suneilp

Don't think of dealing with your ego nor should you worry about being right or wrong when something comes up regarding your ego when meditating. Also, when meditating, you overcome mental/emotional blockages which naturally makes you energetic. Don't get attached to conclusions and stay calm after you experience a mental shift.

There is too much analysis of mindfulness and meditation. So you'll end up with analyzing yourself too much while looking for that glorious state of detaching your self from your self to get into that witness mode and apply all the philosophies, ideals, influences crammed into your head to each thought you have.

So my suggestion is while meditating, drop all that stuff, sit alone at home/indoor, or quiet outdoor area, and just be meditative while listening to your breath instead of "meditating", and trust you understand basic human decency. Being yogic-like, or whatever, doesn't mean you have to be what people commonly think that means. Just be you.

That's how I've always viewed yoga/tantra as at it's core. There is more to yoga and tantra than that but there is no need to go there unless you're interested. For most people, they just want to de-stress and heal their mind and body and be themselves. The regular practice of meditation like this extends into regular activities and has improved my productivity, tempered my reactivity to shit, etc.

I attribute that to strong judgmental attitudes towards people for making mistakes, not fitting in, etc. It creates a nasty feedback loop that has taken society a lot of time to overcome and we're not all the way through.

Use the slider at the top right. It controls the overlay transparency. It's not ideal but it works to identify the darkest parts.

It might be cultural, but things like these start out from basic needs and just become absorbed into cultural standards. As is demonstrated by the fact that the introduction of better shoes led towards the change of heel-first walking due to laziness.

I disabled all facebook notifications and I don't get wrapped in other notifications. I just check in on stuff from my desktop when I feel like it instead of feeling compelled to do so. If waiting in a lobby then I might do something on my phone or just cross my legs and meditate (yeah I'm odd).

That page was interesting. Yet, I keep seeing conflicting reports stating that the removal of thimerosal from vaccines to be exaggerated, etc.

So now, what am I supposed to think of all those claims that the flu vaccine is essentially a step or two behind nature.

Then, for me, I worry about the adjuncts and other stuff added to the standard vaccines as I have autoimmune problems. There are alternative vaccines that are available but I don't remember their efficacy.

So I refuse taking vaccines unless absolutely necessary until I see viable alternatives without aluminum, any kind of mercury, and so on.

> Science is a tool for explaining what we observe. There is almost always more than one plausible explantion for any observation, and so it’s the job of the scientist to pit these against each other and see which comes out on top.

That is such a crude way to go about things.

It's been suggested before that there are larger influences from society on how men and women should act and live their lives. I still believe that. I don't think we've made a lot of progress on gender issues. A lot of them still lurk under the surface and the PC culture shields them and prevents discovery and resolution.

I see it was a matter of how you view your self-worth in the face of a mistake. Society in general likes to put one down for making a mistake regardless of how small or insignificant.

And one's inner dialogue tends to be the nastiest critic and chips away at motivation when learning something new.

It doesn't help that many humans tend to put down others more easily if they perceive them as weak regardless of similar or different identity. Being of the same age, gender, ethnicity, etc. doesn't matter. And people strive really hard to reframe their perspective to view others as weak too.

This is fascinating. I have for a long time been the introverted socially incompetent and weird (partially) one.

A lot of that has changed for me recently. Going to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for a year now and doing more yoga has really helped me to figure out a lot of traumatic issues from the past, especially with racism during childhood.

It's really reduced my fear of socializing with people. I'm now somewhere in between extrovert and introvert and I've noticed that self-disclosure happens a lot more and interactions have improved with strangers. Even small talk happens now and then. I've always hated small talk.

I don't like the extrovert/introvert/attachment type labelling though. Reading on them or discussing them with others has some kind of effect of boxing you in to self-limiting thought patterns. It can be a good starting point to figure things out, but I implore people to not think you're stuck in your ways.

Mental illness can cause physical illness. Anxiety can cause gastrointestinal disorders for example. So should someone having an anxiety attack not take the day off just because they weren't exhibiting any physical issues? And many gastro disorders can happen without being obvious until the situation worsens.

Waiting until the worst happens isn't sustainable and just makes things harder to recover. Perhaps burnout isn't just simply mental but a larger, systemic degradation of the body.

What if they have stolen your property. Do you not have the right to get it back by force? Does the value of the property matter? If so, who gets to decide that in the moment?

Since oxygen plays a rather vital role in our functioning, I'm curious why we can't detect low oxygen levels. Or perhaps we do detect them but only when it's dangerously low. How has it been confirmed that we detect CO2 levels instead of low oxygen?

Just keep going forward, you'll get the skills and items to get that treasure chest.

I like meditation better. I want a meditation room at work, complete isolation, with options for sitting and lying down. Deep meditation has become useful for me to relax and recharge. Also, when you get good at it, it helps you solve things faster when you get stuck on a problem.

A gender breakdown for both single and married would also be useful. For marriages there should also be another dimension based on the health of the marriage.

Recent literature suggests that men are lonelier than women which incites my curiosity on gender differences in this topic. I've been theorizing that if true, those men who fall further below the envelope of social interaction end up having greater difficulty in developing and maintaining relationships as they age.

When sharing the link on facebook, there is no useful preview, mostly just a white block.

I'm curious what others here think about natural antibiotics, either extracted or consumed food which has antibiotic properties.

When I started meditating more often, I kept getting distracted by miscellaneous thoughts. At first I fought it to get back to the "quiet mind" but that was frustrating. And I would angrily judge myself for the distraction. I got tired of beating myself up and then I recognized that these distractions were the short and long term problems such as conflicts at work within the last few days, or deep seated trauma, like experiencing ongoing racism and violence as a kid during school.

I stopped resisting the distractions and just allowed myself to think about them while at the same time trying to focus on my breath. As the distraction faded my focus on my breath returned.

I've gotten better at this and I feel like I've rewired my mind into being able to maintain a "quiet mind" and self-awareness, at the same as talking to myself either in my mind or out loud. And so when I get anxiety I can stay grounded and now I just think about what is giving me anxiety instead of letting it go or forgetting it. It's helped me to get rid of generalized anxiety that I've been stuck with for a long time.

It took me a long time to really develop critical thinking skills. I'm still behind where I think I want to be. One thing I've noticed is spending more time on the right sites, like HN, has helped tremendously. Even if they aren't perfect. Another thing that has really helped is spending more time with critical thinking friends.

So what really makes the top colleges so great. Is it really just the professors and curriculum or is the real value in that more bright minds are all grouped together.

Teach people how to respond not just to suffering, but negative self-criticism and though patterns. Recognizing negative thought patterns is a bit difficult though, from personal experience. It's quite subjective and can be very personal.

This is me but with coffee. And coffee is everywhere.

I suspect listening to the right music (for you) and at the right volume might achieve similar effects. It's wild theory, but given that sound affects the brain in various positive ways I can't help but wonder.

If your sleep cycle goes out of whack without melatonin, that sounds like a dysfunctional pineal gland. What are you doing in terms of diet? Consider working with a doctor who practices functional medicine that will look for underlying causes like chemical imbalances/deficiencies (like nutrients and minerals)

I find getting rest, along with better diet and exercise, makes it easier to learn and do additional stuff outside of work. Flux is great for the blue light issue and cheaper than sunglasses. I've found music that makes thinking and relaxing at the same time before bed much easier.

I got lost in that paper trying to find out the reason that lead to asking if neuroenhancement is a zero-sum proposition. Can anyone point it out to me.

Fear of losing something really does impact social interactions, especially when it comes to asking for what you want, confrontations, or just saying no. I'm working on expressing myself more gently. Yet, sometimes, depending on the situation, I feel being a bit harsher, or more firm, is appropriate.

This makes a lot of assumptions, like we know what really went on in the minds of our primitive ancestor's.

Meditation, yoga, and martial arts has taught me that being in the moment actually makes prospecting easier and better. Not to mention the stress/anxiety relief, being better connected socially, etc.

We've built up a lot of mental constructs over the millennia. These constructs are things like how we're taught to react/respond to various stimuli like emotions from ourselves and others. We're taught these by parents and society. And we constantly refine them for better or worse.

There is so much going in this hyperconnected society that being in the moment has become hard and/or harder to maintain.

That's pretty interesting. I thought ulcers were more of an erosive scenario induce by functional issues in the rest of the GI tract.

Stress/anxiety and other strong negative mental states can impact the functions of the GI tract's such as peristalsis and digestive efficiency of food.

This in turn sets up a negative feedback loop as things like nutrient absorption declines and toxin levels rise worsening the functionality of the tract. By toxins I also imply bacteria and viruses besides just 'regular' chemicals.

Erosion of various parts of the GI tract happens slowly and you get an ulcer. Ulcers in the stomach aren't the only place to see bleeding in the GI tract.