9 ms·

Cost Effectiveness of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction

134 points by luu 9y ago

maxxxxx 9y ago
We should work on actually reducing stress instead of abusing mindfulness to handle stress better.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- Madmallard 9y ago
  exactly. and it's more like "handle" stress better
- userchris 9y ago
  Absolutely agree, but there are many situations where stress is not able to be reduced easily (relationship problems/breakups or other family problems, anxiety issues, athletic events, work issues which come up even in relatively healthy work environments). Having coping strategies ready when things doesn't go as expected is important, and something I'm still working toward myself.
- epistasis 9y ago
  For me, mindfullness wasn't about "handling" stress. It made situations that were previously stressful into non-stressful situations.
  - firepoet 9y ago
    That's not quite what mindfulness does in the long run. It actually reduces gray matter density in the amygdala, which is associated with immediate stress response. These changes are permanent. Therefore, it not only helps you "handle" stress, but also causes situations to "cause" less stress in the first place. Check out https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/01/eight-weeks-to-a-better-brain/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/01/eight-weeks-t... Also, you do not actually need to practice an hour a day to get the benefits. The above study has participants practicing on average 27 minutes per day.
    - epistasis 9y ago
      Sorry, how does your comment relate to mine? Was this meant for somebody else?
- basetensucks 9y ago
  I agree with you to a degree, but I think you might be missing a major benefit mindfulness meditation. In particular, mindfulness meditation helps you to reprogram the way you relate to experiences and thoughts in a way that, in my experience, does eliminate stress. In other words, my relationship with experiences and thoughts can tend to be either more objective or more subjective (perhaps reactive is a better word). The more objectively I view things, the less those things elicit a stress response. Again, this is in my experience and might not be universally true. Sure there are stimuli that, for most people, will always elicit a stressful response. I would guess (emphasis on the word guess) this comprises at most ~10% of a person’s thoughts and experiences which is likely much less than most people think. Anyways, just my two cents.
  - hinkley 9y ago
    You also realize when someone is trying to appeal to your insecurities to extract something from you. You start avoiding those situations and the kinds of stress that they embody.
    - warent 9y ago
      You just named a very specific thing that I've been wondering how to fortify myself against. Thank you for the succinct endorsement, this is very helpful for me
- geomark 9y ago
  Stress is your internal reaction to a situation. Meditation can give you the skills to modify your reactions. What is a stress-inducing situation to some becomes just a calmly observed event to the skilled meditator. So sure, work on removing or reducing the stress inducers. But meditation is a personal super power that does not depend on anything external.
- trhway 9y ago
  >We should work on actually reducing stress instead of abusing mindfulness to handle stress better. yep, and to achieve that the people causing us stress should use mindfulness to better handle their own stress and cause us less of it as a result.
- amazingman 9y ago
  Why not both?
- beager 9y ago
  Both/and in my opinion. I've had to work to reduce a lot of stressors in my own life, but I also had to learn to handle necessary levels and sources of stress. Humans need stress, just in the right quantity, and with the right activities to process it healthily.
- hinkley 9y ago
  It’s clear the management types who are pushing that agenda don’t really understand what they’re asking. I have a feeling it’s going to blow up in their faces when all of a sudden people don’t want to play their other mind games anymore.
- aoeuasdf1 9y ago
  I find that mindfulness both reduces my stress in the short term, and causes me to reflect and choose to eliminate stress-causes in my life in the long term. Both effects are positive.
- hennsen 9y ago
  Sometimes you need to become calmer first before you even understand what exactly is the source of your stress and/or are able to act on removing that source. Besides of that, any kind of life consisting of anything else than lying in bed in a closed, dark, sound-protected room includes handling a kind of stress. And that is only if you consider hunger, thirst and the urge to pee and shit to be no stress.
inglor 9y ago
My sister is a mental health professional and she has recommended meditation and headspace (an app) to me a year ago. I've found it to be a great help and to the exercises to have a measurable impact on my life. It provides techniques (reflection, visualization, noting etc) that offer tools to deal with day to day stress related information. There are a lot of studies about meditation's effectiveness: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29110263 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29110263 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29126747 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29126747 I'm always surprised that when people discuss it with me they're surprised I do it. Somehow it has a reputation for pseudoscience but there are easily a hundred articles supporting the benefits.
- moxious 9y ago
  I think it has a reputation as a pseudo science because it's derived from religious practice. While religious practice isn't always bunk (as is the case here) assuming that religious practices are bunk is a pretty damn effective heuristic.
  - beager 9y ago
    > [A]ssuming that religious practices are bunk is a pretty damn effective heuristic. Maybe, but if I take your statement seriously, I would surmise that it's only an effective heuristic because being excessively distrusting/cynical has less downside in cases where the practice is actually sound. That aside, you have to work a little bit harder to discern religious practices that are rooted in activities that are observably and directly beneficial to individuals and society (meditation, compassion), and activities that are either antiquated (not eating shellfish/pork) or were created to perpetuate the religion or its leaders (tithing).
    - subatomic 9y ago
      > That aside, you have to work a little bit harder to discern religious practices that are rooted in activities that are observably and directly beneficial to individuals and society (meditation, compassion) Leaving meditation out of this, I think the religious practices you're implying were basic human moral practices adopted _by_ religion, not the other way around.
khedoros1 9y ago
> The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that is concerned with international public health. > The disability-adjusted life year (DALY) is a measure of overall disease burden, expressed as the number of years lost due to ill-health, disability or early death I knew the first, but thought that someone else might not. I didn't remember the second abbreviation offhand, and thought someone else might appreciate a short explanation too.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

134 points by luu 9y ago

maxxxxx 9y ago

We should work on actually reducing stress instead of abusing mindfulness to handle stress better.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Madmallard 9y ago
exactly. and it's more like "handle" stress better
userchris 9y ago
Absolutely agree, but there are many situations where stress is not able to be reduced easily (relationship problems/breakups or other family problems, anxiety issues, athletic events, work issues which come up even in relatively healthy work environments). Having coping strategies ready when things doesn't go as expected is important, and something I'm still working toward myself.
epistasis 9y ago
For me, mindfullness wasn't about "handling" stress. It made situations that were previously stressful into non-stressful situations.
- firepoet 9y ago
  That's not quite what mindfulness does in the long run. It actually reduces gray matter density in the amygdala, which is associated with immediate stress response. These changes are permanent. Therefore, it not only helps you "handle" stress, but also causes situations to "cause" less stress in the first place. Check out https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/01/eight-weeks-to-a-better-brain/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/01/eight-weeks-t... Also, you do not actually need to practice an hour a day to get the benefits. The above study has participants practicing on average 27 minutes per day.
  - epistasis 9y ago
    Sorry, how does your comment relate to mine? Was this meant for somebody else?
basetensucks 9y ago
I agree with you to a degree, but I think you might be missing a major benefit mindfulness meditation. In particular, mindfulness meditation helps you to reprogram the way you relate to experiences and thoughts in a way that, in my experience, does eliminate stress. In other words, my relationship with experiences and thoughts can tend to be either more objective or more subjective (perhaps reactive is a better word). The more objectively I view things, the less those things elicit a stress response. Again, this is in my experience and might not be universally true. Sure there are stimuli that, for most people, will always elicit a stressful response. I would guess (emphasis on the word guess) this comprises at most ~10% of a person’s thoughts and experiences which is likely much less than most people think. Anyways, just my two cents.
- hinkley 9y ago
  You also realize when someone is trying to appeal to your insecurities to extract something from you. You start avoiding those situations and the kinds of stress that they embody.
  - warent 9y ago
    You just named a very specific thing that I've been wondering how to fortify myself against. Thank you for the succinct endorsement, this is very helpful for me
geomark 9y ago
Stress is your internal reaction to a situation. Meditation can give you the skills to modify your reactions. What is a stress-inducing situation to some becomes just a calmly observed event to the skilled meditator. So sure, work on removing or reducing the stress inducers. But meditation is a personal super power that does not depend on anything external.
trhway 9y ago
>We should work on actually reducing stress instead of abusing mindfulness to handle stress better. yep, and to achieve that the people causing us stress should use mindfulness to better handle their own stress and cause us less of it as a result.
amazingman 9y ago
Why not both?
beager 9y ago
Both/and in my opinion. I've had to work to reduce a lot of stressors in my own life, but I also had to learn to handle necessary levels and sources of stress. Humans need stress, just in the right quantity, and with the right activities to process it healthily.
hinkley 9y ago
It’s clear the management types who are pushing that agenda don’t really understand what they’re asking. I have a feeling it’s going to blow up in their faces when all of a sudden people don’t want to play their other mind games anymore.
aoeuasdf1 9y ago
I find that mindfulness both reduces my stress in the short term, and causes me to reflect and choose to eliminate stress-causes in my life in the long term. Both effects are positive.
hennsen 9y ago
Sometimes you need to become calmer first before you even understand what exactly is the source of your stress and/or are able to act on removing that source. Besides of that, any kind of life consisting of anything else than lying in bed in a closed, dark, sound-protected room includes handling a kind of stress. And that is only if you consider hunger, thirst and the urge to pee and shit to be no stress.

inglor 9y ago

My sister is a mental health professional and she has recommended meditation and headspace (an app) to me a year ago. I've found it to be a great help and to the exercises to have a measurable impact on my life. It provides techniques (reflection, visualization, noting etc) that offer tools to deal with day to day stress related information. There are a lot of studies about meditation's effectiveness: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29110263 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29110263 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29126747 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29126747 I'm always surprised that when people discuss it with me they're surprised I do it. Somehow it has a reputation for pseudoscience but there are easily a hundred articles supporting the benefits.

moxious 9y ago
I think it has a reputation as a pseudo science because it's derived from religious practice. While religious practice isn't always bunk (as is the case here) assuming that religious practices are bunk is a pretty damn effective heuristic.
- beager 9y ago
  > [A]ssuming that religious practices are bunk is a pretty damn effective heuristic. Maybe, but if I take your statement seriously, I would surmise that it's only an effective heuristic because being excessively distrusting/cynical has less downside in cases where the practice is actually sound. That aside, you have to work a little bit harder to discern religious practices that are rooted in activities that are observably and directly beneficial to individuals and society (meditation, compassion), and activities that are either antiquated (not eating shellfish/pork) or were created to perpetuate the religion or its leaders (tithing).
  - subatomic 9y ago
    > That aside, you have to work a little bit harder to discern religious practices that are rooted in activities that are observably and directly beneficial to individuals and society (meditation, compassion) Leaving meditation out of this, I think the religious practices you're implying were basic human moral practices adopted _by_ religion, not the other way around.

khedoros1 9y ago

> The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that is concerned with international public health. > The disability-adjusted life year (DALY) is a measure of overall disease burden, expressed as the number of years lost due to ill-health, disability or early death I knew the first, but thought that someone else might not. I didn't remember the second abbreviation offhand, and thought someone else might appreciate a short explanation too.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]