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Comment by shittyadmin | Hacker News Reader

I mean the whole idea of "mindfulness" and "meditation" are the sort of pseudoscientific bullshit that just plain don't belong in a scientific class.

Sure, they may have some benefits, but they're essentially just placebo effect. There has to be more interesting science on the topic than that...

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To say mindfulness and meditation is pseudoscientific is totally absurd. There's has been a ton of proper science aimed at it, all the scientific consensus is that it has an effect far beyond placebo.

You're throwing the baby out with the bathwater just because some "out there" people also like it. You might as well stop eating healthy because Acai berries are hip.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness#Scientific_researc...

Note that most of the research referenced there isn't properly controlled - it's sort of hard to control for something like that, you'd have to have a therapy that could offer something comparable without matching it, so comparing it's effectiveness to placebo seems in some ways quite apt.

Did you read your own link? One line from it mentions the study that actually brought me to this conclusion:

"A meta-analysis on meditation research published in JAMA in 2014,[167] (that included a combined total of 3515 participants), found insufficient evidence of any effect of meditation programs on positive mood, attention, substance use, eating habits, sleep, and weight."

While there may be other with differing results it's... pretty sketchy in any case. I would hardly say scientific enough to belong in such a class.

I had a look at this when I considered meditation once but found it'd most likely just be a waste of my time. I'd rather not flush my time down the toilet.

Finally someone on HN who is not gaga about meditation. :-P

In my understanding, meditation simply enables one to develop a heightened form of emotional detachment that may help deal with life's vicissitudes. Of course, that's again treating the symptoms and does nothing to cure the unhappiness.

That quote is very dishonestly misleading, as the same study found it had evidence of improved anxiety, less depression and pain.

You also cherry picked the negative paragraph for some reason, despite the above paragraph on the Wikipedia article citing a newer meta study with other positive results.

I only focused on the JAMA study as I'd seen it before, sorry about that I see it may have looked pretty slanted now, I wanted to have a better look at the positive metaanalysis, however the link on wikipedia was broken, look at where it points on wikipedia, you'll see "Cite error: The named reference Gotink was invoked but never defined (see the help page)."

I'm not disagreeing with you about that depression and anxiety thing, but it seems a bit of a stretch to suggest it to a generally mentally healthy person.

I started practicing mindfulness after seeing a cognitive behavioral therapist for anxiety. One of the core parts of CPT are learning how to relax your mind (I’d literally have all these thoughts racing through my head that were barely grounded in to any kind of reality). Practicing mindfulness instead of letting my mind wander into dark places effectively cured me of my anxiety. And that’s not just one anecdote, CBT is the gold standard in science-based therapy right now.

A good book to go down a scientific path is "Why Zebras don't get ulcers" by Dr Robert Sapolsky. Dr Sapolsky is professor of biology, and professor of neurology and neurological sciences at Stanford.

His book helped me understand the physical effects on my health caused by my stressful company work environment. In short - our primate bodies have a fight or flight response to stress resulting in spikes in blood cortisol, muscle tension, gastrointestinal changes etc.

Once you understand how mind affects the body then it becomes possible to see how breathing and relaxation (mindfulness/meditation) can undo the effects of stress that we battle in our daily lives.

Of course there are other ways towards well-being. I found the tips in 'Getting Things Done' very useful in reducing anxiety. Switching to 'Eat food, mostly plants' advice is helping in mood and energy levels.

It makes you feel better, even if unmeasurably. It belongs more with the arts rather than sciences - people will do it even if there's never any p-value that gets significant. The "is good for you" in the scientific sense aspect is not that important.

Again, just to stress it out - the scientific aspect is not much relevant. From the science department I only care about it not doing harm.

I'd happily take an effective placebo. Remember, placebo effect is real and apparently the reasons for it are psychological.

The broad dismissal of entire fields of practice as placebo effect is itself a pseudoscientific reduction of science to a narrow band of European cultural practices labeled “science” then used to indulge discriminatory impulses against other cultures. The sense of certainty and self-satisfaction derived from this destructive effort is, itself, placebo.

If you don't believe me, I'd highly recommend checking out this paper:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...

"We found low evidence of no effect or insufficient evidence of any effect of meditation programs on positive mood, attention, substance use, eating habits, sleep, and weight."

As for "destruction of other cultures" - well, people use the same excuses to say that homeopathy is great and crystal healing will cure your cancer. It's a non-sense argument. This has no cultural bearing at all, just a rejection of bullshit. I have no interest in blindly approving things without analysis just because they came from other cultures. Study them. The results here are sketchy at best.

"he broad dismissal of entire fields of practice as placebo effect is itself a pseudoscientific reduction of science to a narrow band of European cultural practices labeled “science” "

It can be, but it doesn't have to be.

'Traditional Chinese Medicine' is effectively bogus, or what we would call 'placebo'. It's not 'racist' to point that out. Chinese Emperor's in the 19th century knew that and banned it, Mao knew it as well (he had a Western doctor for himself) but re-introduced TCM after the civil war because it's the only medicine he could afford. And 'it does work' (i.e. placebo) for quite a number of things.

But 'mindfulness' crosses reasonably into the domain of legit psychological and mental well being and frankly it's not rocket science to start to conceive how 'clearing one's mind', and 'being in the moment' as opposed to living in constant anxiety can be an issue in one's mental well being, just as an example.

So yes, it's soft, and susceptible to a lot of hocus pocus and probably some 'believers and hypers' etc., but that doesn't in and of itself abnegate the real opportunities from it.

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