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Comment by spicymaki | Hacker News Reader

Yes, extracting the mindfulness techniques out of vipassana practice and then trying to use it to cure PTSD, anxiety, and poor work performance is bound to fail. Being mindful of your neurotic behavior is useful, but it does not help unless you act and change the circumstances that is causing the problem.

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I have PTSD and practice mindfulness/buddhism and while it doesn't cure it, it certainly does help a lot. You can only act and change the circumstances when you have some new insights and there is where mindfulness/buddhism helps me. It is certainly not the case of I'm meditating and miraculously all my problems go away...

Personally I don't think that mindfulness/medition/... is overhyped but the tools/apps/courses are. There is really no need to spends hunderds of euro's to being mindfull or learn the practices.

The article gives examples of how it helps with PTSD. It doesn’t “fail”. It doesn’t totally cure it, it that’s a high bar for any psychological intervention.

Can letting go be the change that qualifies under this definition? For most of my users the problem making them (and me) miserable is not the absence of the minor, nice-to-have feature which they have turned into a major defect in their mind. It's the neurosis itself. The change they need to make is to lighten up rather than dancing in the entryway of my cube on tiptoes like they have to tinkle until I break down and work on their pet priority.

(edit for clarity)

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