Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

'Mindful people' feel less pain

medicalxpress.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 159 posts

Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain

#91

Post by miguelmota »

ironmagma wrote: post #78
miguelmota wrote: post #77

Unhappiness comes from reality not meeting expectations. Have no expectations and always be happy. Worrying about events outside of your control is pointless. Everyone needs some stoicism in their lives. Indifference is a power

That's easy to say, and very difficult for people in certain circumstances. With chronic illness and chronic pain, life can be very, very unbearable. We do have a built-in expectation of being able to, for instance, exist without being brought back to the world of pain every 3-5 minutes at random intervals. Not every expectation is willed into existence.

Agree that in situations where you're experiencing chronic pain is much difficult but having a stoic mindset can reduce the domino effects of pain. Anxiety is the difference between reality and expectations, and worrying about whether it's going to get worse or last forever is only going to make it worse. A stoic realizes that physical pain is sensory based and this pain is an automatic response from the body. The pain they bear with but don't react negatively and pessimistic about possible outcomes imagined by the mind. Celebrating the few moments of feeling no pain is way more effective than stressing over all the time when it does hurt. Easier said than done of course

Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain

#93

Post by canhascodez »

projektir wrote: post #63
HiroshiSan wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that true if your being tortured by someone other than yourself? I've seen the picture of the monk who set himself on fire while meditating in protest. I wonder if suffering is only optional if you inflict it on yourself.

At the very least, you could damage someone's brain faculties to the point that they can no longer philosophize their way out of suffering. And that is likely unnecessary, some drugs should suffice. "Suffering is optional" is a concept that dies immediately if you apply even a tiny amount of creativity to the question. It also fails if applied to animals. It's really only available to people in a specific range of si…

There are quite a lot of things which people transmit as true beliefs, which we all know are false. We tell people that not only love exists, but true love, and justice, and objective truth, and honor. No one has ever touched or measured an atom of love -- but we all need to feel loved, and acting like love or truth or honor don't exist leads to atrocities. Funny old world, ain't it?

Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain

#94

Post by odyssey7 »

projektir wrote: post #63
HiroshiSan wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that true if your being tortured by someone other than yourself? I've seen the picture of the monk who set himself on fire while meditating in protest. I wonder if suffering is only optional if you inflict it on yourself.

At the very least, you could damage someone's brain faculties to the point that they can no longer philosophize their way out of suffering. And that is likely unnecessary, some drugs should suffice. "Suffering is optional" is a concept that dies immediately if you apply even a tiny amount of creativity to the question. It also fails if applied to animals. It's really only available to people in a specific range of si…

This is an interesting take. But I'd have to disagree about this:

> it's a poor philosophy to follow if your interest is in things improving

Stoicism helps people accomplish more, by letting them transcend the things that are holding them back that they control.

Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain

#95

Post by cpncrunch »

ericand wrote: post #2

If I understand correctly, they say that meditation deactivates default mode and this has a positive impact on pain tolerance. Interestingly, there is lots of discussion on the importance and value of default mode for creativity and other things. Are these at odds or have I misunderstood?

I think it's more to do with removing the emotional rumination aspect of the default mode network, which is associated with anxiety, depression and pain.

Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain

#96

Post by ianai »

miguelmota wrote: post #91
ironmagma wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's easy to say, and very difficult for people in certain circumstances. With chronic illness and chronic pain, life can be very, very unbearable. We do have a built-in expectation of being able to, for instance, exist without being brought back to the world of pain every 3-5 minutes at random intervals. Not every expectation is willed into existence.

Agree that in situations where you're experiencing chronic pain is much difficult but having a stoic mindset can reduce the domino effects of pain. Anxiety is the difference between reality and expectations, and worrying about whether it's going to get worse or last forever is only going to make it worse. A stoic realizes that physical pain is sensory based and this pain is an automatic response from the body. The pa…

As a chronic migraine sufferer, I do have an ability to compartmentalize the pain, but only to an extent. There are also very hard constraints on my comfort. If I’m in pain there are any number of things that a pain free person could on average do that would spike the pain above the “freak out” point.

Stoicism is definitely something I practice, and migraines easily surpass that. Some I get are known as “suicide migraines”. In short, the monks pain ended with his life within moments, but chronic pain by definition lasts longer.

Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain

#97

Post by projektir »

lalos wrote: post #88
projektir wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My premise is that an animal in my care, if left hungry, will suffer, just like I would suffer. The cat's degree of consciousness, or whether or not it belongs to a species that eats its young, is not relevant to that premise. If you think that is a broken premise, I don't know what to tell you, but you might perhaps really enjoy reading Hume.

I was talking about suffering, pain and choice IN humans, you brought animals into the equation. It's a comment on HN so sorry for not specifying that the article and my comment were regarding humans only. Bringing animals in was the broken premise. If it is your responsibility to feed the cat, then yes the cat will suffer. I don't even understand your point, where does the cat get a choice to do anything at all? But…

I am attempting to reject an absolute statement that I find dangerous by showing a very basic and boring counterexample. If suffering is a conscious decision, it is such in all cases where suffering occurs, and suffering occurs in animals.

"Suffering in humans" is not concrete. You would need to create a distinction between "suffering in humans" and "suffering in animals" and explain where it differs and what is special about it and I don't see any such definition, so I am going to go with "suffering in general".

Many people here are talking about physical pain, which animals can also suffer from, so it doesn't seem obvious to me that your definition of "suffering" would be some kind of a special definition that shares nothing with suffering in animals.

You are likely trying to say some kind of a thing where humans are special and have special mental controls and so when a human feels pain they have more means of control about it than an animal can. This is all well and good but then we get into issues like children or people with limited cognitive capacity. The line between human and animal quickly becomes thin and we're back to square one, the square where saying that suffering is a choice is egregiously wrong and the statement must be qualified.

It seems to me that you're trying to move some goalposts around.

Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain

#98

Post by ianai »

danharaj wrote: post #58
nabla9 wrote: post #7

I think Marvin Minsky had it right in his book The Emotion Machine (2006): From Chapter III. From Pain to Suffering >Why does the sensation called pain sometimes lead to what we call suffering? How could such a simple event distort all your other thoughts so much? This chapter proposes a theory of this: if a pain is intense and persistent enough, it will stir up a certain set of resources, and then these, in turn, ar…

Hah. There's definitely pain out there that can't be studied to oblivion. Anyone so pompous hasn't experienced, for example, a cluster headache.

I think it helps to remember that they occur as cluster headaches. It’s one thing to have a terrible pain that ends within the day. It’s quite another to have the same exact pain with maximum intensity “pounce” on you every day for weeks, months, years.

Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain

#99

Post by lalos »

projektir wrote: post #97
lalos wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was talking about suffering, pain and choice IN humans, you brought animals into the equation. It's a comment on HN so sorry for not specifying that the article and my comment were regarding humans only. Bringing animals in was the broken premise. If it is your responsibility to feed the cat, then yes the cat will suffer. I don't even understand your point, where does the cat get a choice to do anything at all? But…

I am attempting to reject an absolute statement that I find dangerous by showing a very basic and boring counterexample. If suffering is a conscious decision, it is such in all cases where suffering occurs, and suffering occurs in animals. "Suffering in humans" is not concrete. You would need to create a distinction between "suffering in humans" and "suffering in animals" and explain where it differs and what is spec…

Ok next time I will write a research paper and post it here as a comment defining cat and human suffering and then after that you will ask but what about suffering in mollusks: "Suffering in humans and cats is not concrete!". I know that HN attracts a crowd that likes to cherry-pick any sentence and treat it as a line of code just to put out a contrarian point of view but come on. Moving goalposts? Nobody mentioned animals you were the one that moved the goalpost.

To be able to be mindful you need consciousness first, to have that you have to be a human. Sorry, either don't move the goalpost and bring animals in, or prove that animals are capable of managing their stimuli with mindfulness.

I'll break it down to you. You receive an input (emotion) and with mindfulness you realize that you ('you' the human, not 'you' the cat) do have a say on how to act based on it. That is all.

Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain

#100

Post by [deleted] »

danharaj wrote: post #58
nabla9 wrote: post #7

I think Marvin Minsky had it right in his book The Emotion Machine (2006): From Chapter III. From Pain to Suffering >Why does the sensation called pain sometimes lead to what we call suffering? How could such a simple event distort all your other thoughts so much? This chapter proposes a theory of this: if a pain is intense and persistent enough, it will stir up a certain set of resources, and then these, in turn, ar…

Hah. There's definitely pain out there that can't be studied to oblivion. Anyone so pompous hasn't experienced, for example, a cluster headache.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN