindfulness and depending on the tradition you have like 4+ different forms of mindfulness.
What psychologists/neuroscientists did was take these techniques out of their contexts to see if they were helpful for therapy. And apparently -- according to their studies -- they were.
I just know from personal experience how mindfulness damages me, I also know how it can heal me. I prefer to use it for healing purposes. For me, when I need to be more connected to my body and to other people I use mindfulness and loving kindness meditation (metta) as a practice. Metta makes me more connected to people and mindfulness acts as a multiplier towards that connection (since I am more aware of all my feelings). Whenever I need to code, focus and analyze more I tend to be less interested in meditation practices.
I'm noticing it's not a hoax. I've meditated 500+ hours and my baseline level of being aware of my feelings is slightly but noticeably higher. Even if I don't meditate for months.
Re: Much of the research around meditation and mindfulness has serious flaws
#6Few years ago, I read an article about mindfulness on HN, and it finally clicked with me, why some people recommended me to meditate, and I dismissed it because I was too skeptical. I have since understood it as training yourself to being bored, and through that, focus better on a single task that is boring but you have to do it.
It probably isn't a cure for everything, but looked at this way, it is still quite useful.
Re: Much of the research around meditation and mindfulness has serious flaws
#7As somebody with clinical anxiety, I have been prescribed CBT and Mindfulness on the NHS, I think this piece misses several key points. For one thing, NICE (the UK NGO responsible for analysing evidence and making recommendations on the efficacy of treatments and their cost effectiveness) and an all-party Parliamentary group found signifcant evidence to recommend Mindfulness as a treatment for anxiety and mild depres…
> Secondly, mindfulness feels, to me, like an offshoot of CBT. It appears to be very closely related to CBT in both its approach and what it helps control. Really? When I meditate I need to turn my thoughts off . With CBT you reframe your thoughts by a process of what I'd like to call creative thinking and empiricism. So for me, it's not an offshoot of CBT, since mindfulness is not concerned with thoughts but with be…
Well, CBT is about recognising and stopping intrusive thoughts before they become too harmful. Mindfulness extends this idea to using meditation to create an environment in which it's hard for intrusive thoughts to occur.
The focus on meditation as a treatment for anxiety and depression is relatively new, the focus on reducing or eliminating intrusive thoughts isn't.
Re: Much of the research around meditation and mindfulness has serious flaws
#8I'm shocked that a relatively new clinical practice with only moderate evidence behind it would be overhyped to sell magazines. Shocked I tell you. I was introduced to mindfulness practice as a therapy for depression several years ago at my university. They were clear it was a new approach for clinical use (though building on a long history of meditation) and that although the initial research results were promising…
> I was introduced to mindfulness practice as a therapy for depression several years ago at my university. They were clear it was a new approach for clinical use (though building on a long history of meditation) and that although the initial research results were promising it was still very much a developing area.
It would be great if that's the approach other people were taking. Not everyone does this. Some of them will push mindfullness as being risk free (for a small number of people it increases risk of self harm or death by suicide) and effective for most people (it's effective for some people, but we don't know how many people).
> For what it's worth, I've personally found it one of the more effective techniques I've been taught for relapse prevention.
Yes. This is why it's important to be honest. "This seems to work, and work well, for some people. It might work for you. You should try it, and if it doesn't work we'll talk about other options." is fine. But I know people who are being denied any other option.
Re: Much of the research around meditation and mindfulness has serious flaws
#9Between being a placebo and a straight up pseudoscience(if I even were to call it a “science”) in my opinion “mindfulness” is a type of pavlovian conditioning design to establish a self-empathy defense mechanism within our minds.
I’ve been to “mindfulness events” for executives and corporate, where people claim to let go of their ego only to look down on anyone who is not as “open minded “ as they are.
Overall is another balancing act between our “ego” and “super ego”. But I guess it does “works” for some individuals.
Re: Much of the research around meditation and mindfulness has serious flaws
#10Few years ago, I read an article about mindfulness on HN, and it finally clicked with me, why some people recommended me to meditate, and I dismissed it because I was too skeptical. I have since understood it as training yourself to being bored, and through that, focus better on a single task that is boring but you have to do it. It probably isn't a cure for everything, but looked at this way, it is still quite usefu…
> I have since understood it as training yourself to being bored...
There is a vast landscape of meditation practices from numerous traditions that focus on different aspects, but I think your comment is an extremely poor characterization of them. It's bit like describing playing guitar or piano as "moving your fingers in some specific patterns." Uh, no.