What about just talking gibberish in your mind?
https://studyfinds.org/buddhist-meditation-christian-tongues...
Repetitive negative thinking associated with cognitive decline in older adults
81–90 of 261 posts
Re: Repetitive negative thinking associated with cognitive decline in older adults
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is likely a byproduct of us being too comfortable now. Not in the "you've got nothing real to worry about!" boomer rethoric kind of way, but in the sense that our baseline for reward has shifted a bit higher. So trauma can still present a very strong negative RL signal, while positive RL signals of similar magnitude become rarer.
Or a byproduct of sustained trauma being more prevalent in modern society. There was a large shift in the way children are raised in the past 100 years, from community to individuality. Entire generations of people whose childhoods prepared them for a world that did not exist by the time they were adults. There is no template for raising children in the new world, and no community to fall back on. Many react with ang…
> Abuse is way more prevalent than most people realize.
Frankly, abuse and childhood trauma has always been a staple of human history. Even in the Bible, so at least a few thousand years ago, physical punishment against children is described. Sexual abuse was rampant as well, the Quran documents marriages at age 9. Wars and all the horrors that came with them were all too common - Europe only got actually peaceful after WW2.
Just ask in your own family if you still got really really old people left alive... they will all report from some uncle, aunt or godknowswhat that just went loony. Or tell horror stories about rape, beatings, bullying...
Nothing is new, the only thing that is new is that abuse gets called out and, at least in some cases, perps get punished.
Re: Repetitive negative thinking associated with cognitive decline in older adults
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is likely a byproduct of us being too comfortable now. Not in the "you've got nothing real to worry about!" boomer rethoric kind of way, but in the sense that our baseline for reward has shifted a bit higher. So trauma can still present a very strong negative RL signal, while positive RL signals of similar magnitude become rarer.
This is probably also evolutionary. Most species, once safe and sated, tend to calm down and relax, or even nap. But we humans suffer from boredom, which tend to agitate us into action even when there is no hunger or threat. Probably the evolutionary adaptation that allowed our particular lineage to overtake (and parhaps wipe out) other competing lines of homonids and develop civilization.
and overtake all other civilizations, and overtake our less workaholic colleagues at work, etc.
Re: Repetitive negative thinking associated with cognitive decline in older adults
#84I have a personal theory (I'm sure it's not a novel one and it probably has a name) that human brains are naturally predisposed to negative thought than positive thought because our brains are essentially evolved prediction engines. And because it is often easier and faster to lose something than gain it (e.g. it is usually less urgent to act on the signs of deer you might want to hunt and eat, than the sign of a tig…
This makes perfect sense People forget that nature only optimizes for sexual reproduction and that’s pretty much it In this case for example, it doesn’t really give a shit about your psychological well being or shaving years off your life because of some negative thought pattern If being on your toes, anxious, paranoid, and always looking over your shoulder keeps you alive and making babies - then as far as the devel…
> People forget that nature only optimizes for sexual reproduction and that’s pretty much it
Common misunderstanding.
Evolution optimizes for system success. Not individual gene propagation. Genomes are not agents with individual goals.
Many species, but especially social animals, have numerous behaviors and traits designed to prompt communal success rather than individual survival and reproduction
Re: Repetitive negative thinking associated with cognitive decline in older adults
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or a byproduct of sustained trauma being more prevalent in modern society. There was a large shift in the way children are raised in the past 100 years, from community to individuality. Entire generations of people whose childhoods prepared them for a world that did not exist by the time they were adults. There is no template for raising children in the new world, and no community to fall back on. Many react with ang…
I have a personal bias but suspect this is more prevalent than it's made out to be since I've both lived through it and have not had much opportunity throughout my life to recognize how the two issues were connected until many years later. I think always-on Internet devices both exposed latent difficulties in home/working life that already existed for many and amplified those same vulnerabilities. You can observe a s…
I've talked about how intergenerational trauma has affected my family before, although I didn't mention it started in 1918 when my great great grandfather killed my great great grandmother in a murder suicide, leaving my great grandmother an orphan who would one day abuse my grandma. [1]
I think there are patterns to abuse regardless of the cause. Abuse is essentially addiction to control or anger (the seven deadly sins are all forms of addiction). The patterns I can see give me hope that it is entirely possible to stop the cycle.
Re: Repetitive negative thinking associated with cognitive decline in older adults
#86> the participants in the Q3 and Q4 groups exhibited lower cognition scores (Q3:β = -0.180, 95%CI -2.849~-0.860; Q4:β = -0.164, 95% -2.611~-0.666) This seems wrong. If "β" is the estimate here (not sure), it should be inside the confidence interval, but is way outside...
Beta is dimensionless, in terms of standard deviations. In their results tables, you can find their unit versions under the column "B". These lie in the centers of the CIs, as expected.
Re: Repetitive negative thinking associated with cognitive decline in older adults
#87I have a personal theory (I'm sure it's not a novel one and it probably has a name) that human brains are naturally predisposed to negative thought than positive thought because our brains are essentially evolved prediction engines. And because it is often easier and faster to lose something than gain it (e.g. it is usually less urgent to act on the signs of deer you might want to hunt and eat, than the sign of a tig…
First of all if negative thinking is associated with cognitive decline and if what you say is also generally true then humans will also be pretty much, in general, be in cognitive decline. Humans all being generally in a state of cognitive decline doesn’t make sense from an evolutionary perspective because natural selection will weed out degraded cognitive performance. So most people won’t be in this state. Anecdotal…
There’s not much evidence of rigorous differences in intelligence across racial groups that could not be explained by environmental and cultural differences. Statistical analysis generally suggests that if there is one, the effect size is small.
The current observed gap is much smaller than gains than have been observed within racial communities over time as a result of environmental changes.
So… no. You don’t have a lot of credible evidence for what you claim is a delusion to doubt. And even the observed effect size disregarding confounding effects is less than individual variation.
Re: Repetitive negative thinking associated with cognitive decline in older adults
#88Is it possible that we're just better at reporting our negative thoughts, not that we have more of them? Or is overthinking the price we pay for analyzing everything?
I think there is not a single person on Earth without repetitive negative thoughts.
Re: Repetitive negative thinking associated with cognitive decline in older adults
#89"Ah, the good old days... when we weren't this dumb"
Re: Repetitive negative thinking associated with cognitive decline in older adults
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
This makes perfect sense People forget that nature only optimizes for sexual reproduction and that’s pretty much it In this case for example, it doesn’t really give a shit about your psychological well being or shaving years off your life because of some negative thought pattern If being on your toes, anxious, paranoid, and always looking over your shoulder keeps you alive and making babies - then as far as the devel…
> People forget that nature only optimizes for sexual reproduction and that’s pretty much it Common misunderstanding. Evolution optimizes for system success. Not individual gene propagation. Genomes are not agents with individual goals. Many species, but especially social animals, have numerous behaviors and traits designed to prompt communal success rather than individual survival and reproduction
That's why it's best to sow plants as close to each other as possible, as they will help each other thrive. Or maybe that leads to famine and disaster, as it usually does when people try to apply their personal political beliefs to nature.