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

11–20 of 185 posts

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

#11

Post by krick »

I surfed through the links quite rapidly, but I haven't seen any description on what exactly exercises they used. "Meditation" is a term so easily abused, you know. There's quite a few schools calling "meditation" something completely different, some techniques almost opposites (quite literally) of each other. Hell, why to talk about different schools when even Zen has both very different zazen and other meditation practices, which all could be commonly referred to as "meditation" by western people!

So I would hope to see some more detailed explanation of what participants were told to do, which I couldn't see somehow. In other case it sounds only a little more meaningful than "Participating in an eight-week doing something program appears to make measurable changes in brain regions associated with memory".

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

#13

Post by KobaQ »

pgrote wrote: post #3

What is the best way to learn how to meditate? Any good resources?

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5B1627ADAF657A2C

The scenery looks a bit odd ... he is sitting on a couch and the studends on the floor, kind of looking up to (admire) the master. But he is in his talks the opposite of a self-salesman.

Anyway, this is very systematic and in itself the best approach I've seen so far. There are practices that need to be done and learned in a specific order.

In this spirit it all starts with the basic step:

Regular time and place! If we fail this, it won't happen! Followed by the other practices (inner dialog, sitting, breathing ... inspecting thoughts later on ...) in the required order.

Really, the best I've seen so far.

Also, very recommended his podcast "Developing Determination for Enlightenment", where he's talking about the paradox of letting go while being determined to aim for enlightenment.

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

#15

Post by ozborn »

kranner wrote: post #10
ozborn wrote: post #4

I think if you are looking for mental self improvement this Havard article may be more appropriate ( http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/regular-exercise-changes-... ). The short summary is exercise . Not only do you get your "better brain", but the rest of your body benefits as well.

Why the implied either/or? Why not do both meditation and exercise?

It's a personal choice. For me there is definitely an implied or because I struggle to make time for exercise as it is. I also prefer almost any form of exercise over meditation. :)

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

#16

Post by kranner »

krick wrote: post #11

I surfed through the links quite rapidly, but I haven't seen any description on what exactly exercises they used. "Meditation" is a term so easily abused, you know. There's quite a few schools calling "meditation" something completely different, some techniques almost opposites (quite literally) of each other. Hell, why to talk about different schools when even Zen has both very different zazen and other meditation p…

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925492710...

Looks like Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), a specific practice developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn.

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

#17

Post by KobaQ »

The goal of meditation is not to get a better brain. As the goal of yoga is not to get a sexy body. These articles and even more the countless yoga ads with young beautiful ladies are really counterproductive from the viewpoint of yoga. They might be helpful from another perspective.

I can't summarize the real goal of yoga properly (meditation is one of the important exercise beside contemplation; the asanas are for preparation only), but it's more to be able to let go of the selfish desires like becoming smarter, getting a sexier body, getting more money, fame, admiring ("Oh, you look so good lately" ... "Yes, you know, I'm doing yoga."). The goal is more to be able to coordinate (not suppress) the desires to avoid doing harm and at the end creating harm for yourself. Meditation gives us insight to where the desires are coming from. Are they essential? Do I need to fullfil them? Or do I need to eat another snickers just because the last one has made my blood sugar go like a rollercoaster?

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

#18

Post by sanswork »

KobaQ wrote: post #17

The goal of meditation is not to get a better brain. As the goal of yoga is not to get a sexy body. These articles and even more the countless yoga ads with young beautiful ladies are really counterproductive from the viewpoint of yoga. They might be helpful from another perspective. I can't summarize the real goal of yoga properly (meditation is one of the important exercise beside contemplation; the asanas are for…

"The goal of meditation for me."

"The goal of yoga for me."

You clearly take the spirituality focused route in your yoga and meditation and thats great for you but you can't proclaim that the only right way to do it is your way and everyone doing it for different reasons is wrong.

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

#19

Post by j42 »

sanswork wrote: post #18
KobaQ wrote: post #17

The goal of meditation is not to get a better brain. As the goal of yoga is not to get a sexy body. These articles and even more the countless yoga ads with young beautiful ladies are really counterproductive from the viewpoint of yoga. They might be helpful from another perspective. I can't summarize the real goal of yoga properly (meditation is one of the important exercise beside contemplation; the asanas are for…

"The goal of meditation for me." "The goal of yoga for me." You clearly take the spirituality focused route in your yoga and meditation and thats great for you but you can't proclaim that the only right way to do it is your way and everyone doing it for different reasons is wrong.

I think he's criticizing the cultural caricature that accompanies any activity becoming mainstream... but perhaps misdirected as the context in which one finds value isn't really important in contrast to value itself. Perhaps the elegance is in how deeply individual a practice it can be (turning the locus of one's awareness inward).

And to the OP, isn't it great that yoga can hold so much value through both a spiritual and physical lens? I think the mental and spiritual component has a lot to offer, but it's hard to claim that someone pursuing a positive activity, regardless of motivation is a bad thing.

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

#20

Post by codyb »

ozborn wrote: post #15
kranner wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why the implied either/or? Why not do both meditation and exercise?

It's a personal choice. For me there is definitely an implied or because I struggle to make time for exercise as it is. I also prefer almost any form of exercise over meditation. :)

I think many people (including Siddhartha or Buddha) used to walk for meditation. If that's the case, and you practiced mindfulness while exercising it might be possible to do both at once.

Often when you hear of great athletes, especially great endurance athletes like Michael Phelps, they talk about how they don't think about the whole X meters or Y miles at once. They focus on performing the next stroke or next step or next pump of the pedal perfectly. This to me, as a layman, sounds similar to the idea of focusing on the next breath as is a common practice during some types of meditation.

When I used to meditate I used to like to let my mind wander, then focus on breathing. Or vice versa. And many people prefer guided meditations.

As there are so many types of meditation I do not see any reason to believe that some types might overlap with exercise quite comfortably. Guided meditations might be more difficult because it would presumably be harder to both focus on the next stroke and focus on the meditation, and I guess that goes as well for the wandering mind meditation (you really don't want to run absentmindedly in NYC where I live, maybe in the country or even suburbia it would be more feasible).

Anyways, I guess to me it doesn't seem like it has to be an either or but could be one activity. If Siddhartha can do it, so can we :-).

I should start running again though, that's great exercise!

Post reply on HN