The Impact of Meditating Every Day • Hacker News Board

Re: The Impact of Meditating Every Day

#171

Post by sizzle » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 12:09 AM UTC

thomk wrote: post #76

cols wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mentioned quitting cannabis. If you don't mind elaborating, I'm curious what benefits you have experienced and why you ended up quitting. Thanks!

Ex cannabis user here, so I thought I'd give you my empirical perspective & and opinion. I will tell you what I would tell my own child: Cannabis, like any recreational drug, steals the most precious resource we have: our time. I've been on benders in my life that I simply can not remember what I did during that period, sure, but that's not what I'm talking about. What I am talking about is the time any person needs…

Add alcohol, gaming addiction, lack off a social support group, and underlying undiagnosed mental health disorders to the list of things that hold you hostage from entering balanced adulthood.

Wish I was more self aware or had family to help support me in my younger years in seeking help. It's hard not to beat yourself up in hindsight when things seem so crystal clear now when you have traded all your vices for positive routines. In my case it took falling in love with the right person who had their shit together personally and professionally to pull me from the grips of substance abuse hell and my self destructive risk taking and addictive personality.

Mediation and mindfulness was key in my recovery as a dependable tool to shut my brain impulsivity down and regain control over the negative neural pathways I've reinforced for years abusing substances. Don't knock it until you try it and see it through until you can start to think clearly without craving your vices and giving into them. Push back hard and you'll be rewarded with clarity and control over your life to set up positive routines. Good luck.

Re: The Impact of Meditating Every Day

#172

Post by hombre_fatal » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 12:12 AM UTC

Fnoord wrote: post #159

hombre_fatal wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, Sam Harris himself has a meditation app (Waking Up). I think might be the best option for the HN crowd.

Here [1] is the Exodus Privacy report for this app. To be fair, I did like the FAQ on the website. [1] https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/38025/

Fwiw, Waking Up gets better marks by those metrics than the other popular meditation apps mentioned in these comments: Headspace and Calm.

(Lower is better)

- Waking Up (3+11=14)

- Headspace (11+16=27)

- Calm (9+15=24)

Re: The Impact of Meditating Every Day

#173

Post by yjhoney » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 12:14 AM UTC

I had been reading articles (like this one) that raves about the benefits of meditation and so I decided to try it for 30 days every day.

I did not see any improvements in any areas. Could I be doing something wrong? I really don't get meditation and I feel like I'm the only person who feels this way.

All the benefits that this article specifically talks about is my default state. I'm never stressed and I don't feel anxiety unless I drink alot.

Is it be possible that meditation simply have no effect for some people?

Re: The Impact of Meditating Every Day

#174

Post by padpnut » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 12:34 AM UTC

Meditating daily has helped with my focus. I can now follow conversations in work meetings a lot longer, without my mind drifting away.

Re: The Impact of Meditating Every Day

#175

Post by joshgachnang » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 12:37 AM UTC

mr_overalls wrote: post #97

This type of meditation - a secularized form of Vipassana in which one passively observers mental events - is very popular in the West. But it's not the only one, and shouldn't be called merely "meditation" without regard to the vast body of practices that exist. Another form of meditation that's traditionally talked about in Buddhism is shamatha, which translates to something like "concentration" or "tranquility." I…

Huh, I went to UW and never heard about the Center for Healthy Minds. This is really interesting, thanks!

Where does transcendental meditation fall?

Re: The Impact of Meditating Every Day

#176

Post by kovek » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 12:52 AM UTC

Does anyone know what is the history of the Ohmm sound? What is the desired effect?

Re: The Impact of Meditating Every Day

#177

Post by _7fvc » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 1:13 AM UTC

Meditation sometimes reveals itself through meditation. It's kinda like recursion in programming. I come from Vietnam. Meditation in Vietnamese is translated literally to "sitting zen" (ngồi thiền). Sitting seems like the optimal balance point for meditation. Standing/walking has more distraction. Lying down makes you prone to sleeping. Now, I haven't figured out which sitting position is more optimal. Perhaps, the lotus position is popular for a reason.

Re: The Impact of Meditating Every Day

#178

Post by codeisawesome » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 2:10 AM UTC

aNoob7000 wrote: post #11

cube2222 wrote: post #6

I had always had some kind of anxiety or ocd for as long as I can remember. I'd searched for various ways to deal with it but only discovering meditation really worked for me. After meditating for 6 months every day (starting with 5 minutes daily, ending with 20-30) I've completely got rid of it. A nice side effect was that I got to be a happier person overall (though that wasn't ever a problem for me), and learned t…

Would you recommend an app like Calm or Headspace to get started with meditation?

I. love. Headspace. Life changing.

Re: The Impact of Meditating Every Day

#179

Post by codeisawesome » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 2:13 AM UTC

number6 wrote: post #110

hailwren wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started with Headspace, but feel like I get significantly higher returns without it. Something about having to concentrate on someone else's voice that makes the whole experience a little bit less effective for me. That said, I'd certainly recommend an app vs nothing, and perhaps as a good way to dip your toes in. I'd just also recommend trying it without the app after you've gotten comfortable with it.

How do you meditate without the app. I tried headspace. It's great but it is too expensive for me.

You can actually repeat the Basics course infinitely - 10 free sessions. I do one per day, it’s always fresh thanks also in part to the varying “clouds in the sky”.

Re: The Impact of Meditating Every Day

#180

Post by jblwps » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 2:17 AM UTC

andreilys wrote: post #169

jblwps wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That point, while valid, is only against this study; it doesn't speak to studies in general.

If we're speaking in the context of social sciences I would say it applies to nearly all of them.

Possibly. While I'm definitely sympathetic to the idea that social science (at least as it's actually practiced) is relatively soft, I don't know how we'd go about discounting it all. Seems to me like we'd be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

At the very least, I don't know what we could do differently, short of improving the practice of social science in various ways. The questions it would purport to investigate (i.e. social questions) are of course critical questions, but I'm not sure how we'd better answer them. More specifically, I'm not sure how we'd better answer them now. Sure, maybe if we had some Grand Unified Theory or even sufficiently sophisticated computer models. But we don't have those. (In the case where we did have them, it seems almost tautological that social science as such would have participated in their creation--but I digress.) What we've got now are social questions worth asking, and an admittedly imperfect practice of answering those questions. What do we do now?