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'Mindful people' feel less pain

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Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain

#21

Post by ksdale »

ryandrake wrote: post #17

> "Mindfulness is related to being aware of the present moment without too much emotional reaction or judgment," said the study's lead author, Fadel Zeidan I've always thought of the word "mindfulness" as one of those vague, new-age nonsense terms, like "psionic body energy" and "ethereal consciousness". Even given the above quoted definition, I still have no idea what it means. Does anyone know what is an example of…

I'm sure this isn't entirely accurate, but I think it can be analogized to Sherlock Holmes' powers of observation. Everyone sees but they don't observe. They don't notice details about anything. Mindfulness is like that but more internal. Of course everyone is "aware" of the present time in a trivial sense, but lots of people spend a ton of their time lost in daydreams or reliving old arguments or mindlessly browsing FB or Hacker News. And it's not that that's a bad thing, just that they have no idea what their brain is doing, they just let it go wherever it will. Mindfulness is actually witnessing and understanding your state of mind.

I feel like the opposite of mindfulness is when you're driving to work in the morning and you realize you're already there and you have no idea where the time went.

Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain

#23

Post by NikolaNovak »

ryandrake wrote: post #17

> "Mindfulness is related to being aware of the present moment without too much emotional reaction or judgment," said the study's lead author, Fadel Zeidan I've always thought of the word "mindfulness" as one of those vague, new-age nonsense terms, like "psionic body energy" and "ethereal consciousness". Even given the above quoted definition, I still have no idea what it means. Does anyone know what is an example of…

I have struggled with the term "Mindfulness" myself for exact same reasons. However, through some readings and discussion, I came to think of it as "Self focus".

Random examples that worked to enhance my understanding:

- Meditation, which typically starts/involves training yourself to focus on something to exclusion of external distractions; frequently it starts with body focus - think of your breathing, think of your body parts. While I still suck at it, I do see the value in continuing the effort of being able to concentrate and focus on what I choose to,and not be continually a slave to random external (and internal!) inputs

- As a completely different example, my way of dealing with many difficult items was to "push them out of my mind". But that never really works for a long time. Being mindful of them to me means diving deep into the anxieties and issues, facing them and through them, and typically they become less scary afterwards.

- Related to both, being mindful of own body is a trick I started learning very late in life. But I now notice when my breathing patterns, posture, etc indicate internal anxiety or stress long before my conscious mind is alerted.

So I'm maybe 1% on my way through the journey, and approaching it from very much the skeptical/rational/scientific side, but again, I do see the value in the goal and method.

Not to say that there aren't million people/instructors/guides/therapists out there who DO make it into woo-woo! But like anything else, you can separate wheat from chaff with a little effort :)

Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain

#24

Post by sls »

ryandrake wrote: post #17

> "Mindfulness is related to being aware of the present moment without too much emotional reaction or judgment," said the study's lead author, Fadel Zeidan I've always thought of the word "mindfulness" as one of those vague, new-age nonsense terms, like "psionic body energy" and "ethereal consciousness". Even given the above quoted definition, I still have no idea what it means. Does anyone know what is an example of…

The word "mindfulness" in the context of a particular faculty or practice derives from attempts to translate the Pali word "sati". Cultivating sati correctly is part of the Noble Eightfold Path described by the Buddha. Unfortunately, the constituents that comprise "mindfulness" don't really convey the meaning behind "sati," so it's only really useful if you know that this is a token pointing to a foreign concept and you understand that concept. Because mostly Westerners don't, it has certainly been broadly misused to cover all kinds of unrelated things, including many practices/ideas you might call "new-age nonsense." (You may also think of Buddhism as nonsense, but the cultivation of sati being a practice with several thousand years of history should at least exclude it from being "new-age.")

Hopefully you can find out a lot more about the concept by googling for it under its real name. I'm happy to point to additional resources, please feel free to pm.

[Edit: typo]

Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain

#25

Post by dx87 »

ryandrake wrote: post #17

> "Mindfulness is related to being aware of the present moment without too much emotional reaction or judgment," said the study's lead author, Fadel Zeidan I've always thought of the word "mindfulness" as one of those vague, new-age nonsense terms, like "psionic body energy" and "ethereal consciousness". Even given the above quoted definition, I still have no idea what it means. Does anyone know what is an example of…

I think the opposite of mindfulness would be anxiousness. Like, if your car breaks down and you start worrying about being late to work, then worry that it's going to cause you to get fired, then your partner might leave you, that's the opposite of mindfulness. But if your car breaks down and you just focus on fixing the immediate problem at hand instead of the potential problems in the future, that's what they normally mean by mindfulness. By awarness of the present, they don't mean "aware" in the literal sense, but more in the act of actually thinking about what's happening instead of living life on autopilot and reacting to situations based on instinct and emotion.

Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain

#26

Post by sigi45 »

ryandrake wrote: post #17

> "Mindfulness is related to being aware of the present moment without too much emotional reaction or judgment," said the study's lead author, Fadel Zeidan I've always thought of the word "mindfulness" as one of those vague, new-age nonsense terms, like "psionic body energy" and "ethereal consciousness". Even given the above quoted definition, I still have no idea what it means. Does anyone know what is an example of…

I see things I can't see.

I walk a stair and see stains. I walk by garbage and think about it. I thought that my level of detail/awareness is normal but lots of people around me don't notice basic stuff.

I'm more surprised by myself when I become less aware of stuff around me than the other way around. Less or even unaware is quite interesting to me after it happened and I'm happy about it because I have the feeling that overaware is my norm.

Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain

#28

Post by ollerac »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #6
mcculley wrote: post #5

Mindfulness meditation taught me something that Haruki Murakami describes well about running: “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”

Just curious what the difference is? Suffering is your reaction to the pain? Like if you're stoic you acknowledge the pain but continue on with out suffering?

Think of it this way:

Pain: My head hurts. This sucks.

Suffering: My head hurts. It's not going away. Maybe this means something is wrong with me. Maybe it means I have some kind of disease or disorder. What if there's something wrong with my brain, like a brain tumor or a blood clot? What if I suddenly die next week? etc. etc.

Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain

#29

Post by mkagenius »

ryandrake wrote: post #17

> "Mindfulness is related to being aware of the present moment without too much emotional reaction or judgment," said the study's lead author, Fadel Zeidan I've always thought of the word "mindfulness" as one of those vague, new-age nonsense terms, like "psionic body energy" and "ethereal consciousness". Even given the above quoted definition, I still have no idea what it means. Does anyone know what is an example of…

Mindfulness doesn't seem much different from being 'distracted'. Although it sounds completely opposite.

Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain

#30

Post by cammil »

ryandrake wrote: post #17

> "Mindfulness is related to being aware of the present moment without too much emotional reaction or judgment," said the study's lead author, Fadel Zeidan I've always thought of the word "mindfulness" as one of those vague, new-age nonsense terms, like "psionic body energy" and "ethereal consciousness". Even given the above quoted definition, I still have no idea what it means. Does anyone know what is an example of…

Mindfulness is not a well-defined term and can be used to mean different things depending on the speaker or author.

Typically, I imagine, it is mostly used in a meditation context, often from Buddhism or derived practices.

In that context it would be a translation of "sati", which can also be translated as "recall". Practically this means the ability to remember. It is implied in the idea that true "sati" is in some sense continuous, and therein lies much of its benefit.

It is rarely talked about without reference to "concentration", which is a necessary and related, but distinct (certainly in Buddhist philosophy) idea.

These terms can be confusing if considered in a Western culture - they generally mean something different to what you might guess.

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