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What Happens to the Brain When You Meditate

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Re: What Happens to the Brain When You Meditate

#61

Post by smk11 »

mail2gaurav wrote: post #30

The app is just to help you to get into a rhythm. I downloaded the app and really liked the user flow. Will definitely use to begin my meditation. In my experience, I have seen a sea change in people who have started meditating. They are much more calmer and happy. There is a flip side as well. Many people get into a happy mode and start giving up in life.

I think those people are the ones who are getting into in an extreme way, for long periods at a time. And if they are "giving up on life", then they are probably using the euphoria it can cause to hide their problems the same way people use drugs or religion.

Re: What Happens to the Brain When You Meditate

#62

Post by smk11 »

dodyg wrote: post #17

You don't need no fucking App to start. Sit down in comfortable position, close your eyes, try to concentrate on your breathing in and out (your mind will start to wander - keep coming back to the breathing). Repeat everyday. You'll have the chance to "optimize" and "improve" your meditation experience later on. First, build the habit.

I agree. Relying on an app and voice guide is a bad idea. You are supposed to not concentrate on anything, except for breathing, and having a voice guide would take away from that.

Re: What Happens to the Brain When You Meditate

#63

Post by VLM »

agentultra wrote: post #57

I'm skeptical of articles like this because they tend to draw conclusions from studies that only provide weak correlations. The only concrete evidence I can find is that meditation can help some people relax and temporarily reduce their stress levels. My experience confirms this but I prefer other means of achieving the same effect (like exercising).

"I prefer other means of achieving the same effect (like exercising)."

Other than the obvious muscle workout aspect, I found weightlifting to be highly meditative. Highly structured repeated form every other day, breath control, counting reps/sets, stare at the wall, repeat.

I do a fair amount of hiking / snowshoeing and that can be somewhat meditative. If you relax as you stroll down the trail and let your mind wander intentionally into pure nothingness rather than getting stuck on something specific...

My wife does Tai Chi and from what I see from the outside and from occasionally playing long, its basically slowly moving meditation.

Obviously if you define exercise as "soccer" or "bouldering" then this analogy is not going to work terribly well.

Re: What Happens to the Brain When You Meditate

#64

Post by trendoid »

smk11 wrote: post #62
dodyg wrote: post #17

You don't need no fucking App to start. Sit down in comfortable position, close your eyes, try to concentrate on your breathing in and out (your mind will start to wander - keep coming back to the breathing). Repeat everyday. You'll have the chance to "optimize" and "improve" your meditation experience later on. First, build the habit.

I agree. Relying on an app and voice guide is a bad idea. You are supposed to not concentrate on anything, except for breathing, and having a voice guide would take away from that.

Although I cant speak for myself, I dont think this is a universal feeling since my friend exactly wants some one to guide her through. Alone, its easier for her to get distracted and bored but when someone's calm voice guides her through the practice, she can focus on breathing much longer.

Re: What Happens to the Brain When You Meditate

#65

Post by VLM »

Simon321 wrote: post #29

Meditation, such a scam. I can't believe so many intelligent people are fooled by it. It's nothing more than a relaxation technique and that's it. The studies about meditation are mostly of dubious quality and origin, and people draw unwarranted conclusions from them. http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/08/21/quacks-eve...

The specific location of the fallacy demonstrated is probably in the definition of meditation as relaxation. Probably a better definition would be something along the lines of practicing a mix of self discipline and self awareness introspection.

Re: What Happens to the Brain When You Meditate

#66

Post by auto »

lcedp wrote: post #19

> More grey matter Well as study shows [1] meditation not only thickens cortex in some parts of the brain but also makes it thinner in other parts. Just saying. [1] http://scan.oxfordjournals.org/content/8/1/27.long

In the same vein as what everyone else is saying, perhaps what's being thinned out could be related to the types of activity within the brain that meditation seeks to ease, the racing of thoughts, short attention span, etc.

Re: What Happens to the Brain When You Meditate

#67

Post by VLM »

markbao wrote: post #6

Is reducing beta waves actually a good thing? It might allow for focus and relaxation, but I wonder if that might do something like clear your working memory and make you less able to make connections between things. Could anyone that has a good grasp on this comment on whether this might be true?

"I wonder if that might do something like clear your working memory and make you less able to make connections between things."

Your list is sometimes in internal conflict with itself. I have excellent conscious concentration ability and food memory leading to sometimes getting stuck in local maxima for a given situation. Clear the working memory, remove the "stuck" and suddenly free to snap onto the global maxima for a given situation. Or sometimes not. Complex tools are not like screwdriver; sometimes you can't even tell what the right tool for the job is, much less expect it to work. Often enough, using a different tool works better than trying harder with one thats already not working.

Re: What Happens to the Brain When You Meditate

#68

Post by lake99 »

svasan wrote: post #16

I belong to a religious group where initiation into meditation happens at about 10-12 years of age for boys. This initiation ceremony is an important ceremony (called thread ceremony) in a male's life. After initiation, every male has to perform a ritual called Sandhya Vandanam [1] thrice every day for the rest of their lives. The ritual has different components. The two important components are Praanaayamaa (breath…

As far as I know, sandhyavandana is not a kind of meditation. Sandhyavadana is mostly japa. Meditation is dhyana. When people cite benefits of meditation, they are usually citing studies of mindfulness meditation. Perhaps you'll see some benefits from sandhyavandana/japa also, I doubt it, but that's not what the studies that laud meditation are talking about.

Re: What Happens to the Brain When You Meditate

#69

Post by VLM »

Sagat wrote: post #55

If you are interested in meditation but wary of the eastern mumbo jumbo, I suggest checking out Jon Kabat-Zinn and his works on mindfulness from a scientific perspective.

Not to put words in your mouth but staying on topic you probably want his book titled "The Mind's Own Physician" in comparison to his book on mindfulness as applied to parenting, or his other books. He has written quite a few books on related topics.

He may have (recently?) written a book more specifically on topic than the one abov,e that I'm not aware of.

Re: What Happens to the Brain When You Meditate

#70

Post by Simon321 »

Volpe wrote: post #37
Simon321 wrote: post #29

Meditation, such a scam. I can't believe so many intelligent people are fooled by it. It's nothing more than a relaxation technique and that's it. The studies about meditation are mostly of dubious quality and origin, and people draw unwarranted conclusions from them. http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/08/21/quacks-eve...

Oh well.. you have a blog to backup what your are saying... pro-meditation "quacks" have been told! Internet: 1 Meditation: 0 I think you have to pause and reflect for a minute when you say things like: "I can't believe so many intelligent people are fooled by it". Maybe they aren't the ones being foolish... ?

I think, just like a religion, it's not really the skeptics job to 'disprove' the theory. I think the job of the ones promoting it is to prove it.

A link to skeptics dictionary: http://www.skepdic.com/tm.html

TM recruiting literature is full of charts and graphs demonstrating the wonders of TM. Things like metabolic rate, oxygen consumption rate, bodily production of carbon dioxide, hormone production, brain waves, etc. are measured and charted and graphically presented to suggest that TM really takes a person to a new state of consciousness. Some of the studies done by TM scientists simply show that some of the same physiological results you can achieve by relaxing completely are achievable by TM. Nevertheless, according to TM advocates, tests have shown that TM produces "neurophysiological signatures that are distinctly different from relaxation and rest "[Judy Stein, personal correspondence]. Critics disagree.* The particular value of these physiological changes one can achieve by meditation have not been shown to be unique to transcendental meditation.

EDIT: Another interesting read: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/2013/03/08/r...

"The Transcendental Meditation movement publishes scores of "peer-reviewed" articles in minor journals attempting to prove the medical benefits of their seated chanting. Reputable studies show that there are, however , no benefits beyond standard relaxation techniques." Source:http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Transcendental_Meditation

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