Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety • Hacker News Board

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#131

Post by Igelau » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 4:24 PM UTC

lorthemar wrote: post #124

This is similar to how yoga affects your body. The first step of mending something is awareness. If you know what's broken you can fix it. Many people who start doing yoga start feeling worse at the start, they realize what's wrong with their body, but if they push on, it gets better. Perhaps something similar can be said for meditating. Also, just blindly trying to meditate or other online ways are not actually medi…

> The first step of mending something is awareness. If you know what's broken you can fix it.

That leans toward something I was wondering about as I read the article. One of the things that was noted was "thoughts of suicide". Is the meditation causing that, or was it a thought pattern that was already going on made more obvious by practice? Not trying to diminish the danger of ToS or practicing without guidance and support, but I don't think there's quite enough to establish causality here.

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#132

Post by thoughtleader31 » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 4:25 PM UTC

brundolf wrote: post #64

dTal wrote: post #26

It's important to bear in mind that meditation is a religious practice specifically aimed at causing ego-death. Yogis writing about the practice (before it became big business) freely admit all sorts of horrible-sounding mental side effects, but couch them in religious terms (and encourage the acolyte to push through until they achieve "enlightenment", which they describe as a profoundly nihilist state of being). Thi…

Most of the anxiety/depression I've experienced revolves around the ego: expectations and pressures I place on myself, guilt/dissatisfaction when I don't feel like I'm meeting those expectations, etc. So a little bit of ego-death is just about the most peaceful thing imaginable for me. The idea that it's not all on my shoulders, that the world moves without me, that this isn't my story to ruin. I don't practice any k…

It really does depend.

There are people go by without ever questioning their wants, and never take responsibility for their own emotions in the most basic ways. They make every single one of their upsets someone else's responsibility and they come in hourly.

They aren't that many and they're easy to recognize when you've been burned by one though. They would also do everyone a big favor by embracing this advice.

On the other end are people who are driven to reduce their needs and scope as a response to pretty much anything. They'll be less of a hassle to others but advising them to reach harder for their familiar crutch is a disservice to them, and also their loved ones; neglect of others can be the the natural result of neglecting oneself. We don't do well with this advice.

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#133

Post by zepto » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 4:26 PM UTC

pmoriarty wrote: post #107

baron_harkonnen wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you point out some of the traditional practices of meditation that have no roots in religious traditions? I can't think of any truly secular traditions of the top of my head (or at least any that weren't invented in the last 50 years).

Neither I nor the post I was replying to limited meditation to traditional practices. Nor were we talking about the roots of meditation. Yes, the roots of meditation are in religious practices (as, are, arguably, the roots of every human activity). That doesn't mean that contemporary meditation practices are necessarily religious. Many aren't. So if you're talking about the term "meditation" in general (as we were),…

I think this a fair point - meditation is not a single practice. It is a broad category.

But it also means that we can’t claim that there is an evidence base for the positive effects of meditation, and more than we can for ‘medication’ or ‘food’.

Meditation can be beneficial. Meditation can cause severe problems.

Both are clearly true statements.

The question is - what kinds of meditation are beneficial to whom?

It’s worth noting that the Asian religious traditions had a history of being very selective about who was taught.

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#134

Post by hairofthedawg » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 4:28 PM UTC

dTal wrote: post #26

It's important to bear in mind that meditation is a religious practice specifically aimed at causing ego-death. Yogis writing about the practice (before it became big business) freely admit all sorts of horrible-sounding mental side effects, but couch them in religious terms (and encourage the acolyte to push through until they achieve "enlightenment", which they describe as a profoundly nihilist state of being). Thi…

Pray the Rosary daily. Talk about "ego death".

~JMJ

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#135

Post by viburnum » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 4:29 PM UTC

dx87 wrote: post #39

This is the equivalent of saying exercise is bad because "People who engage in physical activities sometimes experience unwanted muscle soreness and joint pain". Dredging up old repressed emotions is one of the first things I learned about meditation, and you're supposed to learn to deal with them instead of keeping them buried in your head forever.

What percentage of articles about mindfulness tell you that you’re going to recall terrible memories and have to work to overcome them? Do the human resource departments that advocate mindfulness tell employees about this?

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#136

Post by king_panic » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 4:29 PM UTC

Meditation and mindfulness practices reconnect you to your feelings. Fear (anxiety) and apathy (depression) are feelings. We disconnect from them through repression, suppression and escape. To move beyond any obstacle, you must first confront it. I wouldn't let the pain of feeling low vibration emotions discourage your meditation or mindfulness practice. When you confront and accept these painful feelings, there are greater, lighter emotions beyond.

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#137

Post by reify_null » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 4:29 PM UTC

elliekelly wrote: post #111

reify_null wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think its important to note though, that its generally advised against to practice meditation outside of establishing a foundation in virtue/morality. Not that that is stopping anyone (past self included). I would argue that the religious texts are extremely important in grounding the meditation practice in that way. It's very easy to ascribe all kinds of super-natural ideas and beliefs to the stages of insight and…

> I would argue that the religious texts are extremely important in grounding the meditation practice in that way. It's very easy to ascribe all kinds of super-natural ideas and beliefs to the stages of insight Oh the irony.

Why is it ironic? Specifically, I don't make any claims whatsoever, nor do I say that there is anything special about it. To me, its a categorization of experiences which tend to happen when you sit down and do some vipassana meditation. Nothing special about that, it's even reproducable for the most part. Like self-exploration.

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#138

Post by lewispollard » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 4:32 PM UTC

spaetzleesser wrote: post #83

lewispollard wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The free 10 day vipassana retreats are really quite dangerous IMO. They're often attended by complete beginners with no prior knowledge, since they're free and sort of marketed as a boot camp. The actual instruction is given on decades old tapes and videos. The "instructors" there are given explicit instruction not to advise anyone and just get them to listen to the tapes (which are very much steeped in religious Bud…

When I did the 10 day I found it interesting that on the tapes Goenka told stories about how he interacted with people and gave them detailed advice during their sessions with him. But the retreats that are run in his name are totally cookie cutter and you get no individual advice other than basically just to keep going. When I lived in Maryland I attended classes with Tibetan teachers for a few years and they always…

I have been told that the same thing happened to Goenka himself: he and his peers all got personalised advice, and so his particular body scanning method was what worked for him, while his peers were given other techniques. So the dogma of the Goenka method is based on the assumption that you have the same kind of character as Goenka himself.

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#139

Post by viburnum » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 4:34 PM UTC

“Once the researchers had excluded those that had deliberately set out to find negative effects” they did what?

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#140

Post by mtalantikite » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 4:36 PM UTC

Igelau wrote: post #125

mtalantikite wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“which they describe as a profoundly nihilist state of being.” This is very important to point out and I think is actually the big trap when approaching meditative practices. I fell into this nihilism trap when I was starting meditation in college and I abandoned my practice almost completely for the next 10 or so years. It’s very easy to confuse the emptiness of self with the nonexistence of self. The latter is an e…

> It’s very easy to confuse the emptiness of self with the nonexistence of self. I think part of the issue is that the words/concepts really don't translate into modern english well at all. Another example is how frequently the first of the Four Noble Truths is misrepresented as "Life is suffering". We don't have good ways of saying or explaining shunyata or dukkha that preserve the nuance of the concepts. Edit: Thic…

“I think part of the issue is that the words/concepts really don't translate into modern english well at all. Another example is how frequently the first of the Four Noble Truths is misrepresented as "Life is suffering".”

Absolutely, translations are difficult and imprecise, having multiple meanings even in the original Sanskrit or Pāli. Even different lineages place concepts in different categories, like whether or not suffering is one of the three dharma seals or not. Vipassana as taught by the Theravada would say it is, whereas Mahayana and Vajrayana would sometimes say it’s not.

No wonder new meditators get confused when they try to start a practice with all these modern apps and books that avoid teaching any of the lineages!