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Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

newscientist.com

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Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#191

Post by blablabla123 »

dTal wrote: post #26

It's important to bear in mind that meditation is a religious practice specifically aimed at causing ego-death. Yogis writing about the practice (before it became big business) freely admit all sorts of horrible-sounding mental side effects, but couch them in religious terms (and encourage the acolyte to push through until they achieve "enlightenment", which they describe as a profoundly nihilist state of being). Thi…

I think all this is over-interpreting a really harmless practice. Meditation is the only activity that deterministically lifts my mood and decreases pondering. I seriously doubt that sitting still for half an hour trying not to think of anything could destroy my ego or anything. (Most people probably would stop before, that's why it's possible to do a bunch of short different meditations subsequently, so it doesn't get boring.)

In fact there is scientific evidence that meditation and professional sports are the only activities that strengthen a person's will. I guess with sufficient motivation it's possible to find a study that claims anything.

> anti-. Scientists will hold an open mind, but "gurus" who charge money for fancy retreats will insist in its value without evidence.

I went for half a year every week to a free meditation meetup. The guy holding the meetup was the most relaxed person I have ever encountered in my life. Apparently he has has been travelling extensively to Japan and lived happily next to a Railway station. (Some people would go crazy living there with all the noises) For me he was the living proof this stuff actually works.

No need for Gurus here, although it's surely possible to get scammed like with everything. Probably one should get suspicious when the meditation is expensive or at a remote place.

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#192

Post by blaser-waffle »

troughway wrote: post #65
NoOneNew wrote: post #63

Yea... you know, surgery is extremely painful. It can sometimes be worse than whatever is the reason you're getting cut open. The recovery period is a nightmare too sometimes. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. Non-religious meditation is sort of the same for your psyche. You bring things to light that have been plaguing you in the background. Once in the light, you have to painfully deal with it. Make peace with…

Your ire is misplaced. This article is talking about the minority of people for whom meditation does the opposite of what it's supposed to do. This reminds me of study done where, again, a small percentage of people who were exposed to sounds that are typically used to reduce anxiety had the opposite effect to. I am trying to dig up this study but it was posted to HN close to a decade ago, so who knows what happened…

I mean I've known people who took LSD and instead of a fun trippy experience they had a really bad time. Totally shook them up.

In the long run it was good for them, spooked them enough to stay away from drugs permanently and, ultimately, turn their life around.

Meditation, like LSD, is only going to get you to a place -- what you find there is on you. If you blot out all distractions and look deep inside yourself... you may not like what you see. If you get someone with deep seated, repressed anxiety and make them bring it to the fore via meditation it's not going to make them less anxious, it's just going to make it more noticeable.

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#194

Post by dhimes »

inv13 wrote: post #166
submeta wrote: post #154

Mindfulness meditation is not about negating ego, but about observing, seeing what is in front of you, not judging, it is about perspective, about patience (sitting in silence, not running after every thought or desire you have), about learning to be gentle and patient with yourself and others. It is about waking up to your current reality, to the present moment. About coming from an illusionary state of mind to an a…

A well written short summary. +1 :) I learned that trying to explain this topic to others is like forbidden fruit. Unless asked for. But I am going to write some anyways, because this why we are at this forum anyways. There is no thing like ego, its not somebody. That's the problem itself. Its just your mind, which is forgotten that its just your tool given to you to put it to good use. And than there is something el…

Spoiler alert: The whole realization is that the entire concept of you is artificial. The idea that there is an ever-present unchanging thing called "you" is fairly straightforward for the uninitiated to grasp. The idea that there is no "you" separate from "me" is harder— by a lot.

What attracted me to it was how well it blended in with our modern ideas in physics. Not just the idea that a wavefunction never dies to zero (unless there is a truly infinite potential somewhere), and that we are part of a large many-body system. But also the idea of the big-bang at the universes (re-?)conception: That spacetime itself started at a point and expanded. It is one thing- a big blob of clay- out of which lumps are formed. One is you and one is me. But we are connected. Your existence would be different if I didn't exist.

To kill the ego is to come to an intuitive understanding of this- by being aware and present.

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#195

Post by dhimes »

mtalantikite wrote: post #116
dTal wrote: post #26

It's important to bear in mind that meditation is a religious practice specifically aimed at causing ego-death. Yogis writing about the practice (before it became big business) freely admit all sorts of horrible-sounding mental side effects, but couch them in religious terms (and encourage the acolyte to push through until they achieve "enlightenment", which they describe as a profoundly nihilist state of being). Thi…

“which they describe as a profoundly nihilist state of being.” This is very important to point out and I think is actually the big trap when approaching meditative practices. I fell into this nihilism trap when I was starting meditation in college and I abandoned my practice almost completely for the next 10 or so years. It’s very easy to confuse the emptiness of self with the nonexistence of self. The latter is an e…

You might find my comment above to be relevant to yours.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24191507

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#196

Post by TimTheTinker »

kumarvvr wrote: post #123
Pyramus wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's important to bear in mind that meditation is a religious practice specifically aimed at causing ego-death. That's a very broad statement given that there are many different types of meditations with different aims, religious/non-religious, with varying degrees of scientific evidence. What I can say is, that mindfulness-based interventions, where meditation usually represents the formal "training" aspect, have…

> there are many different types of meditations I am really curious about the origins of these "types". Who actually came up with these things? The concept of meditation has its origins in Hindu scriptures. However, now, it seems to have become a fad, with charlatans and marketers overwhelmingly using it to scam people. I see the same with the so called "yoga". But I have an open mind. There might be actual research…

> The concept of meditation has its origins in Hindu scriptures.

That's overloading the word meditation unnecessarily. There are decidedly non-Hindu forms of meditation that people around the world practice.

One example is Christian meditation as described in the Bible, which takes an antithetic form to Hindu meditation: the goal is to "meditate" on specific doctrines or scriptures from the Bible. The idea is that there is a definite "content" upon which one meditates: the practitioner fills the mind instead of attempting to empty it or focus attention on the self. A common illustration is that of an animal chewing the cud; and (iirc) the Hebrew word for "meditate" comes from the term for cows chewing the cud.

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#197

Post by Mo3 »

lewispollard wrote: post #77
yomly wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never sat down and properly given meditation a go. That said I have encountered it in various walks - through yoga, martial arts and casual meditation sessions. What benefits would you describe you feeling from getting past beginner stage?

For me, having practised for around 6 years now, I can sum it up as the acceptance of reality as it is. Some valuable thing in my house breaks? Well, that's just what happens to things. There's very little resistance to what's going on even if it's painful. There's also a strong sense that the self/world boundary is constructed, and I can see that construction happening in my mind in real-time. This has led to greate…

Hey, I‘m at the point where you are.

Nothing to add, just good to see I‘m still not insane and all the best to you.

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#198

Post by pvarangot »

mtalantikite wrote: post #116
dTal wrote: post #26

It's important to bear in mind that meditation is a religious practice specifically aimed at causing ego-death. Yogis writing about the practice (before it became big business) freely admit all sorts of horrible-sounding mental side effects, but couch them in religious terms (and encourage the acolyte to push through until they achieve "enlightenment", which they describe as a profoundly nihilist state of being). Thi…

“which they describe as a profoundly nihilist state of being.” This is very important to point out and I think is actually the big trap when approaching meditative practices. I fell into this nihilism trap when I was starting meditation in college and I abandoned my practice almost completely for the next 10 or so years. It’s very easy to confuse the emptiness of self with the nonexistence of self. The latter is an e…

The ego-death experience that meditation usually leads you to also strongly seeds the feeling that other consciousness are "unreachable" and therefore should be left as alone as possible while it reaches it's own enlightenment. I think it's a very narrow view of a richer theory like Jungian individuation.

That being said you can have a non-nihilistic ego-death or medidate only until your more intrusive thoughts "go away" without you loosing your complete identity, that's kind of like a scientific fact. Of course if you get "addicted" to it or start chasing the "ego-death" experience it can be harmful.

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#199

Post by friedman23 »

mtalantikite wrote: post #116
dTal wrote: post #26

It's important to bear in mind that meditation is a religious practice specifically aimed at causing ego-death. Yogis writing about the practice (before it became big business) freely admit all sorts of horrible-sounding mental side effects, but couch them in religious terms (and encourage the acolyte to push through until they achieve "enlightenment", which they describe as a profoundly nihilist state of being). Thi…

“which they describe as a profoundly nihilist state of being.” This is very important to point out and I think is actually the big trap when approaching meditative practices. I fell into this nihilism trap when I was starting meditation in college and I abandoned my practice almost completely for the next 10 or so years. It’s very easy to confuse the emptiness of self with the nonexistence of self. The latter is an e…

Why are we saying nihilism is bad?

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#200

Post by pessimizer »

stabbles wrote: post #104

Today on Hacker News: "Not everyone needs 8 hours of sleep: new research" and "Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety". Or more generally: "Exceptions to the rule exist". What's the value of these articles?

Self-improvement clickbait works as well on HN as anywhere else. I do think that all of the orthorexic diet stuff has been downmodded over the last year or two, though (or the OCD weather in silicon valley has shifted.) It's been worse.
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