I noticed as young adult that I didn’t really worry or consciously stress, but my body had somewhat predictable reactions to situations that I would realize, in hindsight, were highly stressful. Those physical reactions sucked, and as they got worse over time, it really concerned me. At some point I was encouraged to go to CBT, which I did, but honestly it made things worse. I became hyper aware of how anxious I was…
This is the reason I don’t like this whole “everyone should do therapy” movement and also the “mindfulness/meditation” movement.
It creates this hyper-awareness which creates more problems by making everyone over-analyze each other and overly-sensitive to things.
This over-sensitivity is such a negative for US culture. If you think long enough about things you can find everything triggering in some way.
I noticed as young adult that I didn’t really worry or consciously stress, but my body had somewhat predictable reactions to situations that I would realize, in hindsight, were highly stressful. Those physical reactions sucked, and as they got worse over time, it really concerned me. At some point I was encouraged to go to CBT, which I did, but honestly it made things worse. I became hyper aware of how anxious I was…
That's why you need to do yoga. Relaxing the body is so important and Meditation, without yoga, can be harmful. Simple, long holding, hatha yoga, beginning with deep part by part body relaxation and pranayama prepares you for meditation and allows you to handle the energies that can be released during mediation. So much stress is held in the body. Western productization of more eastern traditional practices unfortuna…
Meditation without yoga may be problematic, but is there any problem with practicing yoga without meditating, in your opinion?
I wonder if that is why we like music. We can experience emotions without worrying that they are permanent or need to be resolved.
If there's something sacred to me it's music (or harmony). It's weird because it's not as foundational as smell or vision but it revives my soul like nothing else. That's the closest substitute to drug I know of. I have no idea why our emotions are so tangled with it and how comes it can untie knots in our minds like this.
You said that perfectly. From beginning to end, it's amazingly spot on.
find out who the real "me" is, and that fear will no longer hold
Is your point that there is no such thing as "me"? Because I've tried meditating on that thought and it hasn't really helped. I think, therefore I am after all.
You can't meditate on that thought. Keep the search :)
I wonder if that is why we like music. We can experience emotions without worrying that they are permanent or need to be resolved.
If there's something sacred to me it's music (or harmony). It's weird because it's not as foundational as smell or vision but it revives my soul like nothing else. That's the closest substitute to drug I know of. I have no idea why our emotions are so tangled with it and how comes it can untie knots in our minds like this.
That’s exactly why the Pythagoreans were obsessed with music!
An arcane text which I highly recommend for those curious is The Manual of Harmonics by Nichomacus the Pythagorean. It’s a series of ancient lectures which dives into why the Pythagoreans were obsessed with how numerical the musical scales are.
Is your point that there is no such thing as "me"? Because I've tried meditating on that thought and it hasn't really helped. I think, therefore I am after all.
You can't meditate on that thought. Keep the search :)
I appreciate that you’re trying to help, but I’ve been searching for a long time and it only makes me feel worse.
> Anxiety Is in Your Body, Not Your Mind Yes, and, your mind is in your body, not just your brain. That's why human consciousness is different to any common conception of computer consciousness. The difference between computers and humans is that human thoughts are driven by the needs of the body - to respirate, to eat, to defecate, to reproduce, to sleep, and to avoid being predated.
How do you define mind? I would agree that the mind is regulated by brain inputs but not sufficiently. It is self-determining.
> I just realized that there was nothing I could really do about anxiety or the physical symptoms that came along with it. I decided to mostly try to quit noticing and thinking about it. And that really helped. I think this is mission accomplished from your mindfulness practice, you realized that you're not really doing anything and that anxiety just appears, you accepted it and it felt better.
There are some problems with that type of approach - there are some things that won't vanish, if you stop thinking about them.
There are major differences between attempting to forcefully stop thinking about something, and accepting that you're thinking about something and then able to move on to something else.
In the first case, you're working against your brain, and getting it to behave is more likely to require some kind of violence and cause some sort of damage.
The other way, where you accept and then can move on, is more like moving with your brain.
Instead of trying to stop the river, you redirect it.
That's why you need to do yoga. Relaxing the body is so important and Meditation, without yoga, can be harmful. Simple, long holding, hatha yoga, beginning with deep part by part body relaxation and pranayama prepares you for meditation and allows you to handle the energies that can be released during mediation. So much stress is held in the body. Western productization of more eastern traditional practices unfortuna…
Meditation without yoga may be problematic, but is there any problem with practicing yoga without meditating, in your opinion?
Yeah I think that's probably really safe, but you'll probably be missing out a little bit. Just 5 minutes or less of quietly sitting, eyes closed, and letting any thoughts, feelings, and sense impressions (sounds, feeling of weight of body on the floor, weight of the clothes on the body, feeling of breeze, etc), just come and go, and gently bringing your focus back to your breath (sound of your breath, or feeling of breath at your nostrils), at the end of a yoga session is good I think. You might find it helps quiet your mind and bring you back to the moment after the session, as well as sort of balance you and really sort of settle in that relaxed state to become part of you and your experience at that moment. Just that much, and no more is good I think. Mind will wander. Gently bring it back to the breath. Notice quiet at the end of in-breath or end of out-breath. If you want something to think or say to yourself, you could consider, as you are aware of the thoughts, feelings and sense impressions passing by, "These are my thoughts, they are mine, but they are not me. These are my feelings, they are mine, but they are not me. These are my impressions, they are mine, but they are not me. I am not my thoughts. I am not my feelings. I am not my impressions. I am. I am. I am what watches." and repeat :)
Going off of the quoted bit because I haven't watched the video, he isn't necessarily suggesting that is the mode of action, just that the mechanism of Valium does both. The mention of GABA enhancement from the comment above alludes to that. Behavior and attitude can influence each other. For example, happiness makes you smile, but smiling can also make you happy (to some degree). The same works for anxiety in which…
> Normal muscle relaxants aren't as effective for anxiety as Valium because they don't have any action on the central nervous system, just the neuromuscular mechanisms. Valium does much more than simply relax muscles. It affects GABA throughout the whole body. Thanks for clarifying on this. A lot of people seem to think it's okay to just down-vote without providing some sort of counterpoint. I might be naive on a top…
Agreed. I'm of the stance that I only downvote trolling or absurd claims without any form of supporting details. Otherwise, I prefer to take the route of elaborating/correcting/questioning/etc even if I'm not an expert on the subject because then it at least fosters a discussion and sets up a path for shorter corrective comments from those that don't have the time/motivation/energy to respond in more detail.