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Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

newscientist.com

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Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#171

Post by yepguy »

User23 wrote: post #54
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…

>It's important to bear in mind that meditation is a religious practice specifically aimed at causing ego-death. This is true for far Eastern styles of meditation, but it's not true for Christian meditation[1]. It aims to fill the mind rather than to empty it. In general Christian meditation is practiced more by the various Eastern Christian Churches, but there are Western traditions as well. I'm by no means an adept…

I heard once that the Eastern and Western religions have swapped definitions for meditation and contemplation, so that Christian contemplative prayer is analogous to Eastern meditation.

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#172

Post by joquarky »

Pyramus wrote: post #88
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…

> It's important to bear in mind that meditation is a religious practice specifically aimed at causing ego-death. That's a very broad statement given that there are many different types of meditations with different aims, religious/non-religious, with varying degrees of scientific evidence. What I can say is, that mindfulness-based interventions, where meditation usually represents the formal "training" aspect, have…

Exactly. Meditation is just a tool with many uses.

My current use is to create a quiet time for meta-cognition where I can organize my thoughts.

Some people use it to try to let go of thoughts and be mentally still, others might use it as a chance to observe and focus on their senses. There are likely thousands of uses for meditation.

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#173

Post by wrnr »

dTal wrote: post #99
JesseMeyer wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oooooooooooooooooooooohm.

Or "kaaaayyyyyyyy ooooooooooooooooohm" if you want to be zazen a thousand times faster! ducks

Yea, I think a pattern that modulates between two vowels works best, like OoohWaaaOoohm. I think you find this in many religions, for example the call to prayer, but I don't want to be shouting Alla, neighbours will call the police for sure.

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#174

Post by loquor »

silveroriole wrote: post #33
culopatin wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thinking about every aspect of my life in a very deep and logical way is what got me depressed. And what got me out of it was being busy enough that I didn't have time for that.

Yeah, I agree and I don’t understand the parent comment. As far as I know meditation is about NOT ruminating on thoughts, so a happy person surely shouldn’t become depressed by doing it. Sure, for most people, being told to sit in silence and reflect will make them unhappy. What the heck is the benefit of that? A lot of the work I do with CBT is to NOT reflect and ruminate and think about every aspect of my life and…

That's a reasonable perspective. But the parent comment talked about a different kind of thinking. Constantly judgemental thinking is not healthy. If you just sit there meditating, and your idling mind (often) jumps to uncomfortably self-critical and doubtful thoughts, that is an unhealthy mental habit, right?

Here is how meditation can help here. (1) You become okay with having those sort of thoughts - you don't have to flee from them or push them away. (2) You can observe exactly based on what you criticize yourself, or what you feel hung up on. (3) After meditating, with a clear mind, you can rationally consider those matters. "Huh, do I really regret decision? Why does aspect of it bother me now that I notice it?". You can resolve this conflict now.

This is my experience. Besides this, it just feels good to be calm.

> Why would I want to get unhappy again because someone tells me it’s good for me?

I also understand this sentiment. Sometimes if something gives you anxiety or intrusive thoughts, its better to leave it and let it slip by your thoughts rather than to bring it into attention. But even so I want to tell you this - a lot of the benefit of meditation comes not from exercising your cognitive and reasoning abilities, but from just being okay with how things are. It's really that simple.

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#176

Post by hexsprite »

As one begins meditation one becomes more aware of their thoughts and feelings. If one has been suppressing "negative" thoughts and feelings those will start to come to the forefront and may seem overwhelming. As a potential solution the article recommends working with a guided meditation either live with a teacher, or a recorded one. This is a great ideas as one develops the capacity to become comfortable with discomfort.

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#177

Post by oarabbus_ »

dTal wrote: post #20
r34 wrote: post #7

I've been practicing meditation for several years now. The phenomenon described in the article is very obvious to every practitioner - it can happen that for some time you will feel worse (actually I'm surprised that it's only 8%). It is related to psychological mechanisms of repression, which is weakened during meditation practices. That is why during serious meditation retreats (like 10 days vipassana) some people…

>usually has positive effects in the long run Yeah, citation needed for that. Because "people often have meltdowns and need professional therapy" isn't really encouraging.

Are you suggesting that because some percentage of individuals experiences adverse effects, it doesn't help the vast majority of individuals?

Antidepressants such as Zoloft and Prozac are taken by tens of millions of Americans each year, yet both drugs carry a black box warning that they may cause or worsen suicidal thoughts, and both drugs have been shown in scientific studies to worsen depression in some percentage of patients. And manufacturers of both drugs have paid out large sums of money in class-action lawsuits where the drugs were implicated in suicides attempts.

If someone said "SSRIs are useful to treat people with clinical depression" would you simply reply:

>Yeah, citation needed for that. Because "people often have meltdowns and new or worsening suicidal thoughts" isn't really encouraging.

In other words, because thousands of individuals experience worsening depression or suicidal thoughts, you'd doubt that it provides long-term help to the millions who don't experience those effects?

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#178

Post by aarpmcgee »

joquarky wrote: post #172
Pyramus wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's important to bear in mind that meditation is a religious practice specifically aimed at causing ego-death. That's a very broad statement given that there are many different types of meditations with different aims, religious/non-religious, with varying degrees of scientific evidence. What I can say is, that mindfulness-based interventions, where meditation usually represents the formal "training" aspect, have…

Exactly. Meditation is just a tool with many uses. My current use is to create a quiet time for meta-cognition where I can organize my thoughts. Some people use it to try to let go of thoughts and be mentally still, others might use it as a chance to observe and focus on their senses. There are likely thousands of uses for meditation.

Is meditation a means to an end? Is mental stillness or focusing on senses the result of meditation, or meditation itself?

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#179

Post by silveroriole »

loquor wrote: post #174
silveroriole wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I agree and I don’t understand the parent comment. As far as I know meditation is about NOT ruminating on thoughts, so a happy person surely shouldn’t become depressed by doing it. Sure, for most people, being told to sit in silence and reflect will make them unhappy. What the heck is the benefit of that? A lot of the work I do with CBT is to NOT reflect and ruminate and think about every aspect of my life and…

That's a reasonable perspective. But the parent comment talked about a different kind of thinking. Constantly judgemental thinking is not healthy. If you just sit there meditating, and your idling mind (often) jumps to uncomfortably self-critical and doubtful thoughts, that is an unhealthy mental habit, right? Here is how meditation can help here. (1) You become okay with having those sort of thoughts - you don't hav…

CBT gives me the tools to do all of this much quicker. I simply write down anxious or critical thoughts and examine/interrogate them on paper. There seems to be no point in sitting with my eyes closed for twenty minutes when I can effectively chase off a negative thought with paper and pen in five. This also gives me practice with actually changing my thought patterns and building better life habits. I don’t see how focusing on my breath could possibly change my thoughts any more effectively than that.

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#180

Post by jrochkind1 »

"Mindfulness and other types of meditation are usually seen as simple stress-relievers"

That's the first problem. They are powerful "technologies" (okay, that's just a fancy way of saying "tools") of mind and self, not "simple stress-relievers".

Possible "negative" outcomes are not unknown in the cultures that originated these tools. Any powerful tool will have some potential metaphorical sharp edges.

Over 20 years ago, I took a yoga and meditation class (before or near the beginning of the U.S. cultural rise of non-spiritual "mindfulness"), and the instructor told us on the first class, something like:

"Sometimes people doing these techniques can experience odd things. You might have a negative reaction. Or see or experience something odd or scary. Or even think you are interacting with scary beings who aren't there or another plane of existence or something. I don't say this to scare you, it doesn't happen to many people. But so you can recognize it if it does, and just come talk to me. It happens sometime, it's not a big deal, but it's important you come talk to me if it does, left unattended/unguided it can become a big deal."

Because there are teachings/techniques from the traditions these tools orginate in to deal with some the sometimes negative effects too, that were also developed over generations in tandem with the tools. This is the danger of extracting "mindfulness" from it's cultural context, as just a "simple stress-reliever".

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