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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

#91

Post by fourthchakra »

mailshanx wrote: post #90
fourthchakra wrote: post #89

One of the biggest publishers of meditation products is MindValley ( http://mindvalley.com ). The story of its founder, Vishen is well documented, and really inspiring. He bootstrapped and grew his business to seven figures without external funds. His purpose is not only monetary; he seeks to "push humanity forward" with his groundbreaking programs.

That MindValley guy seems shady at best. After digging around their site for hours, you will be hard pressed to figure out exactly what do they do.

Not difficult at all - for example, Omharmonics is a set of mp3s based on brainwave entrainment that aid meditation. About $100 for five songs, which sounds expensive, but if they do what they claim to do then it's a downright bargain.

Re: What Happens to the Brain When You Meditate

#92

Post by congohack »

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 benefits of meditation is well documented. In fact, a Scientific American article published Oster's research papers on brainwave entrainment in aiding meditation way back in July 1973 - http://neuroactivator.com/blog/brainwave-entrainment/

There are dubious claims about the benefits of meditation floating around though. I've seen a business peddling a "meditation-based program" which claims to cure cancer. Made me sick to the stomach.

Re: What Happens to the Brain When You Meditate

#93

Post by lutusp »

congohack wrote: post #92
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 benefits of meditation is well documented. In fact, a Scientific American article published Oster's research papers on brainwave entrainment in aiding meditation way back in July 1973 - http://neuroactivator.com/blog/brainwave-entrainment/ There are dubious claims about the benefits of meditation floating around though. I've seen a business peddling a "meditation-based program" which claims to cure cancer. Made m…

> I've seen a business peddling a "meditation-based program" which claims to cure cancer.

That's more than shocking and depressing -- i's often illegal. If a person makes such a claim within the covers of a book, it's legal, but if he makes the claim as part of an advertisement, promotion or speech, he can be prosecuted for (among other things) practicing medicine without a license.

Re: What Happens to the Brain When You Meditate

#94

Post by Simon321 »

Volpe wrote: post #84
Simon321 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, e…

Umm... what about non "Transcendental Meditation"? Or are you just finding one perceived misuse and applying it to everything? (Does skepdic.com have an entry on that particular fallacy?)

TM is one of the most widely practiced, and among the most widely researched meditation techniques.[7][8][9] Source: Wikipedia

So it just makes sense to talk about that one. The others ones aren't really researched that well. Which variation would you prefer?

Re: What Happens to the Brain When You Meditate

#95

Post by Simon321 »

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #75
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...

Please get lost with your shallow unscientific attitudes that are devoid of any critical thinking or logic. Yes, people with Nobel prizes, intelligent people, professors, scientists are being fooolish while you with a blog have disproved all of them. Huzzah. Life Pro Tip: If a bunch of people smarter than you believe in something, maybe it is time to stop and critically think.

In this post, i give more information:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6284735

Re: What Happens to the Brain When You Meditate

#96

Post by Simon321 »

mbrock wrote: post #48
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...

Do you derive "mostly of dubious quality" from this angry blogger's "I've read some of these studies?" These anti-quackery people aren't really operating in full scientific rigor mode.

For more information, see my post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6284735

Re: What Happens to the Brain When You Meditate

#97

Post by mbrock »

Simon321 wrote: post #94
Volpe wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Umm... what about non "Transcendental Meditation"? Or are you just finding one perceived misuse and applying it to everything? (Does skepdic.com have an entry on that particular fallacy?)

TM is one of the most widely practiced, and among the most widely researched meditation techniques.[7][8][9] Source: Wikipedia So it just makes sense to talk about that one. The others ones aren't really researched that well. Which variation would you prefer?

If you're going to call meditation a "scam," it's your responsibility to survey the field and know what you're talking about.

Re: What Happens to the Brain When You Meditate

#98

Post by _ofiv »

psteinweber wrote: post #50
miloshadzic wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tip: Try to keep your eyes open. Closing your eyes makes it easier to become slouched, wander off and fall asleep. I agree wholeheartedly with the rest of your post.

Many traditional meditation techniques recommend closing the eyes. For the reason that visual stimulation takes up >75% of our perception. Closing the eyes automatically makes it harder for our mind to wander off. Still hard enough, but at least you won't be distracted by those nice lights on the wall (or similar).

There are many traditions that also have an eyes-open approach. I'm constantly amazed by this propagation in the West of the idea that meditation has anything to do with the mind 'wandering off' (or not wandering off, e.g. extreme concentration or 'awareness' as is the current buzzword).

This is unfortunate because it tends to make practice feel difficult, as our minds naturally wander, and then come back, etc. People connect their perceived success at this with their experience of practice, and quit or go off on very strange and contrived tangents. The notion of success/failure is typically irrelevant in many traditional meditation practices.

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