Tangential, but has anyone else noticed a surge in newsweek links here and on reddit? I feel like they hired some consultants.
Them and NYT
Much of the research around meditation and mindfulness has serious flaws
21–30 of 147 posts
Re: Much of the research around meditation and mindfulness has serious flaws
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
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. "In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few." --- Shunryu Suzuki
I don't get how that quote relates to the parent post, can you clarify?
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Re: Much of the research around meditation and mindfulness has serious flaws
#23I believe there are only 2 way to reach truth.
1. experience your truth 2. do statistically sound study to show if your truth is in fact the truth of majority.
to challenge and test the use of , meditation and 'Mindfulness', JUST TRY IT on yourself. this won't kill you or cost you fortune. find your own truth.
P.S. - I think this magazine Article to be somewhat hocus - pocus. I can't pinpoint what's wrong1 except something just doesn't seem right!
Re: Much of the research around meditation and mindfulness has serious flaws
#24As 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…
> When I meditate I need to turn my thoughts off.
Mindfulness meditation is very explicitly not about turning thoughts off, but about letting thoughts arise and fall away without getting caught up in it.
Concentration meditation practices do involve turning thoughts off.
That said, I also find the comparison to CBT curious.
> (in 95% of the cases it's your body).
In mindfulness meditation, while it can be your body, it is not generally nearly as dominant a focus unless you want it to be. The "baseline" tends to be mindfulness of breath (anapanasati) because it is a convenient basis for a necessary level of concentration, and while it may involve the body peripherally as where you will notice the breath, is not about the body (indeed, while mindfulness of breath is simple as a starting point, people have written 500+ pages of books just on that one subject, and that involves e.g. the selection of other meditation objects to use while practising mindfulness of breath to achieve specific effects, such as dulling distractions, and a lot of that seems to be down to draw attention away from your body, because your body is a rife source of distracting sensations).
Mindfulness of the body is a separate aspect which tends to explicitly involve letting the sensations of part of the body fill your mind and diffuse outwards until it feels like that part of your body is all there is. When you do it with sufficient concentration it produces very curious sensations. It can also be a useful practice to reduce physical pain (I've had success with it but to very varying degree) - I see that as a trick of the mind where you basically seek to "spread the pain around" mentally so that it feels like it dissolves; sharp pains feel like dull aches. Nevertheless when successful it is a very useful trick of the mind (as a skeptic it feels to me as intentionally seeking out a placebo effect, but if it works it works).
Mindfulness of mind and and mindfulness of emotion are other separate aspects, and purely disassociated from the body, though you will tend to use mindfulness of breath to bring the concentration needed for it.
Most beginners mindfulness practice tends to focus first on mindfulness of breath to attain base levels of concentration and then mindfulness of mind.
If you focus only on the body as the object of meditation, you miss out on many aspects.
Re: Much of the research around meditation and mindfulness has serious flaws
#25Few 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…
Meditation has massive potential for very real, profound experiences. There is much that science doesn't understand about our bodies yet but that has been empirically discovered over the millenia. Meditation can certainly be boring, but it's not necessarily training yourself to be bored. There are many different facets depending on the style of meditation you practice: * Zen might get you enquire into yourself why yo…
(1) is often mentioned as a benefit of mindfulness meditation, but it always puzzled me; first, it seems something everyone does to some degree - thinking "I'm being paranoid" is essentially that recognition, no?
Second, it's always missing the second part: and then what? One can recognize an optical illusion as one, but that knowledge doesn't make it fade away. I mean, it can help to know, but it seems there's step missing between that and feeling serene.
Re: Much of the research around meditation and mindfulness has serious flaws
#26I believe there are only 2 way to reach truth. 1. experience your truth 2. do statistically sound study to show if your truth is in fact the truth of majority. to challenge and test the use of , meditation and 'Mindfulness', JUST TRY IT on yourself. this won't kill you or cost you fortune. find your own truth. P.S. - I think this magazine Article to be somewhat hocus - pocus. I can't pinpoint what's wrong1 except som…
i think 1 is no good. human perception has too many bugs.
Re: Much of the research around meditation and mindfulness has serious flaws
#27I'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...
In this particular case, the effect may be amplified, because expectations (the y-axis in the graph) may have an effect on meditation/mindfulness.
Re: Much of the research around meditation and mindfulness has serious flaws
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
> When I meditate I need to turn my thoughts off Good luck with that! From my experience and the teachings I received, meditation is not about turning thoughts off (which is practically impossible) but becoming aware of them in a way that you don't get lost into them, the goal being to understand hands-on how the mind works. > Mindfulness was "Buddha's" invention on top of Hinduism That's completely wrong AFAICT, alt…
> is not about turning thoughts off (which is practically impossible)
It depends on the person probably. I can easily shut the "loud" thoughts down, what remains is muted "flashes" of concepts in the back of the mind which almost lack vocalization. I can shut down those too, then only awareness of sensory experiences remains. I was never able to feel pure awareness of existence of self though. Maybe it's just one thing.
Re: Much of the research around meditation and mindfulness has serious flaws
#29I believe there are only 2 way to reach truth. 1. experience your truth 2. do statistically sound study to show if your truth is in fact the truth of majority. to challenge and test the use of , meditation and 'Mindfulness', JUST TRY IT on yourself. this won't kill you or cost you fortune. find your own truth. P.S. - I think this magazine Article to be somewhat hocus - pocus. I can't pinpoint what's wrong1 except som…
i think 1 is no good. human perception has too many bugs.
Would argue that your own experience is the only thing that matters.
Re: Much of the research around meditation and mindfulness has serious flaws
#30Few 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.
I think OP is correct, it just wasn't stated as well as it could've been. Meditation (at least some practice forms) is an act of forcing boredom upon yourself AND exploring how your mind's default settings react in that environment. There is a reason why focusing on something like your breath is recommended vs. focusing on the television (breath is boring!).
“All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”