Meditation and science, discuss.
>>7720495
No meditation, just science.
>>7720497
What about all the studies on meditation?
Finding something to do that keeps you grounded and relaxes you is great. If that's meditation, cool
>>7720503
not science
What is the most scientific way to meditate, fix your shit?
>>7720514
Does it matter? Thinking about placebo effect
There have been studies that show that meditation seems to increase the amount of gray matter in certain areas of the brain including the right precuneus which was recently shown to positively correlated with overall life time happiness.
>http://www.nature.com/articles/srep16891
This could explain the multiple studies about how correctly taught meditation increases happiness even more so than placebo groups but that's a lot of assuming.
You're just opening yourself to letting Satan possess you.
>>7720495
Holy shit her tits are fucking huge
>>7720570
Someone had to say it.
What's her name?
>>7720517
>>7720520
>>7720534
Meditation isn't placebo. Look at it this way. It's literally a systematic process of examining your own thoughts, gaining control over your emotions and reactions, and literal practice in focus, concentration, and empathy.
yes, there are other ways to develop these skills, but meditation is the development of these skills in the most distilled form. it can be nothing but beneficial.
>>7720570
also yes. WouldBindAndOilAndViolentlyTitFuck/10.
>>7720495
Who is that semen demon?
Human consciousness is difficult for studies to examine with much rigor. It's probably better than trivial entertainment, logically speaking. The best thing for you to do though is probably to practice whatever you want to be good at.
>>7720597
Im trying to get over my depression anon.. i just dont know how, i have been depressed for so long.
Im very desperate, im lifting 5 times a week because i was told sports help..
Someone help
>>7720607
>>7720635
Exercise definitely helps. Meditiation probably helps.
When you exercise your body responds to the stress by releasing hormones that:
1. help you calm down so as for you not to hurt yourself or waste energy
2. help you ignore the pain of any traumatic injuries
Meditiation doesn't have anything evidence going for it besides, "it makes sense." It really does make sense though.
>>7720640
>>7720495
I've done a lot of research on this. Reading other people's research, ideas, etc.
Stress ages you. Free Oxygen radicals damage dna, but they also happen to help with your immune system or something. Tea gives you antioxidants.
Cells die once your telomeres decay enough. Hard physical exercise protects your telomeres. Long distance runners have telomeres 20 years younger than they are. Muscles release stem cells when you exercise, and we all know what stem cells do for our bodies.
Protect your skin with sunscreen. Eat antioxidants. Exercise to get up to around 160-180 hbpm at least 3-4 times a week.
Its the best way to stay young. Yes, meditation helps, because the mind can make you physically blind if you believe it. Theres a case of a woman who had multiple personality disorder, and was literally blind because her occipital lobe or whatever wouldn't light up at all when her eyes were given stimuli.
They worked on her getting rid of her personality disorder, and she became able to see again. It had nothing to do with organic damage, it was all mental.
Exercise harsh, eat good shit (even if you drink and smoke and eat burgers), and so on. You can even think of doing those good things are building a bank to go do those "bad" things, or recovering from them.
>>7720712
What I don't understand is where the key "failing" point of the human body is when it comes to aging. If every part of the body is maintained by different systems, why does it fail to remain balanced and why does it fail in such a consistent amount of time?
>>7720729
There's tons of ted talks about this. Some lady "damaged" a genetic component of a worm, causing it to age at half the rate compared to other worms.
Telomeres protect our dna from damage and our cells from dying. when cells die, they are replaced by cells which are created from the more damaged dna.
>>7720716
I suppose that the subject can be treated according to the standards of scientific rigor of the field of psychology. I retract the claim, but only so far as I consider psychology to be science.
>>7720738
Telomeres also enable cancer to happen. I recall somebody at some point saying that bone marrow may be irreversibly depleted with age, and that is the kind of thing I was looking for if it's true. There are experiments that show new blood rejuvenates the body, and since bone marrow creates blood, the loss of that could be the ultimate cause of aging.
Meditation is not placebo.
It is also not sitting around and just breathing. You're actively wrangling your brain to not do what it naturally does; Form associative chains of thought.
There are studies on people who were told to meditate for 5 hours a day. That is an insane amount but what is fascinating is that you could literally see their brains getting wrinklier under an MRI.
>>7720587
thank you, nice man.
>>7720785
This. I meditate an hour a day and the results, especially right after I finish, are similar to what I feel like when I take ritalin or adderall.
>>7720520
dunno about fixing your shit but probably the first step is to get to a point where you're calm and content as fuck so you can look at all your problems objectively. you can then probably analyse them and "fix your shit". other then that, if you're already that far, you'll probably really shit doesn't matter and everything's OK, you don't even need to fix shit.
Literally just concentrate on something. Doesn't matter what position you're sitting in.
The trick is to focus your entire attention to one thing like your breath or a random mantra or humming or something. You'll notice that within 5 seconds or so your attention will automatically wander somewhere else. This is where you have to step in, put aside the thought and focus on whatever you try to focus on again.
The first few times meditating are really not much fun. I even frowned while doing it because it's really, really hard and you might get annoyed with yourself for not being able to keep focus for more than a few seconds in the beginning.
It's really more like wrestling with your brain than anything else.
>>7720830
>watching your breath as you breathe in and out, as a form of mediation.
>watching your breath
>watching
It really isn't just sitting and breathing. It's sitting and watching your breath, or watching whatever it is you decide to watch.
One thing I don't get about meditation, is how it can remain effective in certain areas once you get use to doing it.
Holding yourself still is an exercise of will because it is in conflict with your impulses, but it should no longer be able to exercise your will once you have become naturally accustomed to holding this stillness.
The only thing I can think of is that meditation becomes increasingly harder the longer it goes on, but I don't believe I've heard that being mentioned anywhere. Though it seems like it goes in that direction from my experiences.
>>7720878
Meditation isn't fighting yourself. Its quickly getting back "on task" when you wander. Its letting go of the new intrusive thoughts, etc. Not struggling to keep them from arising in the first place.
>>7721656
It is a task that requires effort, therefore a struggle.
>>7720782
>Telomeres also enable cancer to happen. I recall somebody at some point saying that bone marrow may be irreversibly depleted with age, and that is the kind of thing I was looking for if it's true. There are experiments that show new blood rejuvenates the body, and since bone marrow creates blood, the loss of that could be the ultimate cause of aging.
Oh yes, the way they rejuvenated old mice by doing constant transfusing between old mice and young ones. Kind of like that joke about old people being restored by sucking on children's blood or so on. A kind of myth which has existed since old times now turns out to be true, after a fashion.
On the subject of exercise and youngness, there is a problem with "too much exercise" in which your cheeks actually become hollow. I don't know the term for it off the top of my head, but you will see people like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlO0W18A5oQ
I don't know if he's a good example, but there is definitely a shallowness to his cheeks compared to, say, jason alexander in Seinfeld. Now, I think Jason Alexander has the "natural body type" to look aged easily without exercise. People like him would probably look a lot younger if they did exercise. You know Matt Damon was 35 when he was playing in that band on Euro Trip with a sexy 22 year old hanging off him, and how they didn't seem that mismatched physically? Well, look at his body. He def. exercises.
There's genetics and then there's epigenetics. A change in one will cause expression of specifics of the other. Epigenetics are changed by our experiences in life, from a single cigarette to exercise (or lack of it).
http://www.livestrong.com/article/414477-does-strenuous-exercise-make-you-look-younger/
http://www.livestrong.com/article/155971-face-exercises-to-look-younger/
http://www.livestrong.com/slideshow/558002-10-ways-exercise-makes-you-more-attractive/#slide=5
How much is bullshit? How much is based on something we don't really understand yet?
>>7721671
Between genes, blood, stem cells, telomeres, exercise, oxygen radicals, and a person's own "good" or "bad" genes, you might as well take a slice of each daily. Remember that the gene damaged worm from TED talk lived twice as long. If we have similar genes which "turn off" because we do a lot of exercise, we might forestall the process of aging.
I wish we had more twins in the world to study the effect of specific sets of regimens. Even then it might not be translatable to the general population since everyone's body is slightly different.
Just remember that stress is what absolutely destroys telomeres and ages you prematurely. You ever notice the most attractive guys are the 'alphas' that seem to handle life stress more easily?
>Telomeres, the biological clocks of cells, get shorter as people age, yet research on 50-year-old competitive marathon runners, published in 2009 in the journal "Circulation," showed that the middle-aged runners had telomeres that were as long as 20-year-olds. In a long-term study involving 913 pairs of twins, Danish scientists found that the twins who looked younger than their true age had longer telomeres.
>>7721681
Do not forget that the body has the capacity to increase telomeres, but that process may only be beneficial when other conditions are met. This also does not explain everything, as those runners surely won't have same amount of remaining years as a 20 year old.
>>7720495
Whoever decided pausing or forcing brain states has no scientific basis in helping a stress based creature live a more stable life is an idiot.
>>7720495
Imagine having those huge things hanging off you at every instant. What a horrifying thought.
>>7721747
I think people see 'meditation', associate it with New Age mumbo and just assume that anybody who defends it is a crank. Their loss.
>>7721859
>I think people see 'meditation', associate it with New Age mumbo and just assume that anybody who defends it is a crank. Their loss.
It is very much propounded by cranks and new age kooks.
>>7721863
The core problem is a lack of the capacity for critical thought, and cultural / social brainwashing.
These kooks don't matter. That's an excuse for children. An inability to think beyond these people is still just narrow minded myopia, and it should be no more coddled than any other kind of self imposed retardation.
>>7721867
Be that as it may, the reluctance to adopt the forms and styles of people perceived as kooks is a strong survival (risk avoidance) mechanism. It probably does more good for the individuals in question than harm in the long run.
>>7721884
Yes, anon, I know why people do it. Doesn't mean the behavior isn't as primitive and banal as they come. It's childish behavior.
I imagine the trait causes just as much harm as it saves them from danger. Obviously this goes both ways. The key is evaluating things beyond just relative to the largely irrelevant shit drip fed to you by your immediate surroundings.
>>7721892
Mmm idk man it seems pretty legit to me.
For what it's worth, buddhist/hindu societies, (from whom the modern conception of meditation originates) are shit, and this might be because they're so happy with where they're at/accepting of their situation.
Being unhappy with your situation can very easily be a good thing, if it prompts you to improve it.
>>7721897
>Being unhappy with your situation can very easily be a good thing, if it prompts you to improve it.
I agree, to an extent. But this isn't really the type of conversation I'm willing to have.
Sorry.
>>7720495
Just meditate and see for yourself, you can't measure things like that.
>inb4 some study
And that study shows nothing of value, sure you can measure whats happening chemically in a person but you can't measure or know the personal experience this person is having and even less you can't measure the most important part, the lesson hidden behind the experience, those are the fundamental parts of things like meditation, you can't measure the fundamental parts you don't know what it is, unless you do it. Less talking, less reading, more doing.
>>7721907
Well, fair enough.
Seriously though you have to acknowledge that recommending what is essentially a religious practice to people is shaky territory.
>b-b-but meditation is secular
Mmmmnah
>The World Parliament of Religions, held in Chicago in 1893, was the landmark event that increased Western awareness of meditation. This was the first time that Western audiences on American soil received Asian spiritual teachings from Asians themselves. Thereafter, Swami Vivekananda... [founded] various Vedanta ashrams... Anagarika Dharmapala lectured at Harvard on Theravada Buddhist meditation in 1904; Abdul Baha ... [toured] the US teaching the principles of Bahai, and Soyen Shaku toured in 1907 teaching Zen.
spirituality goes to >>>/x/
>>7721931
>meditation
>spirituality
come back when you're 20.
>>7721932
plz anon the only reason anyone knows about meditation is oriental cultists/hippies, and nobody doesn't realise this.
All the super advanced, wise aliens say you NEED to meditate.
youtube.com/watch?v=MvacG_nhD34
>>7721930
>Religious
No. Again, the issue is that people lack a capacity (and willingness) for critical thought. The framework you're viewing things in is the problem, it's not valid or useful. Meditation is about as intrinsically religious as deep breathing. It involves no dogma.
It's actually much more simple. The human body is a machine. It has certain responses to stimuli, and certain things whatever "consciousness" and wilfully directed states can cause. This is being used to allow some operation or produce a certain result. That's it.
Religion has nothing to do with it. People's perceptions are being formed by their culture and feedback from their social groups. Thinking what you've been told to think is the very problem, to greatly simplify what's actually happening there.
>>7721945
>there's nothing inherently religious about praying to mecca
>there's nothing inherently religious about going to the confession box and the priest raping you afterword
Anon pls. I'm aware that religions all incorporate actions which could fundamentally be performed in an unreligious way, because ultimately they're just normal actions, but the fact is that they are, as it stands, religious acts.
And yes, some of them have positive effects on your mental health. But I bet prayer and confession and reading verse and attending sunday service and wearing a hijab and abstaining from food during the daylight hours of a certain month also have positive mental health effects. And that doesn't detract from them being religious practices.
>>7720830
You're fucking retarded. It's is entirely about the mental process. Breathing is ONE thing you CAN focus on.
The whole point about meditation is focusing on one thought and recognizing when your mind starts to drif and stop it from doing that by refocusing. Again and again and again and again.
Everyone can try that right now. Just sit still, turn off all sound and try to focus on your breathing for more than a few seconds. It's actually quite difficult.
>>7721863
Which really pisses me off. Look 5 seconds on r/meditation and you want to shoot everyone there.
Meditation is so fucking great but everyone not totally retarded would do a 180 when reading their pseudo spiritual insights.
>>7721951
The things you listed are most likely not gonna affect you outside of placebo though while proper meditation provenly does.
>>7721951
Why does it even matter? Perceived connection to religion is irrelevant, it's a high level manifestation of much more basic mental drives.
For example, people circumcise their children all the time. Does it get much more religious in origin? But it isn't seen that way, because of cultural context. This is what shapes perception and associative links.
Again, you're cluttering up the conversation. Seeing beyond "oh dat's religious stuffzzz@!!!!" and legitimately forming an actual assessment of the nature of what you're seeing by drawing upon greater and more varied knowledge, is what needs to happen. Idiots exist on both sides. You have people using the resonance of crystals as a proxy to a higher plane of being and magic healing, you have homeopathy. And you also have people mindlessly rejecting practices based on something so fucking petty as WHO AND WHAT THEY ASSOCIATE IT WITH.
That's what children do. Get over it, and either get on topic or tell me you're not interested so I can stop responding. I'm not interested in a high school level conversation about how people work.
>>7721972
Being religious means accepting and operating on a given set of beliefs or dogma, contorting yourself to it. This is what makes something religious. Meditation can be done without the same context.
I ate a lot of coconut which I am allergic to. Again. My head feels like it's full of hot cotton, my resting heart rate is 135 bpm, AND NOW THERE'S A FUCKING CHIPMUNK IN HERE TOO. You're being an obnoxious fuck, and I no longer think it's worth investing the mental energy to talk to you. I'm investing 10x the thought to still produce an inadequate result.
It isn't worth it. You aren't worth it. I fucked up.
>>7721999
Wow friend, you sound pretty high strung. Perhaps you should take a minute and say a prayer, it might help you relax.
>>7722010
If I believed in a deity where prayer made sense I might.
Too bad I'm not and only time can truly bail me out of systemic vasodilation and histamine release... )^;
>>7722015
You don't understand anon, you don't have to believe in god to pray to him, prayer is a secular activity.
>>7722019
Prayer is a machine moving itself to a given state. Without the belief and knowledge of what it's doing, the effect cannot be realized. It lacks utility and meaning, it's worthless. There's no placebo or positive change of state.
Meditation is the exact same. You're not thinking about equalizing the flow of energy. You're not thinking about particles (that's right, buddhists knew far before the western world formalized the idea. Hell, australopithecus probably knew too), you're not framing your own metacognition and relaxation through these means. It's not a religious activity unless you've actually studied / adopted buddhism and view yourself that way.
Same with praying to mecca. Tell me, if someone watches a foreigner do it, and copies them not understanding the action, is that person praying as well?
Stop being such dim fuckhead and learn to think through the logical consequences of your ideas on your own.
>>7722024
>Prayer is a machine moving itself to a given state. Without the belief and knowledge of what it's doing, the effect cannot be realized. It lacks utility and meaning, it's worthless. There's no placebo or positive change of state.
>Meditation is the exact same. You're not thinking about equalizing the flow of energy. You're not thinking about particles (that's right, buddhists knew far before the western world formalized the idea. Hell, australopithecus probably knew too), you're not framing your own metacognition and relaxation through these means. It's not a religious activity unless you've actually studied / adopted buddhism and view yourself that way.
And you thought
>>I think people see 'meditation', associate it with New Age mumbo and just assume that anybody who defends it is a crank.
isn't a justified reaction. Fucking hell anon.
>>7722030
>isn't a justified reaction. Fucking hell anon.
It's not.
>>7722033
How about you fuck off.
>>7722034
Anon if you'd aligned your chakras correctly this morning you wouldn't be so mad right now
>>7722038
Say that to my face irl and I'll realign your chakras.
>>7720495
>>7720570
>>7720503
would love to sniff their sweaty buttholes
>>7722176
pls no
>>7720495
cheap trick to confuse girls
the overwelming sense of accepting what they dont understand lets you have allot of sex
>i personaly find such behavior plebian at best.
>>7720534
A placebo effect is still an effect. If you feel better after meditating, meditation works
>>7720503
Left has the skin, right has the ass, why is God so cruel?
Meditation in the form of proper relaxation (ie. taking a small period of time to just sit around and rest but not sleep) should be a part of anyone's life. You don't have to do any "clearing your mind" or "deep focus" or whatever, just take some time to stop actively trying to do things and you'll be a more calm person.
>>7723454
Meditation is exercise, not rest. It is impossible to meditate if you are tired.
"Meditation" is an unhelpful word, because people keep getting confused and thinking it means something other than "thinking".
Compare:
>I like to start and end each day with half an hour of meditation.
>I like to start each day by taking half an hour to get my thoughts in order and make my plans, and end each day by taking half an hour to reflect on what happened and explore ideas in depth.
Thinking: a pretty good use of time, in proper moderation.
>>7723546
What you described is not meditation though.
Meditation is the fixation on a single thought, mantra or action while NOT reflecting on anything. You literally do nothing but try and push away all thoughts and focus on the singular thing you decided to focus on.
Don't talk about unhelpful when you fuckwit don't even know what meditation is in the first place.
Top fucking kek.
>>7720495
If it was a moving gif., the breast would continue to sag onto her legs.
>>7723554
meditation
[med-i-tey-shuh n]
noun
1. the act of meditating.
2. continued or extended thought; reflection; contemplation.
4. devout religious contemplation or spiritual introspection.
meditate
[med-i-teyt]
verb
1. to engage in thought or contemplation; reflect.
2. to engage in transcendental meditation, devout religious contemplation, or quiescent spiritual introspection.
1550-60; < Latin meditātus, past participle of meditārī to meditate, contemplate, plan
"Meditation" means "thinking".
>Meditation is the fixation on a single thought, mantra or action while NOT reflecting on anything.
That is not the generally true meaning, that's how it's redefined for certain Eastern religious practices. The Eastern religions generally aren't comfortable with rationality, and try to undermine it in their followers so it won't threaten their beliefs, that's why science arose in the West and not in China.
>>7723579
It's seen as limited. Not containing the thing-in-itself.
