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Comment by jessriedel | Hacker News Reader

The real question is whether it's a good thing to stop "mind wandering" when it hasn't reached the level of disorder. From the perspective of evolution, it almost certainly has a purpose. Paul Graham pointed out that its probably useful for problem solving:

http://www.paulgraham.com/top.html

I wonder if it would be good to have the ability to better focus one's self when one's mind is wandering into unproductive subjects (e.g. agonizing over an ex) without necessarily getting to the point where your default mode has been changed so much as to prevent insights in the shower (and instead being deeply aware of the hot water).

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I think we need to differentiate between different types of wandering here. I think we can agree that letting our minds roam looking for creative solutions and creative questions is a good think. But it's less useful to have our minds stuck in a loop ("Peanut butter or jam? PB or J?" ad infinitum).

Anecdotal evidence based on four years of active meditation would in my case seem to indicate that the jittery loopiness lessens while the capacity for creative wandering increases.

I would conjencture that our minds are over-stimulated and hence unable settle down to make room for the truly novel.

Anecdotal evidence based on four years of active meditation would in my case seem to indicate that the jittery loopiness lessens while the capacity for creative wandering increases.

This is exactly my experience as well. After about three years of meditation I have also found that I almost never get angry any more - things that used to piss me off or frustrate me just kind of roll off now, and I can really think more objectively about them and tackle problems in a constructive way.

I think one of the keys with meditation is to become the observer of our thoughts and not self-identify with them. You are not your thoughts.

Simpler explanation could be just hormonal levels changes.

For example, increased testosterone levels correspond to increased stress tolerance. The testosterone levels increase in man and woman up to age of 35-40 years.

So if you just sit and do nothing, your body could work in favor of your mind, if you're young enough. Chances are you were.

Hmm, interesting. I can definitely see how age-related changes in the endocrine system could cause certain improvements that are similar to the effects of meditation. And being as it is that I'm still 29, that could be a factor.

But if I'm reading you correctly, you seem to imply that all the benefits mentioned could be explained away by age-related hormonal changes. I find that hard to believe based on the strong correlation I experience between active meditation practice and greatly increased mental ability. It is particularly noteworthy that I'm able to observe a clear decline in my capability to stay equanimous and focused whenever I have had longer periods away from practice, which should not be the case if we were dealing with mere age-related endocrine changes.

Long time effects like better anger control could be explained by age related endocrine changes.

Short time effects like "staying focused" could or could not be explained by that. I think I have just too little data to explain them at all. All I can do is to speculate.

So I begin speculating.

Let's say that by meditation you try to calm your mind. You lower your stress hormone, cortisol. By doing that you elevate your testosterone level.

http://www.ehow.com/about_5162836_effects-cortisol-testoster...

Does that mechanics explain meditation effects?

Myself, I prefer to walk a forty minutes or longer to boost my mind next day and to lift (pretty heavy - 160+ kg) weights for testosterone.

Both activities are scientifically proven to help mind. Aerobic exercise provides brain boosting: http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=aerobic+exe... Weight lifting increases self control: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/26/health/research/26exer.htm...

I think I should write a presentation about all that.

Your reasoning makes sense. There's a fair amount of recent research (see "meditation" via Google Scholar) indicating that meditation does indeed reduce cortisol levels and hence that could be one pathway for its effects.

That said, mounting scientific evidence indicates that meditation also changes our brain structure in ways that have AFAIK not been observed with exercise.

For me my own experience would seem to confirm this. The benefits I observe from meditation are both qualitatively and quantitatively different from what I gain from exercise (both aerobic and heavy weights).

There's the question: are those meditation-induced changes in the brain structure beneficial?

Experienced meditation practicioners can fire almost all neurons in their brains. In MRT it looks like epileptical seizure.

So I stay on the "don't meditate, you'll be safer" side.

Interesting and provocative question. I suppose that there's no way of objectively knowing if the changes are beneficial or even safe. (Come to think of it, how would we even define beneficial?)

That said, I find your caution perhaps unwarranted. Many other circumstances are known to cause changes in brain-structure, e.g. growing up bilingual, but I think it would be rather unwarranted to warn against childhood language learning on the basis of this.

Personally I am content with the proof of my own experience; the changes I see in my own psyche and mental performance are entirely positive.

I've pondered the same thing. However, personally from meditation I feel I have greater focus, a clearer mind, and less stress (or a much better handle on stress), which I couldn't imagine being without today. Concerning shower-insights -- I find myself having less mind wandering in the shower, and instead more deliberate focused insights.

Then what evolutionary purpose do you think mind-wandering serves? We clearly tend to think about various current problems of ours (whether technical, social, or other) when our mind wanders; it's not an accident.

I'd say we're half evolved. We have this facility and don't know how to properly control it. It's a byproduct of some other facility (the ability to communicate).

I think we're always "half evolved". Our minds and bodies are an amalgam of "good enough" traits for overcoming yesteryear's evolutionary challenges, not entirely suited for today's challenges.

Totally agree.

I don't see any link between (1) communication and (2) my mind wandering away from my immediate surroundings and settling on an outstanding problem I have. My mind could (and occasionally does) wander over a million other things in my brain (e.g. past memories, imagining the future, or the feel of my clothes on my body) but predominantly focuses on outstanding problems, so I tend to think this is a highly purposeful adaptation.

The ability to communicate as we humans do requires the ability to abstract, be removed from reality and ponder over it, so you can articulate your problems to others. The stories in your head are just that, except you haven't verbalized them yet.

It may indeed serve a useful purpose to have a wandering mind, but as the article points out "the hallmarks of many forms of mental illness is a preoccupation with one's own thoughts", i.e. perhaps the issue is the extent to which one's mind wanders. Not all minds wander equally.

Personally, my wandering mind has been my greatest strength and my greatest weakness (anxiety, worry, jumping to conclusions, all or nothing thinking, etc.). I spend too much time in my head and not enough time grounding myself in reality to the point where there is serious disconnect in my awareness and mindfulness of situations (which has caused all kinds of serious grief in my life). Meditation has been recommended to me numerous times, and based on this article it looks like it's something I want to explore.

Perhaps a wandering mind was good enough for early hunter-gathers and only now do modern humans have specialized roles that require extreme focus? A hunter might benefit from a "wider" sense of awareness, whereas recent studies show that multitasking is counterproductive for mental tasks that require extreme focus.

I think we might be discussing two different phenomenon. It seems pretty obvious to me that the ability to focus is important. What's not clear is whether the ability to wander is also important (although I suspect it is). The claim of the article is not just that meditators are able to focus better when they try, it's that the natural, default mode for their brain is changed to reduce wandering.

I think this understanding of meditation is somewhat mistaken. The techniques of single-pointed focusing are there to help us learn how to keep our minds still, not to narrow down our field of awareness (although one might do so during a practice session).

In fact, in most Buddhist traditions, the development of stillness (shamatha) goes hand-in-hand with the development of a widening awareness (vipashyana). Modern traditions like the mindfulness movement also seem to incorporate this tandem approach.

> Then what evolutionary purpose do you think mind-wandering serves? We clearly tend to think about various current problems of ours (whether technical, social, or other) when our mind wanders; it's not an accident.

It well might be an accident. It might just be a byproduct of consciousness without any benefit on its own.

http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=search.displayRecord&... This seems to bear on the implied point here: that mental focus on a problem -- perhaps unconsciously -- can be reflected in our neurobiology. (Or vice versa? Not sure whether this should be a response to P or GP)

I don't agree with this.

What you describe is rumination. Rumination has been demonstrated to be beneficial in resolving problems. Depressed people ruminate a lot, and I remember seeing at least one article (don't ask for a reference - I don't remember where) that claimed that this was because rumination worked as a tool to get us to focus on resolving a problem.

Rumination is an indication of focus, not of a wandering mind, even though it might superficially seem like wandering because we turn to rumination all the time whenever we have "spare cycles" and there is something important on our mind.

Meditation might also affect rumination in that it changes your mindset and a lot of the things that you previously thought was massively important and worth ruminating about start turning into inconsequential non-events to you, but that's entirely separate from reducing "wandering", and meditation won't stop you from ruminating on things you really care about (though it might train you to be more focused on when you do it and not let it cut into your relaxation, for example).

But what I at least think of as the mind wandering is the type of random chatter that leads you to go check Hackernews one second because it popped into your head that you hadn't checked it for five minutes, and leads you to grab a snack the next because you suddenly felt an urge for sugar, and have you sit and blankly dream about that vacation you'd wanted to book a few minutes later.

People should also be aware that meditation, while generally beneficial, does not always have a benign effect on the mind. Look up "meditation induced psychosis".

Actually the best place to learn more is probably this two-part talk from Buddhist Geeks:

http://www.buddhistgeeks.com/2011/09/bg-231-the-dark-side-of...

There is very little academic literature on meditation sickness, so this is probably the best source for information right now.

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