They may experience the same intensity of physical pain, but _feel_ less of it, which makes sense as mindfulness meditation trains one to emotionally dissociate from anything painful (affectively or physically).
'Mindful people' feel less pain
101–110 of 159 posts
Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain
#102I 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.
yea, I guess torture supposedly doesn't work if you just externalize it.
certainly not my experience
Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain
#103I 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…
That Dennett quote is fantastic...thanks!
Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain
#104It's interesting that I had to scroll all the way to the bottom to find the skeptical comments.
Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain
#105I 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…
Meditating does help this. You get skilled at defusing the loop earlier.
That said joy and pain is a vast topic.
Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain
#106I 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…
I think so, too (even though I haven't read it). That jibes with my own experiences in meditating. Part of the process is going through a quick scan of your body and just noticing how your different parts feel: "huh, there's tenseness in my jaw", "there's a headache", "there's soreness in my leg" etc. It's amazing how quickly you can turn that from "my head hurts" to "there's pain in my head", which is a subtle but i…
I also think that un-explained pain feels worse to one's mind. The fact that you used part of your brain to sense it changes that. I very often turn pain into a 'what are you telling me?', as if it was a form of communication. Half the time, the emotional grief vanishes.
Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
I think the suffering is the result of your desire for things to be different than what they are. It's natural to feel like you want a headache to go away, but it seems to me that the more I accept that this is just the way it is right now, the more I embrace the pain and accept it as a part of me, the less power it has over me. And conversely the more I try to push it away like it's some kind of monster that's tortu…
Welcome to stoicism
Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain
#108> "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…
Agreed.
Also I firmly believe that most of modern life causes that.
Walking, climbing, physical efforts, crafting.. and others, aller require a vastly deeper engagement. Oh also music.
Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain
#109I 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.
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.
Or passed a kidney stone, or had a thrombosed hemorrhoid, or been tortured. I think there’s a difference between breathing through lower back pain, and trying to contextualize someone threading a live wire up your urethra to make you talk. Even if you’re exceptionally good with pain, most people are going to have trouble with damage too. If you start cutting off someone’s fingers, they’re going to lose their zen in a hurry.
But hey, maybe we’re wrong, but to people who think I’d say... go to a burn unit and see if you can make a difference where nothing short of a medically induced coma can. There’s a Nobel prize with your name on it if you succeed.
Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain
#110Anecdata, but I have a condition that led to a childhood and young adulthood of chronic pain. I noticed my way of handling pain I am aware is going to happen is vastly different to other scenarios. If I know it's going to happen, I feel it but feel no need to react. It just happens, and I can keep thinking and operating as if nothing is going wrong. But I still react to unexpected bumps even if they don't actually hurt that much (or at all).
I just thought it was nifty that my body can tell the difference and is happy to bypass the reactive part of pain when it wouldn't help.