4 ms·
There's decent empirical evidence of an effect. It's not a huge surprise when you think about it - therapy works because of helping people change how they thin
by fossuser 5y ago
There's decent empirical evidence of an effect.
It's not a huge surprise when you think about it - therapy works because of helping people change how they think.
The reason it's often dismissed by skeptics is because it's often surrounded by a lot of religious woo and other nonsense so people often dismiss the entire thing.
I have a pet hypothesis that it can make anxiety worse if you're not careful due to Hypervigilance (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypervigilance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypervigilance) - anxious people tend to have issues with ruminating and paying too much introspective attention to their bodies already. Most meditation rhetoric appears to be targeted to people who never introspect. Getting control over ruminating thoughts is helpful, but I've found mindfulness to be a mixed bag personally.
- coffeecat 5y agoI think you're on to something! Personally, after a short amount of mindfulness meditation (perhaps about 10 hours cumulatively; never more than 30 minutes per day), I began to struggle with uncontrollable awareness of bodily sensations. My consciousness would gravitate uncontrollably toward a certain bodily sensation, and I became unable to decouple my consciousness from the sensation. The harder I'd try to focus on something and ignore the sensation, the more intense the sensation would become. This would culminate in a panic attack. The issue mostly subsided after a month or two, but it never fully went away. I've become convinced that mindfulness meditation is precisely the opposite of what an anxious, inwardly-focused person needs. If there were a way to train the mind to selectively attenuate information/signals, on the other hand, that would be very helpful.
- fossuser 5y agoYeah - that’s largely been my experience as well, and I agree.