It amazes me how many negative comments there are about it here. There's scientific evidence that it's beneficial. Maybe it's not for you, but it's certainly helped me in my everyday life and it's wasn't something pushed onto me by my employer, but something recommended to me by a friend when I was going through a rough (somewhat irrational) time in my life. It helped me get through that but it's been even more helpful as time has gone on. So for me, it's not BS at all.
And to the comment above about "doing something more productive with your time". Would you say the same thing about exercise? For me, it's like exercise for my brain. I also feel similar after meditation as I do after a good workout. Working on myself in my opinion, is probably the most productive thing I can do.
The article doesn't claim that it doesn't work, it merely decries the secularization of meditation.
> All of which raises a question: Is mindfulness meditation, as it’s practiced by millions of Westerners, bullshit? Not bullshit in the sense of being worthless. Even Adam Grant admits that meditation has benefits and that, for some people, it’s the best way to get them. But has meditation practice strayed so far from its Buddhist roots that we might as well just call it a therapy or a hobby... Is there any good reason—in ancient Buddhist philosophy or for that matter in modern science—to consider mainstream mindfulness practice truly spiritual?
The article starts by asking those provocative questions. It's important to note that they're questions, though, not answers.
The author then goes on to say:
"...the average mindfulness meditator is closer to the ancient contemplative tradition, and to transformative insights, than you might think. Though things like stress reduction or grappling with melancholy or remorse or self-loathing may seem “therapeutic,” they are organically connected to the very roots of Buddhist philosophy. What starts out as a meditation practice with modest aims can easily, and very naturally, go deeper. There is a kind of slippery slope from stress reduction to profound spiritual exploration and radical philosophical reorientation, and many people, even in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street, are further down that slope than they realize."
[didn't read the article yet] I can't help but think that's like asking if yoga is bullshit, and should be called a hobby instead of being considered spiritual. Yoga is yoga, whether you're doing it spiritually or not.
I have ADD. I find Mindfulness to be extremely helpful in getting my mind focused for work.
I find it extremely helpful in regulating emotions, especially during times of heightened stress (i.e having small children freaking out on you, and acting appropriately).
Whether you hate the word or not, mindfulness, meditation, zen, don't discount the activity.
There is zero downside to becoming more self aware.
How much of it would you define as meditation in the traditional sense? I've got ADHD(is it just ADD now? I know one got lumped into the other) too and I do a lot of introspection but it tends to be during intermittent times in my day like when I'm wandering around for lunch or going for a jog/walk. I can't really do the iconic sit down and cross my legs thing, I get antsy. But when I'm on the move but not trying to keep myself mentally oriented it's pretty easy to zone out and think about my life and how it might relate to the way I've been feeling at the time.
I have adhd. I had to go to a course to learn to meditate because I couldn't sit on my own.
I've even had Tibeten monks come up to be and say they notice I have problems sitting still.
I hate it, makes me want to jump of a cliff sometimes. But that's part of it - you learn to stay with the u comfortable and learn about yourself and the thoughts that make you run.
Man, the benefits of meditation for me now far outstrip medication. Like, I found it enhances my concentration like no medication has because I'm able to do the work.
It takes practice, we all zone out loads when we first start. It's not zoning out you're trying to stop, you're training yourself to come back.
When I stop practicing though, takes a few weeks(or a month or two if I've been on retreat) and my brain goes back to normal.
I have to practice around other people, else I won't do it.
Oh and yoga is insanely useful for me, moving meditation!!
Not op/parent, but I too have ADD/ADHD-PI and is helped by what some call meditation. My physical therapist at the psychiatric unit mostly saw them as an excercise which have appeared to help people like me.
Briefly, or maybe not so, what was taught to me was an excercise to sit down and experience myself emotionally and physically, with a focus on the latter, and without judging or interpretation.
Thoughs may come and go, I don't cling to them, but neither do I force them away.
There is a physical part in an intention, a will to let the body find a posture that feels both solid and effortless where the respiration movement is not isolated to a small part of the chest or abdomen. The breathing is hard to describe, but when it works right it barely feels like I'm breathing at all, as although most of the chest, back, and abdomen is somewhat involved - breathing becomes so smooth and effortless compared to what my otherwise tense body usually do to breathe.
Immediate effects for me is that the world feels more real, solid, and even that the floor feels softer.
Sometimes I think that maybe this is what feeling both relaxed and alert means? Neither is something I think I have felt more than very rarely.
Otherwise, regulating emotions, tuning out noisy environments etc is long term effects.
To me the excercise appears to reinforce the importance of body perception, raw unprocessed emotions, and physical stimuli over internally generated feelings and thoughts. A stillness to listen to even when I'm not doing the exercises, a recliner in my mind to lean back into when there is too much chaos around me. Not to flee, but to hear and see without getting overwhelmed.
As ADD is characterised by a mind constantly jumping from thought to thought, one that is never still, it's conceivable that some kind of balance between various parts of the brain gets upset, somewhat like when everything becomes a nail because all you have is a hammer.
I think ADD is now just ADHD. ADHD without hyperactivity is called ADHD predominantly inattentive.
As for meditation, there's a lot of value in practicing sitting still without fidgeting, by focusing on one thing and, most importantly, bringing the attention back when the mind wanders.
This builds up strength in typical problem areas such as racing thoughts, impulsiveness, restlessness.
The only thing that's difficult is remembering to do it and building a habit. It doesn't help there and that's one thing that is a big problem for me, perhaps you and many others with ADHD!
The mindfulness prescription for ADHD is a great book :)
I'll check the book out! Admittedly I do have trouble with remembering to practice my mindfulness exercises semi-often but it's from the reverse end of the spectrum. I was lucky enough to get diagnosed when I was young so I've been able to realiably maintain my prescription (I've heard adults who get diagnosed have trouble getting prescriptions in helpful doses) medication which is a great help but can cause me to tunnel vision tasks that don't require that level of attention if I'm not careful to monitor if I'm working productively.
It's still something I struggle with. I remember medication now but still forget about once a week. Too many close calls. Meditation is worse because it requires a good handful of time. Knocking back some tabs takes no time at all.
I think you're exactly right, it's a form of stress management primarily. What bothers me is when meditators act like they've seen the matrix. Like they go on a Vipassana retreat and then talk about how changed they are and do a 180 with their career or something else major in their life. It feels about equivalent to the 'enduring truths' you might receive on an acid trip.
> [Mindfulness is] about much more than living in the moment. Mindfulness, in the most deeply Buddhist sense of the term, is about an exhaustive, careful, and calm examination of the contents of human experience, an examination that can radically alter your interpretation of that experience.
> It begins with one of the more striking claims made by Buddhism—that enlightenment and liberation from suffering are inextricably intertwined. We suffer—and make others suffer—because we don’t see the world, including ourselves, clearly.
Surrounding workers with the noise, distractions, disease, and lack of privacy of an open office environment, and then telling them that — if they only practiced mindfulness for a few minutes a day, how much less stressed they'd be! — is grade A capitalist BS: the cost of mindfulness tutorials is < the perceived cost of better real estate. (And I use perceived, as I think most companies are weighing only the actual cost of the real estate; they are not considering the cost of lost productivity.)
If employers weren't stressing their employees so much, so unnecessarily, perhaps mindfulness would not be so needed?
(I write this on a 1 hour (one-way) train ride from work, for which the majority of the ride there was no available seating.)
(I will admit to not having read the entire article yet. But the above occurred to me, and felt relevant. Perhaps mindfulness works; the author seems to have gotten something from it. I never have.)
Do you do nothing other than work? Your comment implies that it's only a way to deal with work in a toxic environment. It's rather shallow to act like that's the only benefit and also a straw man.
Maybe it's not for you, but it's definitely helped me in everyday life, not just with work stress. Also, I didn't start done this path due to my employer suggesting it.
Some companies have such dysfunctional culture that they can turn even the best ideas into poison. Mindfulness, like motivational posters, rap, and casual Friday are all the polar opposite of what they're supposed to be when touched by corporate.
I certainly hate the word. There is someone I know who talks about "mindfulness" all the time, especially before he walks into an open pit. Anxious people have minds that are "full" of junk and would be better off making them empty.
That's pretty much the opposite of mindfulness. That mindlessness. It's clear to me you don't understand the goal of mindfulness. It's about being more intune, not less. Perhaps the person you know doesn't know what he's taking about, or perhaps you're not listening. Either way, it's clear to me you don't really understand the goal and potential benefits.
Wait, what? The previous poster probably knows that, and is criticizing that a lot of people who talk about "mindfulness" don't know what they are talking about.
I've also met certain people who claim to practice "mindfulness" but in reality just lack reflection. (I'm not saying anything about mindfulness per se.)
Seriously. This guy talks about mindfulness just before he walks into an open pit. He's really done it! Talking about mindfulness, for him, is a substitute to really paying attention to his environment.
And to the comment above about "doing something more productive with your time". Would you say the same thing about exercise? For me, it's like exercise for my brain. I also feel similar after meditation as I do after a good workout. Working on myself in my opinion, is probably the most productive thing I can do.