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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

#291

Post by galaxyLogic »

cmrx64 wrote: post #211
muffinman26 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doctors want money, but that does't mean they're completely useless. I wouldn't want to perform surgery on myself. I recently read "A History of God" by Karen Armstrong, which covers the evolution of religion and various mystical traditions in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. It's a really interesting book and one of the points she brings up is that there are many historical examples of attempts…

what's the background rate on madness in the non-mystical-experimentation population?

Good point. Madness can attack anybody

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#292

Post by ajslater »

coldtea wrote: post #249
xdavidliu wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The core of nihilism is that since the indifferent universe is without meaning humans have to give it meaning. I'm not that familiar with nihilism, but I'm rather surprised that "humans have to give it meaning" is part of the core. That's somewhat non-obvious to me; intuitively I would have expected nihilists to believe that meaning cannot exist. Can you point me toward some sources that say nihilists actually beli…

> Can you point me toward some sources that say nihilists actually believe that humans are capable of creating meaning? That's a big part of existentialism (Sartre, Camus, etc), in which life has no inherent meaning, and it's rather empty existence, and it's up to the person to make any meaning for themselves.

Existentialism's conclusion is often nihilism: Life has no meaning. Absurdism is an extension to that: Yes, but you may create your own.

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#293

Post by uwagar »

NoOneNew wrote: post #272
uwagar wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

new scientist has always stuck me as a science magazine for the alt-right type. full page ads of BMWs on the opening page and some climate change article as well.

Huh... that's super interesting you said that. As a conservative, the entire "magazine" feels more leftist, snowflake to me. Avoiding painful, tough self-responsibility and action in life is what stuck out to me in this. Serious question, other than the capitalism part and climate change stuff, what else makes you think they're alt-right? Maybe also, define what you believe alt-right means. Mostly because everyone ha…

if u let me extrapolate capitalism is alt-right. communal/social is alt-left.

UK is capitalist/imperial with some socialist 'guilt' (think NHS). but when shit hits the fan, they are capitalist. new scientist magazine is pretty much a UK view of the world.

sometimes though i've spotted some awesome articles in new scientist (eg., about mexican chinampas comes to mind), these seem to sneak under their alt-right radar...

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#294

Post by lewispollard »

h0l0cube wrote: post #285
lewispollard wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true, it can depend on the volunteers and the locations of the centres themselves, so it's a bit of a gamble. I've talked to a few of people who've been travelling in Asia and attended Goenka retreats after huge benders, having never meditated before, because "why not, I've got 10 days left on my visa and need to detox". Then the teachers don't speak any English in some cases. Although one person I met who had…

> basically just checking if they do drugs or take medication or not is quite a risk The questions were a bit more probing than that. One question was something like, 'How are your relations with your family?', and I think there were questions about mental history etc. > Also true, to be clear I think that Goenka courses are great resources for people who have sat shorter retreats before or have a long-term, stable p…

It's great that it worked for you, I'm glad :)

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#295

Post by h0l0cube »

lewispollard wrote: post #294
h0l0cube wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> basically just checking if they do drugs or take medication or not is quite a risk The questions were a bit more probing than that. One question was something like, 'How are your relations with your family?', and I think there were questions about mental history etc. > Also true, to be clear I think that Goenka courses are great resources for people who have sat shorter retreats before or have a long-term, stable p…

It's great that it worked for you, I'm glad :)

I didn't say, but yes, the technique did end up work for me with some very tangible positive outcomes :) And I still practice.
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