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Putting meditation to the test (2011)

newscientist.com

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Re: Putting meditation to the test (2011)

#21

Post by qrendel »

niccaluim wrote: post #18
qrendel wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really "no harm done" - the opportunity cost of wasting time that could be spent on other activities is a deterrent, for me at least.

No disrespect intended, but somehow I doubt you're minimizing your opportunity cost every minute of every day. You've got ten minutes to spare. It takes repeated practice, but after a time I think you'll notice results.

True, but spending time meditating would inevitably be reducing something else - even if it's just an equivalent of goofing off on HN.

If you enjoy meditating, or think there's a sufficiently high chance of benefits from it, you won't mind. But if you remain sufficiently unconvinced, why spend time on it when you could enjoy more free time instead, just because someone else is convinced there is value in it? To me it seems less an interesting thing I'm eager to try, and more a new chore or exercise I'd have to take up, so the time spent wouldn't be taken straight out of the activities with the least utility - more likely out of "daily/weekly maintenance habits" time. So it would really need to be more effective than whatever I usually would have done instead. If I'm going to spend an extra 10 minutes/day on a new habit, is meditation going to be the most effective one?

It's a similar argument to why I wouldn't spend an hour a week going to church, just because someone else thought it would benefit me with little downside risk. Sure, it might, but I'd need more convincing before I decided to put the time in.

Re: Putting meditation to the test (2011)

#23

Post by zuck9 »

Meditation is not pseudoscience, this topic has been brought up multiple times in HN: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=meditation https://hn.algolia.com/?q=mindfulness

If you read the HN threads you will find countless people talking about how meditation has helped them from their personal experiences.

Meditation has a lot of benefits and the results have been scientifically validated by different groups of researchers: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0005789407... http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00845519 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1361002/ http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/01/eight-weeks-to...

A recent research even showed that meditation is more powerful than a placebo: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10789738

If you are still skeptical, watch this video by Dan Harris, a skeptical news reporter turned meditation evangelist, it convinced me to meditate everyday and I think it'll convince you too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAcTIrA2Qhk

Re: Putting meditation to the test (2011)

#24

Post by mbrock »

Tharkun wrote: post #5
papapra wrote: post #2

I'm curious if these scientists try to make the connection between the flow and the focused attention meditation. It seems to me that by trying to meditate, you are actually trying to get to the state of flow.

I don't think so. Flow makes you blind to everything that is arround you. It's pretty much hyper-focused tunnel vision. "Mindfulness" meditation, on the other hand, gives you a very wide awareness. Of yourself and of your environment. Not just on the task at hand. At least that's how I see it.

Meditation is not a unitary practice. There are important forms of meditation that involve extreme concentration on a single object, inducing unimaginably strong "tunnel vision."

For an obvious example, consider the kasina practice of old-school Theravada Buddhism.

http://web.archive.org/web/20031230220324/http://www.birken....

Breath concentration is done in a similar way, but with the sensation of the breath as the object of fixation rather than a colored disc.

Re: Putting meditation to the test (2011)

#25

Post by mbrock »

qrendel wrote: post #21
niccaluim wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No disrespect intended, but somehow I doubt you're minimizing your opportunity cost every minute of every day. You've got ten minutes to spare. It takes repeated practice, but after a time I think you'll notice results.

True, but spending time meditating would inevitably be reducing something else - even if it's just an equivalent of goofing off on HN. If you enjoy meditating, or think there's a sufficiently high chance of benefits from it, you won't mind. But if you remain sufficiently unconvinced, why spend time on it when you could enjoy more free time instead, just because someone else is convinced there is value in it? To me it…

The tricky thing is that it's such a personal, subjective, experiential activity that it seems likely that any amount of scientific PDFs would remain unconvincing.

"I keep hearing people talk about how lime is so tasty, but why should I spend my hard-earned money on a citrus fruit until I've seen convincing evidence that it's actually tasty?"

I'm interested in how people make decisions about what to do. Especially considering how the frontiers of science are so difficult to keep track of. Like, if you were to base your diet on recent nutrition research, you'd have to spend hours every day just reviewing the literature, and you'd probably have to change your diet every week to accomodate for new findings, contradictions, etc.

To me it seems like people are most likely to just go by their own intuitive desires and preferences, using science at most to validate and confirm what they already wanted based on other factors. So, bluntly speaking, someone who is really fascinated by "spiritual" stuff will google for "meditation benefits pdf" and someone who wants to do other things with their time will look out for criticisms and "FUD."

Mostly I'd just make the point that if you try and sit quietly for ten minutes on three consecutive days, that's a negliglible time spent to try for yourself something that a lot of people say is significantly nice in some way—and that's probably a more efficient use of time than to try and look through the available scientific evidence.

Re: Putting meditation to the test (2011)

#26

Post by DanBC »

obstacle1 wrote: post #20
DanBC wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worst case scenario: you persist in a course of treatment that has no evidence of efficacy rather than get treatment with some evidence of efficacy.

Meditation isn't solely or even primarily a method for treating things.

The article is full of examples of meditation being used to treat mental and physical ill-health.

>> Putting meditation to the test

>> “Training allows us to transform the mind, to overcome destructive emotions and to dispel suffering,” says Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard.

>> and tested the effects of different meditative practices on cognition, behaviour, physical and emotional health and brain plasticity.

>> It suggests that meditation can indeed change aspects of your psychology, temperament and physical health in dramatic ways.

>> watching for changes in their mental abilities, psychological health and physiology.

>> at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore,

>> meditation seems to have an effect on emotional well-being. A second study from researchers with the Shamatha project, to appear in the journal Emotion, concluded that meditation improves general social and emotional functioning, making study participants less anxious, and more aware of and better able to manage their emotions.

>> The ability to manage one’s emotions could also be key to why meditation can improve physical health. Studies have shown it to be an effective treatment for eating disorders, substance abuse, psoriasis and in particular for recurrent depression and chronic pain.

etc etc.

Re: Putting meditation to the test (2011)

#27

Post by meagain20000 »

mbrock wrote: post #25
qrendel wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but spending time meditating would inevitably be reducing something else - even if it's just an equivalent of goofing off on HN. If you enjoy meditating, or think there's a sufficiently high chance of benefits from it, you won't mind. But if you remain sufficiently unconvinced, why spend time on it when you could enjoy more free time instead, just because someone else is convinced there is value in it? To me it…

The tricky thing is that it's such a personal, subjective, experiential activity that it seems likely that any amount of scientific PDFs would remain unconvincing. "I keep hearing people talk about how lime is so tasty, but why should I spend my hard-earned money on a citrus fruit until I've seen convincing evidence that it's actually tasty?" I'm interested in how people make decisions about what to do. Especially co…

Lime is a source of C, which you need if you want to stay alive.

Re: Putting meditation to the test (2011)

#28

Post by meagain20000 »

davzie wrote: post #13
nunodonato wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as a 10+ yr practitioner, studies are useless. practice it and test it by yourself, no harm done and a lot to gain ;)

Can confirm, I worry about where I might have gone if it hadn't been for meditation pulling me out. It's impossible to put into words what it does for you, you're right, you just have to try it without any pre-conceived notion of what you want to get from it which for some, is too wild an idea.

Devil's advocate here. Lots people say the same thing about religion. In fact, you could almost replace meditation with religion in your comment. Quite illuminating.

Re: Putting meditation to the test (2011)

#29

Post by mbrock »

meagain20000 wrote: post #27
mbrock wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tricky thing is that it's such a personal, subjective, experiential activity that it seems likely that any amount of scientific PDFs would remain unconvincing. "I keep hearing people talk about how lime is so tasty, but why should I spend my hard-earned money on a citrus fruit until I've seen convincing evidence that it's actually tasty?" I'm interested in how people make decisions about what to do. Especially co…

Lime is a source of C, which you need if you want to stay alive.

Sure, but aren't there more effective ways of getting vitamin C? A lime is like half a dollar. I don't want to spend my life eating a suboptimal vitamin C source!

Re: Putting meditation to the test (2011)

#30

Post by goodJobWalrus »

qrendel wrote: post #10
nunodonato wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as a 10+ yr practitioner, studies are useless. practice it and test it by yourself, no harm done and a lot to gain ;)

It's not really "no harm done" - the opportunity cost of wasting time that could be spent on other activities is a deterrent, for me at least.

> It's not really "no harm done" - the opportunity cost of wasting time that could be spent on other activities is a deterrent, for me at least.

But this is really true for any activity. You don't know you'll like it until you try it. If you tried it and didn't like you wasted your time.

The only problem I see is if you continue to do meditation even if you don't enjoy it because you believe in benefits. But like with working out, I doubt that really happens. If people can't find enjoyment in it, they drop it sooner or later.

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