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Spot on. A quick perusal of many cognitive enhancement-centered communities (/r/Nootropics, Longecity, Bluelight, etc) will reveal that sleep and mindfulness a

Spot on. A quick perusal of many cognitive enhancement-centered communities (/r/Nootropics, Longecity, Bluelight, etc) will reveal that sleep and mindfulness are the first things that need to be improved, not last.

dominotw 12y ago
I was always confused about what 'mindfulness' means. Does it mean concentrating on one current thing? Then why not call it concentration. Alternatively, does it mean that my brain has a 'controller' which goads the 'controlled' to be more mindful? To me this duality of our perception feels absurd. It creates internal conflict and somehow this is supposed to be good for you? Do other animals feel this duality? Or this phenomenon unique to human beings?
- ollerac 12y ago
  I think it is concentration. Although I think concentration has a bit of an active feel to it, as if you're usually doing it in order to accomplish something. When I meditate I just try to be aware of what's going in my mind, my body, and my breath without judging them. The idea of a controller and a controlled entity is just a feeling that comes from an active attitude that you're somehow preserving. If you simple watch yourself it will become apparent that ways of thinking like this don't necessarily represent reality. They comes and go.
- npsimons 12y ago
  Not that I'm any sort of expert in mindfulness, but I like to relate the concept via a few analogies. The first is that for dieting, one strategy is to be mindful of your satiety. Pause between bites and feel if you are full. Another is for training. Exercise is good, but to train effectively, you have to pay attention to how your body feels, not just to prevent injuries and know when to rest, but also while training, so that you make sure every movement is actually influencing your body the way you want. With mindfulness, you place the focus of introspection on your mind: what emotions are you feeling? Why do you feel that way? Have you lost focus? When attempting to learn are you keeping your mind active? It's sort of like "situational awareness" turned inward, or honing your mind to make deliberate practice even more effective. "An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself."
  - dominotw 12y ago
    Right. I think I get the basic idea of it. What bothers is me is who is this 'other me' telling me what to do. Is the 'other me' the real me, if not why can't I figure out myself when to stop eating why do I need another overbearing character watching my every move and telling me what to do. It is quite disconcerting that we have taken this kind of dualistic thinking to be the norm and assumed that thats how things are and that we are doomed to live in a perpetual conflict within ourselves. We have made great scientific discoveries and have spent enormous amounts of energy in learning how the world works. But we have spent so little time on studying ourselves as to why we behave in certain way. All we have come up with so far are conflict inducing strategies like mindfulness.
    - Delmania 12y ago
      Mindfulness is taking advantage of the fact that humans are conscious of their consciousness, and using that to overcome our instincts. For example, the human brain, if left alone will tend to go towards negative situations. I think (keyword: think) that's because we want to avoid bad feelings, so we replay those events in our mind to figure out what happened and how we can avoid those bad feelings in the future. Feelings, after all, are a response to a situation, so if we have a bad feeling, it means we did something wrong. However, studies have shown that such behavior has negative impacts on you (bad feelings reduce your immune system, etc), so mindfulness is avoiding that trap. As for your original question, you can't figure out when to stop eating because humans largely disregard instinct. Obesity has many causes.
    - ssdfsdf 12y ago
      The goal of mindfulness, in the traditions I have read. Is ultimately to understand that the act of watching is no different from the thoughts being watched. It is by doing the watching that one realizes over time that there is no watcher. This leads into the idea that if there is no watcher, you/I must be the thoughts themselves. If we are the thoughts themselves, then we are the words, we are the sound waves in the air. We are the patterns in the sand, the correlations in neuronal firing, there is no distinction between inside and outside, you and I, this thing and that thing. The way something reacts is no different from what a thing is. A lot of things that appear to be bunkum are in fact bunkum. But some things which appear to be bunkum are in fact profound truth.
- crusso 12y ago
  Mindfulness is meta-concentration. Concentration is the ability to focus on a task. Mindfulness is the ability to be aware of your concentration. Concentration is akin to a programming thread or groups of threads working on tasks. Mindfulness is akin to the thread scheduler and process manager components.
- zeidrich 12y ago
  You probably notice that sometimes you do things on habit, as a reaction, without thinking about it. Mindfulness is being aware of what you're doing. Even if you are doing something habitual, noticing that you're doing it. If you're angry, knowing why, feeling the anger, making a decision to try and do something about it or not. It's different than concentration because concentration indicates some intensity. Mindfulness doesn't need to be intense. You can be mindful and be doing nothing, or you can be mindful and be doing many things. It just means that you're more aware of what you're doing. I'm sure other animals have this duality, but I would expect that they aren't as introspective as humans, so they probably don't notice it. It's not that your brain has a 'controller'. In fact, that's about as far away from the truth as I can imagine. It's that your brain is made of many parts, and is part of your entire body. You can't really control it as a whole, but you can make an environment where it's easier to work with the cognitive side of things. Mindfulness is being practiced in relaxing the barriers to cognition. Concentration, on the other hand, is more like the ability to override the reward loop, and continue with a task that is getting deprioritized.

dominotw 12y ago

I was always confused about what 'mindfulness' means. Does it mean concentrating on one current thing? Then why not call it concentration. Alternatively, does it mean that my brain has a 'controller' which goads the 'controlled' to be more mindful? To me this duality of our perception feels absurd. It creates internal conflict and somehow this is supposed to be good for you? Do other animals feel this duality? Or this phenomenon unique to human beings?

ollerac 12y ago
I think it is concentration. Although I think concentration has a bit of an active feel to it, as if you're usually doing it in order to accomplish something. When I meditate I just try to be aware of what's going in my mind, my body, and my breath without judging them. The idea of a controller and a controlled entity is just a feeling that comes from an active attitude that you're somehow preserving. If you simple watch yourself it will become apparent that ways of thinking like this don't necessarily represent reality. They comes and go.
npsimons 12y ago
Not that I'm any sort of expert in mindfulness, but I like to relate the concept via a few analogies. The first is that for dieting, one strategy is to be mindful of your satiety. Pause between bites and feel if you are full. Another is for training. Exercise is good, but to train effectively, you have to pay attention to how your body feels, not just to prevent injuries and know when to rest, but also while training, so that you make sure every movement is actually influencing your body the way you want. With mindfulness, you place the focus of introspection on your mind: what emotions are you feeling? Why do you feel that way? Have you lost focus? When attempting to learn are you keeping your mind active? It's sort of like "situational awareness" turned inward, or honing your mind to make deliberate practice even more effective. "An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself."
- dominotw 12y ago
  Right. I think I get the basic idea of it. What bothers is me is who is this 'other me' telling me what to do. Is the 'other me' the real me, if not why can't I figure out myself when to stop eating why do I need another overbearing character watching my every move and telling me what to do. It is quite disconcerting that we have taken this kind of dualistic thinking to be the norm and assumed that thats how things are and that we are doomed to live in a perpetual conflict within ourselves. We have made great scientific discoveries and have spent enormous amounts of energy in learning how the world works. But we have spent so little time on studying ourselves as to why we behave in certain way. All we have come up with so far are conflict inducing strategies like mindfulness.
  - Delmania 12y ago
    Mindfulness is taking advantage of the fact that humans are conscious of their consciousness, and using that to overcome our instincts. For example, the human brain, if left alone will tend to go towards negative situations. I think (keyword: think) that's because we want to avoid bad feelings, so we replay those events in our mind to figure out what happened and how we can avoid those bad feelings in the future. Feelings, after all, are a response to a situation, so if we have a bad feeling, it means we did something wrong. However, studies have shown that such behavior has negative impacts on you (bad feelings reduce your immune system, etc), so mindfulness is avoiding that trap. As for your original question, you can't figure out when to stop eating because humans largely disregard instinct. Obesity has many causes.
  - ssdfsdf 12y ago
    The goal of mindfulness, in the traditions I have read. Is ultimately to understand that the act of watching is no different from the thoughts being watched. It is by doing the watching that one realizes over time that there is no watcher. This leads into the idea that if there is no watcher, you/I must be the thoughts themselves. If we are the thoughts themselves, then we are the words, we are the sound waves in the air. We are the patterns in the sand, the correlations in neuronal firing, there is no distinction between inside and outside, you and I, this thing and that thing. The way something reacts is no different from what a thing is. A lot of things that appear to be bunkum are in fact bunkum. But some things which appear to be bunkum are in fact profound truth.
crusso 12y ago
Mindfulness is meta-concentration. Concentration is the ability to focus on a task. Mindfulness is the ability to be aware of your concentration. Concentration is akin to a programming thread or groups of threads working on tasks. Mindfulness is akin to the thread scheduler and process manager components.
zeidrich 12y ago
You probably notice that sometimes you do things on habit, as a reaction, without thinking about it. Mindfulness is being aware of what you're doing. Even if you are doing something habitual, noticing that you're doing it. If you're angry, knowing why, feeling the anger, making a decision to try and do something about it or not. It's different than concentration because concentration indicates some intensity. Mindfulness doesn't need to be intense. You can be mindful and be doing nothing, or you can be mindful and be doing many things. It just means that you're more aware of what you're doing. I'm sure other animals have this duality, but I would expect that they aren't as introspective as humans, so they probably don't notice it. It's not that your brain has a 'controller'. In fact, that's about as far away from the truth as I can imagine. It's that your brain is made of many parts, and is part of your entire body. You can't really control it as a whole, but you can make an environment where it's easier to work with the cognitive side of things. Mindfulness is being practiced in relaxing the barriers to cognition. Concentration, on the other hand, is more like the ability to override the reward loop, and continue with a task that is getting deprioritized.