Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Meditation study shows changes associated with awareness, stress (2011)

news.harvard.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 185 posts

Re: Meditation study shows changes associated with awareness, stress (2011)

#91

Post by CWIZO »

thenomad wrote: post #89
CWIZO wrote: post #53

Does anyone have any experience with meditation and RSI? I've been having RSI(like) problems for almost 3 years now. Recently I've read the Mindbody Prescription book[0] after finding this HN thread[1]. I must say it did help somewhat but I think I'm still in the process of healing myself. The bit I'm struggling is uncovering suppressed feelings and emotions. So I'm wondering wether meditation would help here. Any th…

Yes, I do. I've not found meditation to be an absolute silver bullet for RSI in the same way that I found appropriate stretches, trigger point therapy, and Pilates to be. However, it's definitely extremely useful, and if your RSI stems from anxiety or similar issues, it's very good for treating the underlying causes. For uncovering suppressed feelings and thoughts, my personal recommendation would be to go for a good…

How does that work, going to a therapist? He knows how to ask the right questions? How many sessions did you have to go to? I don't have massive amounts of money unfortunately.

Re: Meditation study shows changes associated with awareness, stress (2011)

#92

Post by applecore »

redmaverick wrote: post #23

There are different types of meditation styles. I had experience with a type of meditation mentioned in the article. It is known as mindfulness meditation. Even in mindfulness meditation there are different approaches. Mine is mindfulness through the awareness of bodily sensations. http://www.dhamma.org/ This is the 10 day course I underwent. It is pretty brutal and intense. You meditate for 8 hrs a day in total sile…

Thank you for sharing your experience. If you're new to mindfulness meditation, you shouldn't even consider a hardcore, 10-day Vipassana retreat—you should begin by meditating for 20–30 minutes a day at home.

Re: Meditation study shows changes associated with awareness, stress (2011)

#93

Post by dominotw »

redmaverick wrote: post #23

There are different types of meditation styles. I had experience with a type of meditation mentioned in the article. It is known as mindfulness meditation. Even in mindfulness meditation there are different approaches. Mine is mindfulness through the awareness of bodily sensations. http://www.dhamma.org/ This is the 10 day course I underwent. It is pretty brutal and intense. You meditate for 8 hrs a day in total sile…

Isn't it strange that people are using meditation to make more money, achieve material success, perpetuation of "self". The very idea of self that meditation is supposed to examine.

I will never understand western obsession with finding meaning in everything materially. Idea that if it doesn't give you something in return then its meaningless.

Re: Meditation study shows changes associated with awareness, stress (2011)

#94

Post by radva42 »

scrapcode wrote: post #79
radva42 wrote: post #54

I have been practicing mindfulness meditation for the last 14 months - 30 minutes, everyday and I have to say that it has been virtually the most important skill that I have picked up. Because it's essentailly that - a skill. I was very stressed and the anxiety started to affect virtually every aspect of my life. My family wanted me to seek professional help (take pills), but I decided to try to take care of it mysel…

Your comment is great because I understand it. I've read up on meditation a little here, a little there. It was difficult for me to understand at first. What is meditation? What is the point? What happens when I do it right? When can I tell I'm doing it right? I just completely didn't understand it, and I couldn't find an explanation in any of the books that I read. I was making it out to be very complex. Then I actu…

Well, I wouldn't say that I can control it better. These reactions are way too primitive to be consciously controlled. I simply do not get triggered by the same situations any more ... maybe the mind becomes more resilient and thus the "grounded" and "calm" feelings. There are some pretty good explanations about how mindfulness actually works and how it causes the amygdala (the brain region responsible for emotional reactions) to literally shrink and be less reactive (google it, really interesting stuff). Imagine it this way - you are in a situation, which normally causes you severe anxiety. You start feeling the unpleasant physical sensations, the obsessive thoughts come aaaand ... they simply pass. Like 2 minutes later you don't even remember that you were having them. This is what started to happen to me after 6-7 months of practice. Another thing that I have noticed: The need to mentally rehearse situations, which cause me anxiety, has disappeared. I used to waste a lot of time imagining what I would say, what would happen, etc. but the urge to do it is not there any more.

Re: Meditation study shows changes associated with awareness, stress (2011)

#95

Post by kamakazizuru »

applecore wrote: post #92
redmaverick wrote: post #23

There are different types of meditation styles. I had experience with a type of meditation mentioned in the article. It is known as mindfulness meditation. Even in mindfulness meditation there are different approaches. Mine is mindfulness through the awareness of bodily sensations. http://www.dhamma.org/ This is the 10 day course I underwent. It is pretty brutal and intense. You meditate for 8 hrs a day in total sile…

Thank you for sharing your experience. If you're new to mindfulness meditation, you shouldn't even consider a hardcore, 10-day Vipassana retreat—you should begin by meditating for 20–30 minutes a day at home.

Don't see why this should be the case. I got into MM through a similar Vipassana Course and there couldn't have been a better start for me. Only meditating in this style for 10 days did a few things for me that 20-30 minutes a day would not have helped with : 1 - It helped me understand the power of this sort of meditation 2 - It REALLY motivated me to keep at it ever after I left 3 - I got to learn how to meditate properly as opposed to trying something on my own for 30 minutes a day without someone to guide me through it

Honestly it wasn't as brutal as people would like to think - all you need is an open mind.

Re: Meditation study shows changes associated with awareness, stress (2011)

#96

Post by up_and_up »

applecore wrote: post #92
redmaverick wrote: post #23

There are different types of meditation styles. I had experience with a type of meditation mentioned in the article. It is known as mindfulness meditation. Even in mindfulness meditation there are different approaches. Mine is mindfulness through the awareness of bodily sensations. http://www.dhamma.org/ This is the 10 day course I underwent. It is pretty brutal and intense. You meditate for 8 hrs a day in total sile…

Thank you for sharing your experience. If you're new to mindfulness meditation, you shouldn't even consider a hardcore, 10-day Vipassana retreat—you should begin by meditating for 20–30 minutes a day at home.

It's like "I've never run before, hey let's go run a marathon right now."

I recommend starting with 15-20 sessions once a day. Just like a startup, you can always attempt to scale things up later once you get a handle on things.

Re: Meditation study shows changes associated with awareness, stress (2011)

#97

Post by danielbln »

dodyg wrote: post #70
radva42 wrote: post #54

I have been practicing mindfulness meditation for the last 14 months - 30 minutes, everyday and I have to say that it has been virtually the most important skill that I have picked up. Because it's essentailly that - a skill. I was very stressed and the anxiety started to affect virtually every aspect of my life. My family wanted me to seek professional help (take pills), but I decided to try to take care of it mysel…

I've been meditating on and off for the past 30 years. For people trying out, there's no need to do it everyday. Don't be stressed out with missing out on your meditation schedule. Meditate when you can. It's not a race. There is no sculpted body to show off after rigorous workout regime at the gym. It's just for yourself.

I'd argue, that meditation works best when treated like learning to play an instrument or doing sports. Regular practice is where the most benefit can be reaped. Doesn't have to be every single day, but it should be regular. Don't do it once a blue moon and expect any tangible benefits.

Re: Meditation study shows changes associated with awareness, stress (2011)

#98

Post by burke »

It's always funny watching peoples' reaction to meditation as a means to an end. People want to meditate for cognitive benefits, but meditation purportedly teaches that meditation should not be done for any particular benefit.

I think the real source of this dissonance is Zen, which tends to center around elimination the ego, or the sense of self. Doing this type of meditation for any sort of benefit seem incongruous, since you're practicing elimination of self with the intention of improving the self.

There are a lot of kinds of meditation though. The weird paradoxical component is kinda unique to Zen, AFAIK. A lot of styles are quite comfortable with the idea of meditating for cognitive benefit.

Even with Zen, I don't think it's incongruous to practice selflessness via Zen in the moment with the intention of applying that skill in other moments to benefit you in various ways.

Re: Meditation study shows changes associated with awareness, stress (2011)

#99

Post by szx »

frabbit wrote: post #90

16 participants in the study! Neuro-imaging bolloxology. Meditation might be pleasant, but this is a pretty poor piece of science reporting.

That's actually a pretty common study size in neuro-imaging/fMRI studies. You may still disagree with the statistical validity of the findings, but there's nothing unusual about this specific study in that regard.

Re: Meditation study shows changes associated with awareness, stress (2011)

#100

Post by fsloth »

Meditation seems to sound really weird to lot of people but the zen breathing exercises I've done are mechanical and completely devoid of mystical culturally relative concepts.

Simple introductory exercise in meditation for those unfamiliar with it. No mystical chanting required. The only caveat is that it can be as boring as hell. I'm not an expert but this should contain the essentials of a simple zen practice:

Equipment: timer and a comfortable place to sit without interruptions

Time: 10 minutes (or 5, whatever you feel like but try to commit to the timespan you choose). Put the time on the timer.

1. Sit down. The position should be stable so you don't fidget around.

2. Get a good posture: keep you back straight

3. Concentrate on your breathing. Keep breathing slow and deep breaths

4. Count your breaths, mentally, from one to ten, starting from one on exhale, two on inhale etc until you reach ten and go back to one.

5.Start the timer

Proceed until timer runs out.

Try to maintain this: sit still, back straight, rythmic breathing, count each breath.

You may observe thoughts arising. Observe the thoughts but do not get lost in them. You will notice you have been lost in your thoughts because you loose count of your breaths, at which point you just start counting from one. Do not try to block the thoughts.

If you can keep complete count throughout the entire span on first try then that's great!

Any weird sensations you might get are just pointless disruptions created by your mind.

Post reply on HN