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Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

• neonate 6y ago
  https://web.archive.org/web/20210317034606/https://harpers.org/archive/2021/04/lost-in-thought-psychological-risks-of-meditation/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210317034606/https://harpers.o... https://archive.is/isVdw https://archive.is/isVdw
• EdwardDiego 6y ago
  This happened to a coworker of mine during a silent meditation retreat in the woods. He's okay now, I think, but when he broke and turned up at work agitated and babbling about karma, it was quite scary.
• spaetzleesser 6y ago
  I didn't read the article completely but from my experience the overselling that's typical in the West is a problem here. Meditation (and now psychedelics) are sold as this wonderful cure to all problems. In yoga and meditation classes a lot of people seemed to feel obliged to feel great and spiritual even though they didn't really feel that way. Same probably in 10 day meditation classes. They get thrown into something with little instruction (Goenka's teachers don't really help from my experience) and if you aren't stable I can easily see how problems can arise. I have heard the same about Zen teachers that have breakdowns after 30 years of meditating because they forced something that wasn't there. After my recent mildly disappointing or sobering experiences with psychedelics I am a little worried about that too. They often are sold as the fix to serious problems and unstable people may get into a bad position when their problems aren't solved but they still pretend that they are doing great.
  • caslon 6y ago
    Why didn't you read the article completely? It's not very long, and it's probably worth reading all the way through.
    • garciasn 6y ago
      It’s >~6000 words (12-13 pages). I would argue that’s far longer than most articles, but to your point, it is worth reading in its entirety.
  • JulianRaphael 6y ago
    I agree with you. People in the West want to feel and look good and have an obsession with "healing themselves", hence meditation and psychedelics are sold as ways to achieve that. However, if you study the origins of meditation and psychedelics, they have nothing to do with feeling good! These practices were closely guarded by a few select practitioners or shamans and normal people would not engage in them at all. However, in the case of meditation some teachers shared some of their learnings to householders, albeit in a very different way. They certainly did not advise laymen to go on intense meditation retreats to get in touch with their childhood trauma and heal themselves! For those who are willing to really commit their lives to it, meditation - or to be more precise the spiritual path that leads to it and merges with it - can absolutely cure many neurotic issues. This happens when people stop pretending to feel great and honestly accept that they feel bad, anxious or whatever. By learning to befriend your "bad" emotions slowly and whilst nourishing "good" emotions (through e.g. loving kindness or compassion meditation), you start to slowly unravel some of your milder neurotic issues. But it should be communicated very clearly that you can't sprinkle a bit of mindfulness over your messed up life and expect to be enlightened...
  • alex504 6y ago
    Psychedelics are a good analogy. I don't think they are worth much in our culture and carry serious risk for people who are unstable. Even if you find an authentic shaman, you aren't going to have the cultural context to make it worthwhile by flying there over a weekend. There is also probably not much more dangerous than a very poorly functioning spiritual practice / teacher. The story here about Vipassana is unsurprising to say the least. It is sort of like squatting a 200kg weight with bad form, over and over again for years, but instead of your body you are breaking your consciousness. The key takeaway is that if you want to pursue this stuff you really need to find a good teacher who you trust.
    • spaetzleesser 6y ago
      “really need to find a good teacher who you trust.” That’s the problem. It’s easy to trust an incompetent teacher. How do you find completed teacher in a field with many very charismatic charlatans?
      • alex504 6y ago
        That's the fun part :) The most accomplished people who I know in this stuff have spent decades moving from teacher to teacher. Eventually you can tell who is full of shit and who isn't. There are certain red flags that you can learn to spot pretty quickly. If you spot a red flag it also doesn't necessarily mean the person doesn't know something worth learning, it just means they are stuck somewhere else. There are a lot of pretty high level people who are a little bit egotistical for example but it doesn't mean they don't know some useful techniques. The guy teaching me has trained under like a dozen very well known people over the years and his current teacher spent several decades in Asia working his way up through a series of teachers. The latter person I'm describing has talked about being very skeptical of his teachers to the point where in one instance he went into a teachers fridge to confirm he was lying about what he did or didn't eat.
• desireco42 6y ago
  I would say that meditation is fine, cults are bad. It isn't easy to sit and be still, everyone who tried will tell you, you will find any kind of excuse to not do it. However if you endure it and spend some time meditating, it will indeed bring perspective and clarity in your mind. These kinds of retreats are stupid... For number of reasons. Also 'apps for meditation' are extra stupid, except maybe Oak because it is just a timer, so it actually serves a purpose. If you really want to meditate, just sit and relax. OK maybe I was too hard on every kind of retreat, but overall they tend to be profitable endevours. Because your mind will be maleable, cults love to exploit this state to program you and indoctrinate you. Also... what happened to this girl is known fenomenon. It usually helps if somebody can tell you in advance it would happen. As I read article, they loaded her with drugs afterwards, not sure which is worse. Again, cults = bad, you have everything you need to be happy.
  • 1ark 6y ago
    > Also 'apps for meditation' are extra stupid The irony of these apps coming out a few years ago. And the popularity of them. I guess it becomes more of a routine and escape from reality, rather than mindfulness and meditation.
    • astrange 6y ago
      The one I use comes with a biofeedback headband, so there is a real use for it. The rest just play sounds which seems fine.
  • FlashBlaze 6y ago
    So having a timer of say 10-15 minutes and meditating would be preferred over apps like Headspace, Calm, etc even though they have guided meditation? Isn't that risky? I don't have any medical conditions but reading this article has made me somewhat wary.
    • enneff 6y ago
      I recommend you check out Sam Harris’ “Waking Up” app. It contains a very gentle guided introduction to mediation, and has a ton of audio content which discusses meditation in its many forms and adjacent topics. If you are wary then listening to the introductory stuff should make you more informed.
• arbitrage 6y ago
  > Megan mentioned that she had stopped taking her medication. She had been on the lowest therapeutic dose of Zoloft for mild anxiety since her early twenties. Zoloft can really mess you up if you stop cold-turkey. How odd that they didn't bring up comorbid risk-factors until half-way through the article.
  • BluSyn 6y ago
    I was thinking the same thing. This example is less about the potential negatives side-affects of meditation, and more about the care one should take when getting off serious medications. Most retreat centers (and other "guides") usually suggest several weeks or more of no medication before going on your "journey". The side affects of getting off medications, especially ones she apparently was taking for years, can not be underestimated in this story. It's also clear she was prone to emotional instability before the retreat, and like any treatment -- pharmaceutical or otherwise -- it can have side-affects that need to be managed, dosages that need to be tweaked, etc. This story also ignores the 90+% of people who have profound experiences on these Vipassana retreats. Just know what you are getting into, and know it can be very very intense even for those who have practiced meditation for years.
  • Baeocystin 6y ago
    Talk about burying the lede. I was on a low dose of Zoloft for only a few months, and the brain zaps* I experienced when I stopped were resoundingly unpleasant, and lasted for several weeks. I could easily picture someone in an already fragile mental state being pushed over the edge because of them. (*that's what the phenomenon is called: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-superhuman-mind/201710/what-causes-brain-zaps https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-superhuman-mind/...)
• kumarvvr 6y ago
  The west (and the east too) has commercialized meditation and yogic practices and reduced them to some pseudo medical amalgam that will solve all your health and mental issues. Per Hindu practices, Meditation is the first, foremost step towards self realization. For attaining liberation and knowing god. It is a tool to calm the mind and prepare it for deeper states of realization (samadhi, nirvikalpa samadhi, etc). It is just a tool, like a hammer or chainsaw, that serves a greater purpose. Yogic practices, at-least the physical ones, are for strengthening the body to face the rigors of long term meditation and deeper conditions. Hindu scriptures clearly say that such practices are to be done under the guidance of a qualified guru (A true guru is one who has attained realization him/her self.) Nowadays, business ventures are being built around this fad with mostly falsehoods mixed with grains of truth. There is an excellent book [0] that records the conversations of one of the greatest modern era yogis [1], whose whole life was spent in meditation. The book is a great read and records his conversations with many western visitors. Do read it to get a better understanding of the context of meditation and related topics. [0] https://selfdefinition.org/ramana/Talks-with-Sri-Ramana-Maharshi--complete.pdf https://selfdefinition.org/ramana/Talks-with-Sri-Ramana-Maha... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramana_Maharshi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramana_Maharshi
  • naringas 6y ago
    > It is just a tool, like a hammer or chainsaw, that serves a greater purpose. I think it's better analogy to think of it as a technique, like a somersault or a cartwheel. but I'm just nitpicking.
    • mtalantikite 6y ago
      One of my yoga teachers would coincidentally tell us to approach things slowly and carefully in the middle of practice because “you wouldn’t just toss around a running chainsaw would you?”
  • perfmode 6y ago
    thanks for sharing. Ramana is as rare as they come. a true gem of a being
  • 6y ago
• asymptosis 6y ago
  About 17 years ago I tried out some vamachara tantra exercises I found on the web. Heady stuff. It gave me a three week episode of full-blown mania. I only needed four hours sleep a night. I had this wild urge to run and jump everywhere I went. After three weeks, it culminated in an auditory hallucination that was indistinguishable from telepathy. Then the mania suddenly drained and never came back however often I repeated the exercises. Years later, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, but it's usually fairly mild, with hypomania and mixed states which get worse when under stress. Nothing was ever again as intense as the meditation-induced mania of 2004.
  • nemo1618 6y ago
    Very interesting. I wonder if meditation acted as a "trigger" experience, much like how heavy use of psychedelics is known (or at least widely believed) to trigger latent schizophrenia in people who are predisposed towards it.
    • kayodelycaon 6y ago
      I’m bipolar. My understanding from my own experience is that any attempt to play around with altered states of consciousness is dangerous when you’re already predisposed to psychosis.
  • kumarvvr 6y ago
    Really curious. Can you give more details? Vamachara stuff is forbidden and can lead to extremely dangerous reverse effects.
    • asymptosis 6y ago
      It might be forbidden within the context of certain religious paths/orders, but it's not forbidden for random people on the internet to experiment with whatever exercises they come across. I think the site where I got it doesn't exist any more. I think I have a copy in my own archives somewhere. The basic gist of the practices was a combination of various asanas, mantras, pranayama and visualisation.
• rarefied_tomato 6y ago
  This article discusses how transcendental meditation has induced nihilism and reality disconnect upon some of its vulnerable practitioners. In my ears, this lends cautionary support for Nietzsche's criticism of stoics and Buddhists. I'm not very knowledgeable here, but roughly his argument is that the avoidance of life's suffering is nothing but an escape from life itself. If one engages with the world, one must deal with pain and joy as a consequence. On more practical terms, it's always good to measure how your inner model corresponds with reality.
  • bin_bash 6y ago
    As a Buddhist myself, that's a poor description of Buddhism. The "suffering" the Buddha spoke about is not general pain, it's a more specific ailment. The word he used was "dukkha" which a lot of modern Buddhists argue more directly translated to "unsatisfactoriness", or as I think of it, "wishing that things were different than the way they are." That's the specific pain the Buddha teaches about and tries to help with—it's not about becoming numb to the world at all. It's simply overcoming the desire for things to be different than the way they actually are. The method, by the way, is to become more aware of the world and your feelings—not less so. Disclaimer: I'm just a lay student of Buddhism and far from a teacher myself. This is just my understanding from years of reading about it. Not all Buddhists agree with this perspective, but I believe it's the vast majority amongst Theravadans at least.
    • thevardanian 6y ago
      "wishing that things were different than the way they are." That's actually one of the best ways I've heard it described.
    • rarefied_tomato 6y ago
      Your description of dukkha reminds me of a concept in Stoicism. Early Stoics formalized "pneuma" as something of a "natural order" or "holy ghost". The teachings were that one could avoid self-destructive behavior by not fighting an intrinsic flow to the universe. To frame this with what I saying about Nietzsche- his criticism might have encouraged one to wrestle with natural order. Or perhaps stated that passivity with regard to the state of things is undesirable.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• travisjungroth 6y ago
  This article makes me think that people don’t consider the dosage of meditation enough. Most treatments/practices have some range from ineffective->helpful->harmful. 10 hours of vipassana is maybe a hundred times more intense than 10 minutes of guided meditation. It would be surprising if they both fell into the “helpful” range.
• kayodelycaon 6y ago
  As someone who is bipolar and has had multiple psychotic breaks, this does not surprise me I’m the least. Put the right stress on any mind, and it will break. I spent four months believing I was a fictional character from my own writing. The experience permanently changed my personality. (See my blog if you’re curious about some of my life experiences.) My brain is more susceptible to this kind of thing, but it can happen to neurotypical people, usually from traumatic events.
• lukasb 6y ago
  I have mixed feelings about the article - a lot of that has to do with the fact that over the ~10 retreats I've been on, with dozens of people that I interacted with after the retreat was over, I haven't really observed the negative affects they're talking about. However, I do agree that if you meditate for an hour a day or more (or sure, 40 minutes) having a good teacher is important. Dr. Britton put together something called a "Meditation Safety Toolbox" that looks really interesting, looking forward to diving into it: https://www.brown.edu/research/labs/britton/meditation-safety-toolbox https://www.brown.edu/research/labs/britton/meditation-safet...
  • bamboozled 6y ago
    The experience for me has been just like most others. Take weight lifting for example, you don't go into the gym and try dead lift 200 kilograms with poor technique or your liable to get hurt. What a wise lifter might do is work their way up to the point they're ready and might enjoy lifting 200kgs and then attempt it. Like most things, start small and work your way up. I'd imagine the same should apply to meditation.
    • viceroyalbean 6y ago
      Indeed, it wasn't mentioned in the article from what I can tell but I wonder if she had any prior meditation experience. Even a weekend retreat would seem like a lot for me and I've done daily 30 minute sessions for a while. 10 days? That's pretty extreme
      • fjfaase 6y ago
        The report points out that even moderate meditation (more than 30 minutes per day) can have an objective negative effect on sleep quality, contraditionary to the fact that subjects often report a positive effect. (I have not found the scientific report where the statement is based on yet.)
        • kritiko 6y ago
• jrowley 6y ago
  I have a very intelligent, kind friend who lives alone, got deep into meditation during covid, started hallucinating / getting increasinly paranoid, and ended up hospitalized for a couple of weeks and diagnosed with schizophrenia. She is doing better now but will almost certainly have to drop out of school. That's not to say meditation is a bad thing, or should be avoided, but it isn't without risk or harmless necessarily either. If it can do so much good, what's to say it cannot also do bad. The mind is a powerful thing.
  • bamboozled 6y ago
    By "during covid", I guess you mean while isolating in lock down ? I'd be more inclined to suggest it was the isolation, loneliness and stress of uncertainty that would trigger something like that. It was a dark time. Curious if your friend started meditation hoping it might alleviate and already uncomfortable mental state, or they felt fine and just wanted to meditate for fun ? I'm not a doctor, or psychiatrist but from the exposure I've had from my own practice, I'd imagine taking up anything other than a very, very, very light meditation course during such a stressful uncertain time could really expose one too a bit too much sensory overload.
    • a9h74j 6y ago
      Speaking to the possibility of other/multiple/connected upstream causes, there is this remark I once heard: "Meditation is what you do while you are losing touch with your friends and interests." To me that can be appropriately unclear about what causes what.
      • bamboozled 6y ago
        "Meditation is what you do while you are losing touch with your friends and interests." This makes no sense to me.
• calt 6y ago
  Intensive retreats aren't to be underestimated. It's a serious spiritual path that isn't designed to make one well adjusted to this world right away. I think the end result can be a fully integrated self actualized person, but the traditional view is that it might take lifetimes. Lifetimes are not what most westerners are (or should be, imho) willing to sacrifice. Top tier meditation institutions in the west and in Asia are not ignorant of meditation induced psychosis and they have ways of dealing with it. Everyone who claims all meditation is great and nothing bad can happen is ignorant. Some of my most respected meditation teachers are known for recommending that people don't take up intensive retreats if they feel they have a choice in the matter. If it feel unavoidable, then do it. If it's just something you want to try, don't. I can immediately recall at least 4 saying this. However, if 20 minutes of mindfulness a day sets you off into strange psychological territory, then I have a hard time believing that meditation was at fault. The "dosage" simply isn't high enough to be the key factor.
  • travisjungroth 6y ago
    > Everyone who claims all meditation is great and nothing bad can happen is ignorant. Or lying. I doubt the meditation center in the article updated the claims on their site after these events.
    • h0l0cube 6y ago
      The Goenka schools provide a questionnaire to determine mental health and any medications the student will need. Each teacher is different in who they will let in, and all those schools are volunteer run. I can see that some teachers could be reckless with course admissions, but all teachers would have managed multiple courses before, and would know the difficulties for everyone if they let someone in who has a history of mental illness. It's not great situation for anyone if any student enters psychosis on a silent retreat, not the teacher/manager/other volunteers/other students. Edit: Also it's tricky if your students are motivated enough to get in that they'll lie. https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/6590720 https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards...
• prophesi 6y ago
  This just in: those prone to lose touch with reality ended up losing touch with reality after engaging in practices that help you lose touch with reality.
  • seigando 6y ago
    That’s... not what this kind of meditation is about. Nor is that necessarily what happened. Shockingly ignorant and dismissive of you.
    • prophesi 6y ago
      I read the article. > For a cumulative ten hours and forty-five minutes, she sat cross-legged on a rug, her spine erect, and tried to focus on her breath. This practice _will_ cause disassociation at some point, which is precisely what happened when she broke out into psychosis after engaging in the practice for 60+ total hours.
      • seigando 6y ago
        ...so you're qualified to make that sort of statement? Got any publications to back it up for example? Concentrating on something for a cumulative 10 hours and 45 minutes is actually not uncommon in the slightest. Does everyone who focuses on something for that long disassociate? Or just people who focus on their breath? Why is it that good posture and focusing on one's breath in particular would cause 'disassociation' if that's your claim? Maybe you go through life constantly asserting and believing things that are in no way true....with no experience nor credentials nor having even read any literature to back any of them up...
        • prophesi 6y ago
          Meditation-induced psychosis. Look it up. Don't act so ignorant and dismissive.
          • seigando 6y ago
• seigando 6y ago
  I have significant experience with meditation, and I tend to agree with Lieberman in this article. Trying to pin Megan's condition on meditation alone is sort of like blaming your mother for lifting up the carpet to find that's where you hid the mess.
  • seigando 6y ago
    Also of note in this article is that the hospital drugged her until she appeared cheerful....and then released her. I think this article actually says more about the state of mental health care in this country than problems with meditation. That's not to say there aren't any, but it doesn't seem like this article summarizes it very well, so I will: Insufficient mental frameworks and support structures coupled with deep meditative experiences can lead people to harm themselves. That's pretty much the main conclusion I've received from here, but surprise, lots of people harm themselves without meditation too. Maybe this is part of America waking up to how messed up it is underneath it all.
• jwilber 6y ago
  A therapist told me that, for those who suffer from ocd, meditation can do more harm than help. Especially for those who suffer from more rumination-based variants (ie “pure-ocd”). I’ve had mixed results - my personal observation is to treat it like a psychedelic trip: only go in when you’re in a good mental state. The odd thing is the typical therapy for ocd is cbt (cognitive behavioral therapy), which, despite intersecting quite a bit with meditation, is very effective. Yoga always feels beneficial.
  • throwaway05954 6y ago
    I was thinking about my own OCD treatment as I was reading the comments here. I've been reading 'The Mindfulness Workbook for OCD' and it had one of the best suggestions and explanations about meditation that I've seen. As others have said, 'meditation' is a really vague term but in the context of OCD I got the impression it's just about practicing shifting your attention to one thing and then shifting it gently back there when it begins to wander; as well as allowing OCD thoughts to just 'exist' and not engaging with them. As a fellow OCD sufferer I just wanted to say good luck. A bit off-topic for this thread but 'The OCD Stories' podcast, NOCD (https://www.treatmyocd.com https://www.treatmyocd.com) and the Zoom support groups run by OCDPeers (https://ocdpeers.com/ https://ocdpeers.com/) have been life-changing for me.
• samcodes 6y ago
  Meditation is a pretty broad term encompassing many different activities/intentions (though they all look pretty similar from the outside). In the studies I’ve read on the adverse effects of meditation, the style has a major influence. Due to historical accidents, vipassana is a common style in the West - I find this mind blowing, since it is probably the most likely to cause adverse effects. As a long time meditator, my experience with vipassana is that it is the hardcore path, for those willing to risk crashing and burning to get to enlightenment faster. Techniques like mettā, tonglen, or dzogchen seem to be ~5-10x less likely to be associated with a psychotic event - which at that point, seems like it could just be about prior history [1]. It's worth mentioning that Britton, the academic meditation critic in the article is a co-author of this paper. [1] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0176239 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
  • lukasb 6y ago
    What you say about metta etc being less likely to induce psychosis than vipassana makes sense, Goenka retreats especially are super-intense bootcamps. Do you have a citation for the 5-10x figure? I can't find it in the Britton paper.
  • mtalantikite 6y ago
    When I started meditating I also was introduced via Theravada based vipassana and eventually felt the need to give it up after having some strange things come up and also falling into the nihilism trap I think is common to hit. Thankfully years later I encountered Mahayana teachings and it clarified a ton for me, letting me restart my practice. That’s all to say I think it’s important that people take it slow and get familiarized with the actual teachings to ground the experience. Jumping in to a 10 day, 10 hour per day training with little or no context is going to be seriously difficult. We have to understand that these practices come from places where the students wouldn’t be completely unfamiliar with the basics of the teachings. There would be at least a basic cultural understanding of the point of meditation (an actual spiritual practice) as opposed to a kid from the US that hears it makes you feel better and might make you more productive.
    • 6y ago
• ggm 6y ago
  Everyone I know who did an intensive meditation retreat was warned up-front. It isn't just "sign here and pay" for reputable agencies. I am also told, there is a strict post-retreat protocol regarding re-engagement in the wider world. People are amazingly vulnerable at this time. The facilitating staff are told to be strictly hands-off, and avoid situations of risk for either of them. (client, or helper) I think that I'm just saying, its like the go-kart track down the road. the one which has a terms-and-conditions board a mile long: its a better choice than the one which doesn't seem to care about safety, even if its a bit off-putting at first.
• mcshicks 6y ago
  Similar discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19222467 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19222467
• haltingproblem 6y ago
  Long term meditation "enthusiast" who has been around many meditation traditions and also done retreats from 3 days to 3 weeks. Meditation is definitely not relaxation. In the language of Yoga (which meditative traditions share), long meditation sessions move the focus (prana) to certains parts of the body where long sustained focus can create "imbalances" and lead to breaks and other side effects (psychosis or related). Further description risks going into woo-woo land without a shared language. Meditation carries with it the most definite risk of people experiencing a break. I would put the at-risk population in the low-to-mid single digits. I have seen folks go into long meditation retreats and experience breaks where they have an experience much like Megan in the article - they have to be admitted and most of them are never the same ever after. Very solid grounded people develop migraines, insomnia, loss of appetite, or start hallucinating. Meditation and Pranayama are both neither innocuous nor mere placebo effects. There is a very strong mechanism at work which we do not understand in a modern scientific context. However, the majority of practitioners do not do long intense retreats and will get away without any serious consequences. A good tradition will devote serious time on how to combat the effects of long meditation retreats. They will talk about it almost as much as the technique itself. The biggest antidotes are - getting good sleep, not overdoing it, physical exercise, long walks and getting enough food. The inversion - onset of insomnia or anxiety or loss of appetite - is a very bad sign and you should stop meditating immediately. Please do not do take either practice lightly or you could risk effing up something internally for which we have no cure. Feel free to DM me if you want to chat more.
  • akudha 6y ago
    most of them are never the same ever after Can you share what happened to them? Also, you mentioned 3 week retreats. Can you share what changes (good or bad) you experienced during these long retreats?
    • jessermeyer 6y ago
      I encountered this and wrote about it in other meditation thread. Here I've inlined it below. Meditation is a blade with no hilt. I _accidentally_ fell into a vipassana state of mind after the first time trying a particular religious chant, seriously, from out of the pains of boredom as a 20 year old. At the time I lived nearby mountains, and after 'coming to', I saw them through the window. I cannot describe to you the overwhelming feeling of beauty and awe that crashed over me. It was as though this was the very first time I had ever seen mountains. I think the best description I can manage comes from 'Both Sides Now' by Joni Mitchell. 'I've looked at clouds from both sides now From up and down, and still somehow It's cloud illusions I recall I really don't know clouds at all' The experience was so disorienting. As if I was seeing the mountains for what they were directly through my senses and not mediated by my knowledge of what mountains were like, linguistically. It changed my entire life -- weeks later later I lost my job and fell into a 5 year extreme depression / anxiety spell in the attempt to reconcile my adolescent religious upbringing with the continued insight from that experience. Absolutely worthwhile, in hindsight, but it cost me near everything for it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24186942 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24186942
• gringoDan 6y ago
  Glad to see this article explore the darker side of meditation. A few years back, I had a sobering experience at a Vipassana meditation retreat and left after a few days. I had feelings of anxiety and despair, which I expected (at least intellectually), but when I started to have suicidal thoughts, I decided it was time to get out. While the Goenka retreats profess to be secular and for everyone, I got serious cult vibes from the minute that I arrived. Technically, the in-person instructors are only assistant teachers. There is only one true teacher: Goenka himself. During his nightly instruction via VHS tape - the only human interaction you're allowed all day - Goenka teaches Buddhist metaphysics (I recall something about vibrations of the universe). The retreat creates the perfect environment to break you down psychologically: sleep deprivation, food restriction, lack of human interaction, prohibitions on reading, writing, and exercising. Throughout the retreat, there is ingroup/outgroup pressure: only the strong can make it through; people who leave or aren't able to handle the meditation are weak. If you have a concern about your experience, the standard solution is more meditation. If you question this, you didn't give the retreat a chance, you weren't meditating hard enough. Then, at the end of the retreat you're hit with a love bomb on the way out the door. [1] Interpreted charitably, I thought this retreat was similar to military training or fraternity hazing. Less so, it was more like solitary confinement or torture. I'm glad I went - I gained some insights and it was an incredibly valuable experience. I'm also glad I left early. If you're thinking of going on one of these retreats, know what the assistant teacher told me on mine: "This is a Buddhist purification ritual." [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_bombing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_bombing
  • davmar 6y ago
    i've completed 2 goenka retreats and i would describe the experience very differently experience from how you did. first, the nightly videos. not cultish and not metaphysics. don't believe me? view them all here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cz7QHNvNFfA&list=PLPJVlVRVmhc4Z01fD57jbzycm9I6W054x https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cz7QHNvNFfA&list=PLPJVlVRVmh... second, plenty of delicious food. if it's your first time, dinner is fruits. if it's not your first retreat you aren't offered dinner, but you really don't need the calories because you've mostly been sitting. all the food is vegetarian. third, the assistant teachers are well trained. finally, you left after a few days so you cannot speak to what happens at the end. it's called "loving-kindness" meditation and it's at the end because yes, the retreat can be intense, and it's like a balm to treat any difficulties you encountered along the way. here's a link to what it actually is: https://www.mettainstitute.org/mettameditation.html https://www.mettainstitute.org/mettameditation.html
• theptip 6y ago
  Reminds me a lot of "the dark night of the soul" as described in "Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha" by Daniel Ingram (the book is online at https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/ https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/). Scott Alexander did a great book review if you want the summary: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/18/book-review-mastering-the-core-teachings-of-the-buddha/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/18/book-review-mastering-... This finishes with a Scott-at-his-best quote that is pertinent to the OP: > Why would you want to do any of this? > The Buddha is supposed to have said: “I gained nothing whatsoever from Supreme Enlightenment, and for that reason it is called Supreme Enlightenment”. And sure, that’s the enigmatic Zen-sounding sort of statement we expect from our spiritual leaders. But if Buddhist practice is really difficult, and makes you perceive every single sensation as profoundly unsatisfactory in some hard-to-define way, and can plunge you into a neverending depression which you might get out of if you meditate hard enough, and then gives you a sort of permanent annoying low-grade bipolar disorder even if you succeed, then we’re going to need something better than pithy quotes... > Once he’s stripped everything else away, he says the only thing one can say about enlightenment is that it grants a powerful true experience of the non-dual nature of the world. > But still, why would we want to get that? I am super in favor of knowledge-for-knowledge’s-sake, but I’ve also read enough Lovecraft to have strong opinions about poking around Ultimate Reality in ways that tend to destroy your mental health. Worth noting that as far as I can tell most of the meditation community doesn't get behind Ingram's account of the "dark night", and teachers talk more about having blissful/tranquil mental states available on tap. Ingram might retort that most teachers are full of shit and haven't attained enlightenment, they probably just got first Jhana. Most people round here would probably read the "fire kasina" and magick stuff that he's talking about after "14 hours per day for 10-20 days in good practice conditions with full, unbridled, undistracted effort." and think -- yep, that sounds like a psychologically risky state. My general take is basically the same as with using psychedelics for treating trauma and depression; any medicine which is powerful enough to modify your mind and cure major structural issues is also powerful enough to break your mind, if you're unlucky/unskilled/unguided in the application. The (completely incorrect) Western image of deep meditation as "deep relaxation" is a big problem here, and that's compounded by it being quite awkward to actually claim you're enlightened, which makes it hard to credential-check your teachers; most people straight up call BS on such claims. From the little meditation I've done, I think it's more likely than not that "cessation" / "enlightenment" is a real mental phenomenon, but I'm not sure that it's actually worth dedicating a decade or two of your life to attain. Having said all that, light meditation / mindfulness practice is well-documented as being beneficial, so if it's helping you don't stop; just don't feel you need to constantly increase your sit durations and go deeper, if you're not doing so with a specific goal in mind and ideally a community to support you.
• chrispai 6y ago
  The woman in the article was withdrawing from Zoloft during a very stressful time and went to meditate for 10 hours a day. It is not a surprise she had a psychotic break. Disregarding we have hidden memories that are locked away, it is established that our minds suppress troubling memories. After a long meditation time, they can come out. In my personal experience, I have had to discontinue sessions due to bad memories arising.
  • CountDrewku 6y ago
    "withdrawing from Zoloft" That's enough on its own to cause the issues being attributed to meditation. That also tells us she had prior issues even though the article seems to be trying to place the blame solely on meditation. Antidepressant withdrawal is nothing to mess with.
  • seigando 6y ago
    Very insightful comment, though I might point out that bad memories on their own don't inherently cause significant issues, it's in the the how/if one reacts to them.
• numerobis 6y ago
  To anyone interested in reading more reports (and more nuanced ones, in my opinion) from experienced meditators, I highly recommend the streamentry subreddit (https://old.reddit.com/r/streamentry https://old.reddit.com/r/streamentry).
• cambaceres 6y ago
  My theory is that both Christianity and Islam exists because of the fact that deep prolonged mediation causes hallucinations and psychotic experiences. Why? Because God talked to both Jesus and Muhammed while they where meditating in the desert.
  • pure_simplicity 6y ago
    It can be useful to speculate, but I think you're not that familiar with what meditation in the Abrahamic religions looks like. Meditation in the biblical sense is to think deeply about something. Meditation in the eastern religion sense is to not think about anything. Those two are basically polar opposites and the psychological / neurological effects of the latter cannot be achieved by practising the former. (various sects have arisen that do eastern style meditation, but those have always been fringe minorities, and neither Jesus nor Mohammed shared any characteristics with them) Also, in the gospel the story of the temptation in the wilderness comes after, not before, Jesus' recognition of his divine origin and mission. He was already baptized and pronounced to be God's son before ever going there. What's more this recognition has already come to him in childhood. And even if the order of events had been correct, then the nature of the events does not match, because when he was in the wilderness, Jesus was basically put to the test by the devil, who was trying to distract him from his divine commission, rather than being commissioned by God.
    • cambaceres 6y ago
      The Bible was written 300 years after Jesus lived, so some of these things might have been confused...
      • hudon 6y ago
        1. “The Bible” is not one text and is actually a collection of books each written by different people at different times over the course of centuries. Most of these books were written before Jesus was even born. 2. The books probably relevant to this discussion—the Gospels—are generally believed to have been written before the turn of the first century. Some argue that Mark and Luke were written as early as the 50s, 20 years after Jesus died. [0] [0] https://jimmyakin.com/2018/11/when-was-the-gospel-of-mark-written.html https://jimmyakin.com/2018/11/when-was-the-gospel-of-mark-wr...
• rasengan0 6y ago
  Let's face it, unfortunate suffering arises. Not everyone is cut out for Guriji's 12 hour meditation session. I'm not. How about 2 seconds of meditation? What is meditation? How long? Where? in a 102 degree F room or subzero little hut? Are you alone in solitary or with people? Is focusing on Guriji's toy poodle a part of the style? Seriously are you really ready ? It's not a game or vacation to shangri la. I think a little self-awareness would have helped prevent these tragedies. There were errors in judgement with the meditation center in not contacting the attendee's provider regardless of sign off (imho with inpatient psychiatric ward, MBSR, basic Satipatthana/Vipassana experience) All of my meditation teachers, instructed: practice to your comfort level. Heck they let you sit in a chair?! It's not a race; there's no winning. Consistency, not more is key. I have not met any 20 year meditators who are "enlightened." They still go to the toilet like everyone else. The Dalai Lama gave good advice in the reply, study and understand what you're getting into before leaping into practice. Well, who knows maybe we can extrapolate Britton's 71.6% "moderate to severe impairment in their day-to-day functioning" on all meditating monks and nuns of the world. What a crazy psychotic bunch! No actually, I'd pin that on the "mindfulness" industry and the infantile society we have become.
  • hudon 6y ago
    > I'd pin that on the "mindfulness" industry and the infantile society we have become I think that’s the gist of the article, but maybe the author could have been more explicit. The “mindfulness” movement detached meditation from its source and repackaged it for consumerist society. On the receiving end, users of “Calm” or “Headspace” purchase a product with an incomplete warning label... but perhaps if we were more mature spiritually we wouldn’t go venturing so naively into hazardous territory while being so ill-equipped to deal with what’s out there (or “in here”, as it were).
    • fjfaase 6y ago
      In addition, one could also infer from the article that the original purpose of meditation was to break from the cycle of infinite reincarnations by means of bringing the mind in a disassociative state with reality (life on earth). I understand that the psychotic state overlaps with a disassocative state. I also understood that it is common knowledge that meditating a lot leads to insommia and that even meditating more than 30 minutes per day as a measurable effect on sleep quality. So, it seems that meditation is only useful when you believe in reincarnation and believe it is the only way for escaping the endless wheel of reincarnation. If you believe you have but one life, it is probably not the best method to benefit from that one life.
• gojomo 6y ago
  That some people have negative reactions – including anxiety, hallucinations, & seizures – to intense meditation has been under-reported, but long known. Here's a story from almost 19 years ago in the SFWeekly: "Bad Vibes- Warning: Meditating may be hazardous to your health" SFWeekly, 2002-08-28 https://web.archive.org/web/20091114023754/https://www.sfweekly.com/content/printVersion/313883 https://web.archive.org/web/20091114023754/https://www.sfwee...
  • sammalloy 6y ago
    Yes, for decades it was called kundalini syndrome or psychosis, but is probably best described today as meditation-induced psychosis.
• srinikoganti 6y ago
  Half knowledge article most likely sponsored by religious group
  • seigando 6y ago
    What do you mean?
• apatters 6y ago
  People are usually attracted to various meditative practices because they want to change the way their brain works. There is a large degree of overlap between traditional meditation and psychotherapies based on mindfulness and CBT. The efficacy of these therapies is grounded in a strong and growing body of research (this includes research into their risks). Why not dispense with the woo and approach healing the mind like we do the rest of the body? Here's an overview of the state of mindfulness therapies, I think it's a much more valuable read than Harper's quasi-clickbaity scare piece: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5353527/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5353527/
  • apatters 6y ago
    I like how the meditation cultists were happy to downvote this but couldn't actually formulate a response. Proves my point.
    • seigando 6y ago
      I don’t think you did a good job of delineating the ‘woo’ from the not and your tone was pretty dismissive without presenting any justification
• dartharva 6y ago
  As someone from India who was frequently forced to learn and apply meditation by overzealous parents in my childhood, reading this article and the explanations/anecdotes here was positively shocking. I never really got the hang of meditating, despite receiving training from branches of several international training conglomerates (ISCKON, Art of Living, SRF). But meditation as a practice, in the society I grew in, was hailed as the Godsend ultimate technique of taming your minds, something that will definitely and positively stimulate your brain and make you healthier and more active. I didn't (and don't) understand this stuff so I simply dismissed it as a harmless placebo and went on with it. But before this I had never even thought of it being potentially harmful, and there were absolutely no warnings circulated about this anywhere - neither by the conglomerates and nor by the indie self-styled "gurus" scattered across India and the world. The fact that this is the first time I'm encountering this notion is quite surprising.
  • samus 6y ago
    Maybe the strong cultural roots of the practice makes explicitly stating the dangers unnecessary. Most people never go deep, or practice light techniques that are quite safe. And if you advance, society pushes you to seek out a guru. Edit: Until quite recently (< 150 ago), most people were deeply integrated into family life, both in the West and elsewhere. There was simply way less opportunity for people to isolate themselves and mess around with random techniques from the internet.
  • mulberrybush 6y ago
    In 1967 Gopi Krishna wrote about the side effects of his meditation practice and how he ended up with mental health issues and suffering for decades - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071RB1FQB https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071RB1FQB. This book became very popular around the world in the 70s and 80s. Unlike modern international meditation training institutions like Art of Living and SRF, traditional eastern systems always limited what level of practice was safe for 'lay' practitioners. The hardcode stuff was always reserved for renounced practitioners who would leave everything and go live with the teachers.
• Arun2009 6y ago
  > On the first day of the retreat, Megan, a cheerful twenty-five-year-old with blue eyes and shoulder-length hair dyed a cardinal red, woke at four o’clock in the morning to the chiming of a bell. For a cumulative ten hours and forty-five minutes, she sat cross-legged on a rug, her spine erect, and tried to focus on her breath. This to me sounds like the equivalent of trying to squat with a 200 kg weight on your back on day one when you have never trained with weights before. In the context of Dharmic spiritual traditions, meditation (of various types) is intentionally aimed at facilitating a deconstruction of your normal sense of self and also induce altered states of consciousness. These should not be taken lightly. If you are going to pursue it seriously, it's best to gradually ease into the tradition and respect the spiritual context in which these techniques are supposed to work. It's possible that the recommendations that Dharmic spiritual traditions have for ethics and devotional practices allow us to be more prepared for our experiences during mediation sittings and receive them in a more wholesome way.
• Priem19 6y ago
  I stopped meditating when I wasn't able to laugh any more. I was at a friend's house, sitting comfortably on a couch. I passed my phone and showed my friend and his girlfriend a funny video. They were laughing out loud and so was I, until I became conscious that I was laughing. Similar as to how meditation requires you to be conscious of your breathing. I immediately stopped laughing, and became super serious. Fortunately they didn't look at me and were glued to the screen. It felt remarkably uncomfortable. I tried to laugh again but couldn't, hoping they wouldn't notice. Fortunately I could remain composure and go along but I was desperate to get out of there. At that moment I decided to stop meditating and replace it with going for a walk in nature.
• krueger71 6y ago
  In the Zen-tradition it's almost expected at some point during meditation to have hallucinations (sometimes severe) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maky%C5%8D https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maky%C5%8D
• Ploskin 6y ago
  That's quite the lengthy article. Interesting topic though. I recently stumbled over the Astray podcast (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/astray/id1552069504 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/astray/id1552069504) which is also a decent look at the psychological risks (and maybe easier to consume than a 6000 word essay).
  • alpaca128 6y ago
    > That's quite the lengthy article It's in fact the shortest article I ever read - 0 words after the headline. Unless I refresh the site and manage to read the text within the split second it appears before it rapidly zooms beyond the website's borders. Is this an exercise in focus and meditation? Do I have to register like some of the few visible parts of the page suggest? I don't know, but after reflecting on it I don't think I care enough about horrible web design to bother with it.
• throwaway27735 6y ago
  I started meditation based on a book about Zen when I was 16. I did it more or less regularly at various phases of my life. At quite a low point in life, meditation was what bootstrapped me out of the quicksand. That was in a group but really loosely organized, basically just a guy teaching people meditation techniques for free. (The more well-known techniques like just sitting there and thinking of nothing can be quite exhausting.) If I hadn't done this, I would be actually lost. Also actually traditional Yoga is to my knowledge in reality meditation. So I'd take such an article with a big grain of salt and compare it with the large number of people practicing it successfully. That said, a well-known "side-effect" of meditation is some sort of enlightenment that more frequently will be reached with drugs like LSD. But also very monotonous long-term work can do this - at least that's what I've read in that Zen book.
• downsplat 6y ago
  Thread is a bit old by now - I've also been in the area of meditation and Eastern spiritual teachings and techniques for a long time. Wholehearted agreement on the various comments that this is powerful stuff, you're learning to consciously intervene in very intimate aspects of your functioning that are normally left to happen more or less on their own (e.g thinking, breathing, and engaging or disengaging your attention). So there is definitely potential for doing it wrong and making a mess of yourself. One thing I think has not been mentioned here, is that contemporary culture is very mind-centered. We identify much more strongly with our thoughts than with our feelings, and when feelings are emphasized, it's usually negative ones (see the current culture of outrage). We feel that we are what we think, and tend to work through things by thinking them through. Heart to heart connection is still a thing, always will be because it's part of being human, but it's not very much emphasized in our cultural environment. So you end up with people taking up forceful, advanced spiritual techniques, and doing it it all from the mind, out of plain conviction and volition. And unless you happen to find very good guidance, that's not altogether unlikely to screw you up. Every spiritual tradition that I've looked at has a strong component of heart connection at its center, but it's not always very explicit. Theravada Buddhism has metta as an practice, but it's done separately at certain times, rather than emphasizing that it's the prerequisite for the shamatha/vipassana stuff to actually help you rather than mess you up. A strong, secure heart connection is what makes your meditation go in the direction of wholeness rather than dissociation. All sorts of spiritual traditions are connected to religions that teach you to love your God or your Guru or your favorite enlightened being, or all sentient beings, and they usually have some form of formal worship too, e.g puja. It's not the object of worship that makes the difference, or the details of the ceremony - it's what the reverential, loving attitude does to you. Without love as the lubricant, spiritual practice is not only often ineffective, it's downright dangerous. "When a person who wants Truth more than life falls in love with what is, it happens." - Bart Marshall, on spiritual enlightenement. Note the "love" part is just as important as the "truth" part. One problem nowadays with all the cultural crossing and mixing, is that we get taught Eastern practices, and either the reverential aspect is lost in the process of Westernization, or even more insidiously, it gets transmitted but doesn't work for us. You're a grown up adult joining a spiritual community, and you might learn that it's customary to bow down to a statue, or make an elaborate puja once or twice a month, you go through the motions, even enjoy it, enjoy the connection with fellow practitioners, but the deep heart connection is not really there, because you're a jaded adult who didn't grow up with this particular figure you're now bowing to or making offerings to, and anyway why would someone offer food to a stone statue? Get caught in the social aspects of it, and you might not even notice that an important part of your chosen spirituality is just not working. One thing to take away from my rant: if you're doing any kind of spiritual practice, please please make sure you open your heart before, during and after, in whatever way actually works for you.
• justaj 6y ago
  Sorry, the article seems to be behind a paywall.
  • SummerlyMars 6y ago
    It wasn't for me on desktop. There was a popup asking me to subscribe with a close button that took a bit for me to spot though.
• Disruptive_Dave 6y ago
  I get asked about meditation every now and then from friends and their friends. Here's what I tell them: - Meditation is not a spa treatment for the mind. Certainly not in the short-term. I'm sure there are many meditation-like activities that will bring you more immediate "calming" effects. But those aren't meditation. - First time(s) you sit, one of your first realizations - through experience - will likely be around the impossibility of "stopping thinking." You might get into a wrestling match with your own mind. If I can't stop my own thoughts, then they aren't actually mine, right? Whose are they, then? - This might even lead to the realization that "these thoughts aren't mine, and my life has been my thoughts, so...who the fuck am I?!!!!" - I can't fathom a regular meditation practice that is wholly independent from any sort of intellectual study (for many, that is some version of Buddhism). - Meditation (time on the cushion) is just a teeny tiny sliver of the entire pie. Life (off the cushion) is where the real training is. - Awareness is not happy, it is not fun, it is not calm, it is not exciting, it is not an emotional feeling. Awareness is just awareness. This is merely scratching the surface. But the first point is crucial. Meditation isn't some once-in-a-while activity that you do to "feel better." That's something else.
  • newusertoday 6y ago
    This is the true insight, meditation is just a means to realize it. - Awareness is not happy, it is not fun, it is not calm, it is not exciting, it is not an emotional feeling. Awareness is just awareness.
• Erlich_Bachman 6y ago
  Meditation is a word that is used to describe some very different activities. Thus the lot of confusion that seems to perspire in the comments.
• guytv 6y ago
  I have been through 3 10-day Goenka retreats, numerous 3-day retreats, and is engaged in daily practice (minimum 1hr/day). Vipassana meditation have brought positive change to my life. That's why it makes perfect sense to me that it will have some adverse side-effects for some people. It works i.e. it has positive effects - therefore it must have some negative effects, at least for some people. That's how many things behave in the world, right? In physics its called "action and re-action".
• igammarays 6y ago
  My experience with Sufi and secular-buddhist (Headspace) meditation teachings is that the psychological breakdown is expected. Meditation is supposed to tear you down, and then build you back up again. However, some people get "stuck" in teardown phases (the Sufi term is "intoxication" or "annihilation") and then take a long time to recover, or never recover at all. However the "annihilated" phase is merely a stage on the journey, not the end. The perfect master returns to the world a normal person on the outside, but utterly transformed on the inside.
• rafaelvasco 6y ago
  Meditation doesn't bring psychological problems. If you already have then, it exarcebates them. Bring them more into focus. Don't start meditation practices if you have: Traumas, PTSTD, COD, etc. Meditation is the ultimate introspection practice. It's not a relaxation practive, though it can give that after effect. You will dive deep within yourself, and if you have some "monsters" stored deep, you will face them face to face.
  • squidlogic 6y ago
    From the article: "Some clinicians believe that meditation can cause psychological problems in people without underlying conditions, and that even forty minutes of meditation per day can pose risks. In 1975, The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease published the case study of a thirty-eight-year-old woman, Mrs. M., who had no history of trauma or psychotic episodes but had begun to experience “altered reality testing and behavior” soon after taking up transcendental meditation. She was meditating for twenty minutes, twice a day. The authors, psychiatrists at the University of California, Davis, wrote that an altered state of consciousness within days after beginning TM, and the occurrence of the “waking fantasies” shortly thereafter, leave little doubt of some causal relationship between the use of TM and the subsequent psychosis-like experience. They concluded, “We would expect the occurrence of powerfully compelling fantasies in some portion of normal individuals utilizing depressive procedures of any form,” including meditation."
    • rafaelvasco 6y ago
      Most will disagree with me but: Those "waking fantasies" are the result of dilligent meditation. They occur because the brain activates some senses which aren't normally used. But as mainstream Science knows little about them, they're treated as "psychosis" and "fantasies". I can't say about her case specifically, but overall, I can assure you, they're not. But the thing is, the proof can't be shown. It must be experienced. I've been studying these things for years. I'm not a "blind believer". I've experienced them, as millions of others did. Dismissing these things as "fantasies" is naive at best.
      • 6y ago
• squidlogic 6y ago
  "Megan spent much of the next three days in her room, trying to concentrate on sensations in her body. Beck sat by her side. “She always had the option to leave,” Beck said. “She wanted to stay. She doubled down. She was trying so hard.” According to Beck, Megan told Hin that she felt like she was going crazy. Hin instructed Megan to focus on her breath. During one meeting, Megan had trouble sitting up, so Hin had her lie down. When Megan clenched her fists, Hin told her to focus on the feeling in her hands. “Yanny had no sense of this being anything that she couldn’t teach her way out of,” Beck told me. When Megan got agitated, “the instruction was always the same: close your eyes, go back to meditating.” (Yanny Hin declined to be interviewed for this story.)" This reminded me of my experience at a crossfit gym. I never once heard the instructors tell anyone to stop going even if they were likely to hurt themselves by continuing. Sure you can get up and leave the WOD whenever you want, but that social pressure is likely to push adherents beyond what they would normally do. This can be good if nothing goes wrong, but it can also mask preexisting issues or issues that arise from the practice itself.
  • seigando 6y ago
    It's pretty significant how many people are willing to hurt themselves due to 'social pressure'.
    • chacha2 6y ago
      If they were to abandon that pressure they might have a much harder time keeping a routine and proper work out.
      • seigando 6y ago
        Or with just a little self understanding and nuance, they could use the groups in the ways that help them, and still maintain healthy boundaries for self-care.
    • seigando 6y ago
      Or with just a little self understanding and nuance, they could use the groups in the ways that help them, and still maintain healthy boundaries for self-care.
• tryitnow 6y ago
  Question: Is there any strong evidence (e.g. meta-analyses) indicating that multi-day meditation retreats produce consistently positive effect over and above a regular daily practice (e.g. 30-60 minutes per day)?
  • seigando 6y ago
    Probably depends on how one defines positive effect.
• MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago
  I did prayers as a Catholic daily for about a decade straight in a past life. I would tell any non religious person who has never done meditation to completely and utterly ignore it outright. It is utter nonsense, a waste of time, energy, and does nothing for you. If you are not an introspective person, prayer will not magically aid you in being better at it. Also too much introspection leads to way too much overthinking in life.