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Meditation Becomes Beneficial Surprisingly Fast

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Re: Meditation Becomes Beneficial Surprisingly Fast

#31

Post by gcheong »

Estragon wrote: post #5

An equally valid interpretation is that Tolkien rots your brain. This is shoddy science, because their "control" experiment is little more than a fig leaf.

I don't see how that is an equally valid interpretation. In the abstract all they claim is that both meditation and listening to a recorded book improved mood, but only the meditation group improved along other dimensions. It did not note any negative effects from listening to Tolkien. The aim was to have both groups engaged actively on something (meditation vs listening to a recorded book) and to compare the outcomes. Why is that an invalid comparison?

Re: Meditation Becomes Beneficial Surprisingly Fast

#32

Post by tokenadult »

Estragon wrote: post #5

An equally valid interpretation is that Tolkien rots your brain. This is shoddy science, because their "control" experiment is little more than a fig leaf.

Controls are always the toughest issue in experimental research.

http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html

Re: Meditation Becomes Beneficial Surprisingly Fast

#33

Post by programnature »

markbao wrote: post #11

| For the study, participants were taught to meditate by focusing on the sensation of their breathing, acknowledging and dismissing any stray thoughts that popped into their heads. For those who do practice meditation, what are other techniques that are effective to you?

I highly recommend http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion as a forum for open and fairly nondogmatic discussion of practice. The existing threads have a huge variety of practice techniques and discussions/diagnosis for their results.

Re: Meditation Becomes Beneficial Surprisingly Fast

#34

Post by mike463 »

moolave wrote: post #9

I can say it's true that meditation does help with insomnia. In my case, it has made me sleep easily. Give it some time to relax and breathe, next thing you know you are feeling groggy. I know some serious meditators avoid falling asleep if they want to do these for hours, but it can be a challenge achieving that.

I learned to relax many years ago using one of these that a friend had:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000E22DFE

It's a galvanic skin response gadget. There are others (I got one from radio shack too). Search for GSR.

It basically lowers a tone when you relax. It takes almost no time at all to learn to relax with the immediate feedback the device offers.

When you lower the tone very low, you have basically relaxed your whole body and can easily fall asleep.

I have no idea if this is like meditation or not, since I don't know how to meditate. It could be, because you concentrate on the tone the device makes.

Re: Meditation Becomes Beneficial Surprisingly Fast

#35

Post by pavelludiq »

silentbicycle wrote: post #25
markbao wrote: post #11

| For the study, participants were taught to meditate by focusing on the sensation of their breathing, acknowledging and dismissing any stray thoughts that popped into their heads. For those who do practice meditation, what are other techniques that are effective to you?

I sit on a cushion for fifteen minutes or so, sitting cross-legged so that my back is relatively straight and my knees keep the whole posture relatively stable. Beyond that, it's just sitting and observing. If (ok, when) I notice my focus has drifted and I'm getting caught up in thoughts, I stop feeding into them and return focus to my breath, posture, and surroundings. It can be dreadfully boring, but when I do it p…

I've only read the google books previews of Brads books, but im impressed. As a hardcore punk fan myself i wasn't as surprised as most to the connection the Brad Warner made between punk and zen. Also anybody who puts dirty toilets, and tattooed Buddhas with mohawks on the cover of his zen books gets my respect. People should also check out his blog: http://hardcorezen.blogspot.com/

As for meditation practice, just sitting is enough, every time i have a thought or a disturbance of any kind i just readjust my pose.

Re: Meditation Becomes Beneficial Surprisingly Fast

#36

Post by Estragon »

adbge wrote: post #30
furyg3 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not drop the meditation and sleep a more-normal (and certainly more-refreshing) 7 hours a night?

Likely insomnia prevents him or her from getting more than 5 hours of sleep.

Yeah, I'm a light sleeper.

Re: Meditation Becomes Beneficial Surprisingly Fast

#37

Post by ufomuffin »

Focusing on breathing is great, I was thought that at meditation class, with more details of course. But it's really important to keep your eyes almost closed, not open nor closed, almost closed. You have to be aware of the world, meditating is not about shutting yourself from the world

Re: Meditation Becomes Beneficial Surprisingly Fast

#38

Post by johnohara »

I used meditation in college as a student-athlete mainly to learn how to relax during 800 and 1500m races. Many people believe that in order to run fast you have tense your muscles and push harder but the opposite is true. When you relax and concentrate on your form and breathing the speed flows right through you.

Haven't used it in quite a while but when I did it brought a nice balance to things. Good focus, a gentle calm, better stress management, etc. Nothing mystical. Just healthy benefits.

Re: Meditation Becomes Beneficial Surprisingly Fast

#39

Post by Estragon »

ufomuffin wrote: post #37

Focusing on breathing is great, I was thought that at meditation class, with more details of course. But it's really important to keep your eyes almost closed, not open nor closed, almost closed. You have to be aware of the world, meditating is not about shutting yourself from the world

  It's so dope when I focus on my breath
  'Cos I floss all the time and I chew Big Red!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gCU5uplB4A

Re: Meditation Becomes Beneficial Surprisingly Fast

#40

Post by [deleted] »

anemecek wrote: post #26
Tawheed wrote: post #15

I learned Transcendental Meditation about a year ago, and it has had a seriously profound effect on my life.

I tried to look up more info about it but it seems like to learn anything, one has to take some $1500 course. Can you summarize how it differs from the standard meditation (i.e. zen meditation)?

[deleted]
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