Brain-stimulation trials get personal to lift depression • Hacker News Board

Re: Brain-stimulation trials get personal to lift depression

#21

Post by JamesBarney » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 9:53 PM UTC

chimen wrote: post #9

lemonberry wrote: post #5

This is interesting. On a recent Kevin Rose podcast he and his guest talked about targeted treatment for ADHD, dementia, etc. using video games. At one point they also discussed people using self-built gadgets to stimulate their own brain using electric current ( they do not recommend it though ). https://www.kevinrose.com/single-post/Adam-Gazzaley As an aside, I've found meditation to be very helpful in treating my…

Would love to be able to meditate. My brain just goes all over the place and it feels like I'm wasting my time.

This is common misconception about mindfulness meditation. The goal of mindfulness meditation is not to quiet mind(though this happens with practice). It's to learn how to notice when your mind is unquiet.

So when you notice your mind wandering this is mindfulness. Imagine you're coding all day long, and then you have this moment where you notice that you're not paying attention to coding, but instead thinking about what it would be like to be a ninja. You might have been thinking about being a ninja for 5-10 minutes before you realized it. But this moment when you realize, oh hey I was thinking about something other that what I thought I was thinking about is a moment of mindfulness. And this is what you're practicing.

So when you notice your mind wandering, be happy, this is a moment of mindfulness. Your mind was probably wandering for a while before you realized it, but this moment is the moment you realized it.

Re: Brain-stimulation trials get personal to lift depression

#22

Post by outlace » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 9:54 PM UTC

spaceman1331 wrote: post #7

the depression industry is a for-profit industry based on bullying it is quite sick

That's not a very nuanced position to hold about something very complex.

Re: Brain-stimulation trials get personal to lift depression

#23

Post by JoshMnem » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 10:19 PM UTC

lemonberry wrote: post #5

This is interesting. On a recent Kevin Rose podcast he and his guest talked about targeted treatment for ADHD, dementia, etc. using video games. At one point they also discussed people using self-built gadgets to stimulate their own brain using electric current ( they do not recommend it though ). https://www.kevinrose.com/single-post/Adam-Gazzaley As an aside, I've found meditation to be very helpful in treating my…

I think it's a bad idea to self-experiment with electricity and the brain. See "Popular electric brain stimulation method used to boost brainpower is detrimental to IQ scores"

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150505152140.h...

Re: Brain-stimulation trials get personal to lift depression

#24

Post by amelius » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 10:36 PM UTC

johnfn wrote: post #19

msla wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the one hand, it's sort of scary. I can see both sides of this, at once, like I'm looking at an ambiguous image: duck, or rabbit? On one hand, it's absurd: "Electrochemical system is changed by electricity! Shocker! Be afeared'n'affrighted!" The brain is a physical system, your personality is a result of the behavior of that system, so changing the physical system is going to change the personality. It's a more…

Even if the root of someone's depression were something that could be talked out, what depressed person wouldn't want to work that out while not depressed?

I guess that while the person is not depressed and feels great, it totally makes no sense to talk about anything related to the depression. This could quickly provide the patient with the insight that a depression is purely physical, and that nothing needs to be talked about really.

Re: Brain-stimulation trials get personal to lift depression

#25

Post by amelius » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 10:41 PM UTC

This reminds me of this article [1].

[1] https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/d739jq/can-we-sti...

Re: Brain-stimulation trials get personal to lift depression

#26

Post by lifeformed » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 11:43 PM UTC

JamesBarney wrote: post #21

chimen wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would love to be able to meditate. My brain just goes all over the place and it feels like I'm wasting my time.

This is common misconception about mindfulness meditation. The goal of mindfulness meditation is not to quiet mind(though this happens with practice). It's to learn how to notice when your mind is unquiet. So when you notice your mind wandering this is mindfulness. Imagine you're coding all day long, and then you have this moment where you notice that you're not paying attention to coding, but instead thinking about…

What would mindful meditation be like then? Setting aside a moment to remind yourself to notice?

Re: Brain-stimulation trials get personal to lift depression

#27

Post by lemonberry » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 12:01 AM UTC

chimen wrote: post #9

lemonberry wrote: post #5

This is interesting. On a recent Kevin Rose podcast he and his guest talked about targeted treatment for ADHD, dementia, etc. using video games. At one point they also discussed people using self-built gadgets to stimulate their own brain using electric current ( they do not recommend it though ). https://www.kevinrose.com/single-post/Adam-Gazzaley As an aside, I've found meditation to be very helpful in treating my…

Would love to be able to meditate. My brain just goes all over the place and it feels like I'm wasting my time.

I agree with the other commenters, that's really part of the process. You do get better at it. Mind drifts... back to the breath, it wanders... back to the breath.

It, quite literally, is practice.

I don't use an app, but I know a few people that have had some success with them.

Re: Brain-stimulation trials get personal to lift depression

#28

Post by lemonberry » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 12:03 AM UTC

JoshMnem wrote: post #23

lemonberry wrote: post #5

This is interesting. On a recent Kevin Rose podcast he and his guest talked about targeted treatment for ADHD, dementia, etc. using video games. At one point they also discussed people using self-built gadgets to stimulate their own brain using electric current ( they do not recommend it though ). https://www.kevinrose.com/single-post/Adam-Gazzaley As an aside, I've found meditation to be very helpful in treating my…

I think it's a bad idea to self-experiment with electricity and the brain. See "Popular electric brain stimulation method used to boost brainpower is detrimental to IQ scores" https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150505152140.h...

I can't imagine doing this to myself. They were quite clear on the podcast that they weren't recommending it. Even if they did, no thanks from this guy.

Re: Brain-stimulation trials get personal to lift depression

#29

Post by rhizome » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 12:18 AM UTC

chimen wrote: post #9

lemonberry wrote: post #5

This is interesting. On a recent Kevin Rose podcast he and his guest talked about targeted treatment for ADHD, dementia, etc. using video games. At one point they also discussed people using self-built gadgets to stimulate their own brain using electric current ( they do not recommend it though ). https://www.kevinrose.com/single-post/Adam-Gazzaley As an aside, I've found meditation to be very helpful in treating my…

Would love to be able to meditate. My brain just goes all over the place and it feels like I'm wasting my time.

That's fine, returning to the attempt is a big part of it. You don't just start blanking out for a half-hour, it's like a muscle that has to be exercised, or a skill that improves with repetition. Just set a timer on your phone for 5min, it's hard to get mad about wasting 5min.

Re: Brain-stimulation trials get personal to lift depression

#30

Post by joveian » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 3:45 AM UTC

lifeformed wrote: post #26

JamesBarney wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is common misconception about mindfulness meditation. The goal of mindfulness meditation is not to quiet mind(though this happens with practice). It's to learn how to notice when your mind is unquiet. So when you notice your mind wandering this is mindfulness. Imagine you're coding all day long, and then you have this moment where you notice that you're not paying attention to coding, but instead thinking about…

What would mindful meditation be like then? Setting aside a moment to remind yourself to notice?

I'm not sure about mindfulness meditation specifically or what exactly that even refers to, but some people use a mindfulness bell that is rung randomly a few times a day for exactly that purpose. One old form of mindfulness practice is to use breath changing from in to out or out to in as moments of mindfulness. See Centering in Zen Flesh Zen Bones translated by Paul Reps (from a document predating Buddhism):

https://shivayashiva.wordpress.com/2014/01/12/centering-prac...

There is also a kind of meditation practice called "just note gone" where the idea is to start giving absense of stimulation a distinct notice (by noticing when something you had been perceiving is no longer there). I think most sit down and meditate practices tend to focus on that kind of thing (feeling the absense of stimulation as a distinct thing) via different methods.