Experiment shows brief meditative exercise helps cognition

esciencenews.com

6 pointsascuttlefish4 comments

Their control group isn't very good. My hypothesis: listening to The Hobbit distracts you, and it's harder to concentrate right afterwards because you're still thinking about the book in the back of your mind.

I'm sold. Where do I start?

There are a variety of resources in this thread, including the OP:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=587032

Shamatha, peaceful abiding, or mindfulness meditation is what is referred to in the study. Vipassana goes a bit further than that into active meditation. I've never tried that and have no knowledge of its efficacy.

I didn't realize the "Shamatha" keyword would suffice, but it does!

The first link here has schedule for practice sessions in Seattle. http://www.google.com/search?q=Shamatha%2C+seattle

Now, I need to find an objective way to measure before and after. Ideas?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com