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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

#91

Post by tikhonj »

cagenut wrote: post #51
ryaan_anthony wrote: post #45

When i exercise or try to meditate i just wind up thinking about things i need to do, and i typically abandon my workout to go do it. It can be as simple as picking up a dirty sock or putting away a coffee cup.

That is textbook ADHD. My apartment is never more spotless than when I have to tackle some hard/complex piece of code that requires my undivided attention for a long stretch.

It's a pattern that is common for people with ADHD, but it's also pretty common for everyone else—just maybe not as common. I'm sorry if it wasn't intentional, but your comment reads like you're saying that the above comment is a sign the commenter might have ADHD and that seems unwarranted.

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#92

Post by softwaredoug »

The lesson here is all in the “CAN worsen anxiety”.

Even if a study shows statistically significant result that meditation helps on average, the tails still matter. That is in health, individual responses to an intervention matter a lot. Sometimes a treatment helps most people a modest amount, but makes things much much worse for a small minority of people.

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#93

Post by silveroriole »

criddell wrote: post #40
silveroriole wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It has literally re-programmed my mind How so? What’s different? I’ve never been able to get a clear explanation of the benefit of meditation.

Do you buy into the criticism of our phones and social media being addictive and harmful to our ability to maintain focus and concentration? If so, then there must be a way to build strength in the opposite direction, right? For some (including me), meditation seems to help. I used the guided sessions from the free Oak app and a lot of the beginner stuff is about just sitting and focusing on one thing (usually the br…

I really like ‘mind tools’ like writing down thoughts/worries to get them out of my head. But sitting still never helped me develop them. Reading about and practicing using the tools did. I guess though if meditation is simply a different approach to developing the same tools, that’s fine - it may work better for some people.

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#94

Post by adaisadais »

lukaa wrote: post #89
User23 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's important to bear in mind that meditation is a religious practice specifically aimed at causing ego-death. This is true for far Eastern styles of meditation, but it's not true for Christian meditation[1]. It aims to fill the mind rather than to empty it. In general Christian meditation is practiced more by the various Eastern Christian Churches, but there are Western traditions as well. I'm by no means an adept…

Yes, in Catholicism there are Jesuit spiritual exercises tailored both for priests and shorter for ordinary people, similar in orthodoxy. I think protestants lack that element and that's why meditation is so catchy in America.

Meditation is big in both Catholicism and Protestantism within the U.S. Meditation is catchy now due to some of the research behind it as well as society always looking for the next panacea.

Modern / Hindu / Buddhist meditation (or what i have read and understood) typically centers around emptying one’s self or chanting a certain phrase to reach enlightenment.

Christian meditation is about filling oneself with the Holy Spirit and denying our own selfish desires.

When God gives his law for humanity in the book of Joshua he commands the people to “meditate on it day and night” because that is the way he intends them to know Him better.

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#95

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

chasd00 wrote: post #82
ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is no different than using alcohol, drugs, etc. AKA Workaholic. Just another way to distract oneself from the existential dread.

what's so great about existential dread? If you don't have it then you don't have it. I read a book on Zen Buddhism once about 20 years ago and it made sense to me. I've never read or practiced anything related since which makes me a constant practitioner in a way. Maybe i'm blessed or cursed but, to me, the endless pursuit of meditation/mindfulness is the same as the endless pursuit of anything else.

> what's so great about existential dread? If you don't have it then you don't have it.

Not sure what you're even asking here - everyone has problems. Would you advise them to ignore their problems and instead distract themselves with something else?

> Maybe i'm blessed or cursed but, to me, the endless pursuit of meditation/mindfulness is the same as the endless pursuit of anything else.

So, in a word, nihilism.

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#96

Post by Chirael »

brundolf wrote: post #64
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…

Most of the anxiety/depression I've experienced revolves around the ego: expectations and pressures I place on myself, guilt/dissatisfaction when I don't feel like I'm meeting those expectations, etc. So a little bit of ego-death is just about the most peaceful thing imaginable for me. The idea that it's not all on my shoulders, that the world moves without me, that this isn't my story to ruin. I don't practice any k…

I don’t meditate very regularly, but I try to think of it as a brief vacation from thinking. My mind is “thinking” all the time, from the moment I wake up until the moment I fall asleep, one thought after another without stopping. I’ve found that viewing meditation as a chance to take a break from that helps.

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#97

Post by baron_harkonnen »

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…

On top of that nearly all ancient texts on meditation basically include a "do not try this at home" statement of sorts. A pretty common theme is that meditation should be practiced in close proximity to an accomplished master with their guidance. This is not dissimilar to the advice anyone who makes use of psychedelics will give.

Of course people want quick and easy so "accomplished master" can easily be subbed out for "local yoga teacher" or even "NYT best selling book".

Most people who claim benefits from meditation would likely reap even more benefits from just making sure they had an hour or half hour distraction free with time for their thoughts. Go for a walk alone, or find a quiet place and write in a journal, give your self some time before you fall as sleep to think just think to yourself.

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#98

Post by pdamoc »

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 just finished going through the "De-Mystifying Mindfulness" course on Coursera and they do warn about the fact that "mindfulness" has become an industry and that the people who offer courses are often unqualified to teach them.

MBSR and MBCT course with qualified teachers do have a very good track record and solid scientific backing.

There are also some replicated studies of the synergy between mindfulness and psychedelics. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S10538...

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#99

Post by dTal »

JesseMeyer wrote: post #74
wrnr wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently got bored and started to practice my vocal cords by sustaining a single tone. Turn out it is good technique for getting into a meditative state. I think it is the controlled breathing and single focus on one thing that helps to bring it about. Thought it was fun, but my neighbours must think that I have lost it.

Oooooooooooooooooooooohm.

Or "kaaaayyyyyyyy ooooooooooooooooohm" if you want to be zazen a thousand times faster!

ducks

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#100

Post by spicymaki »

I was part of a Zen meditation group for about six years. I did not personally notice members having psychotic breaks during retreats. What I did notice was that people were coming in with depression and anxiety, and that the mindfulness practice was not helping to drive people to manage the issue. They were just comforted by being in the presence of other people who had similar issues they could relate to.

What I found upsetting was that the leaders of the group were not interested in actually solving these issues either and were perpetuating the state of being present with the problems the meditators had. This created a vicious cycle of dependency. Anxiety and depression are not things you can just figure out and snap out of.

As a commenter mentioned earlier, the point of meditation (in the Buddhist context) was to facilitate ego death. Watching the self, knowing the self, and extricating the self, in order to be freed from the problems of self (which is thought to be causing the depression and anxiety). In our modern context most of us can't go into a forest refuge and isolate ourselves to do this practice.

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