Meditation- Ghost OP

[Ghost]

Ghost OP
Jan 8th, 2015

I know a lot of the people on this forum meditate, and some people have expressed interest in learning how to.

Luckily, Meditation is very easy...well kinda...it takes practice to get good at, and you won't notice effects over night. But it will make you a more stable, and happier person in the long run.

Let's get the science out of the way first as I make these claims.

Meditation makes you smarter: Well...let me define smarter...

"Using a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine, Eileen Luders, a re-searcher in the Department of Neurology at the University of California Los Angeles School of Medicine, looks for evidence that meditation changes the physical structure of the brain. Until recently, this idea would have seemed absurd. "Scientists used to believe that the brain reaches its peak in adulthood and doesn't change—until it starts to decrease in late adulthood," Luders says. "Today we know that everything we do, and every experience we have, actually changes the brain." Indeed, Luders finds several differences between the brains of meditators and nonmeditators. In a study published in the journal NeuroImage in 2009, Luders and her colleagues compared the brains of 22 meditators and 22 age-matched nonmeditators and found that the meditators (who practiced a wide range of traditions and had between five and 46 years of meditation experience) had more gray matter in re-gions of the brain that are important for attention, emotion regulation, and mental flexibility. Increased gray matter typically makes an area of the brain more efficient or powerful at processing information. Luders believes that the increased gray matter in the meditators' brains should make them better at controlling their attention, managing their emotions, and making mindful choices."

http://www.mindful.org/the-science/neur ... meditation

Why does grey matter...matter?

" Medical students undergoing periods of intense learning show similar changes in the hippocampus, an area of the brain important for memory. And mathematicians have more gray matter in regions important for arithmetic and spatial reasoning."

Better concentration

"New research shows that meditation can help you improve your ability to concentrate in two ways. First, it can make you better at focusing on something specific while ignoring distractions. Second, it can make you more capable of noticing what is happening around you, giving you a fuller perspective on the present moment."

"Antoine Lutz, PhD, an associate scientist at the Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, in collaboration with Richard Davidson and the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin. Their work has shown that concentration meditation, in which the meditator focuses complete attention on one thing, such as counting the breath or gazing at an object, activates regions of the brain that are critical for controlling attention. This is true even among novice meditators who receive only brief training. Experienced meditators show even stronger activation in these regions. This you would expect, if meditation trains the brain to pay attention. But extremely experienced meditators (who have more than 44,000 hours of meditation practice) show less activation in these regions, even though their performance on attention tasks is better. The explanation for this, in Lutz's view, is that the meditation training can eventually help reduce the effort it takes to focus your attention. "

Decreases anxiety:

"Philippe Goldin, director of the Clinically Applied Affective Neuroscience project in the Department of Psychology at Stanford University, uses mindfulness meditation in his studies. The general practice is to become aware of the present moment—by paying attention to sounds, your breath, sensations in your body, or thoughts or feelings—and to observe without judgment and without trying to change what you notice."

"Goldin's interpretation of the findings is that mindfulness meditation teaches people with anxiety how to handle distressing thoughts and emotions without being overpowered by them. Most people either push away unpleasant thoughts or obsess over them—both of which give anxiety more power. "The goal of meditation is not to get rid of thoughts or emotions. The goal is to become more aware of your thoughts and emotions and learn how to move through them without getting stuck."

Increased dopamine levels: (directly helps PSSD).

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11958969

"This corresponds to a 65% increase in endogenous dopamine release"



So I suggest 2 kinds of meditation that I really enjoy.

1) Mindfulness Meditation. This is all about being mindful (duh). You can focus on any sensation you please. A lot of people like to focus on their breath, but sometimes I'll find myself noticing the pressure between myself and the floor, or my visual sensations change as I inhale and exhale. Thoughts will come and go. That's totally normal. Even for expert meditators. The trick is letting them go, and not attaching yourself to them. I like to sometimes imagine my self sitting on the side of a river. The river is the river of conscienceless. You see thoughts floating down the river occasionally, but you let them pass and fall away again. You don't become attached to them. You observe, and let them go.

This also describes it well...

"Mindfulness Meditation, by Frank Jude Boccio

Mindfulness requires concentration, 
but rather than concentrate on any 
one object, we concentrate on the moment and whatever is present in 
that moment.

To begin, take a comfortable seat. Bring attention to your breath by placing your awareness at your belly and feeling it rise and fall. This will help you tune in to the sensorial presence of the body. Once you 
feel settled, widen your awareness to include all the sensations in your body as well as any thoughts or feelings.

Imagine yourself as a mountain. Some thoughts and feelings will be stormy, with thunder, lightning, and strong winds. Some will be like fog or dark, ominous clouds. Inhaling, note "mountain." Exhaling, note "stable." Use the breath to focus on the present moment; cultivate the ability to weather the storm. If you find yourself swept up in 
a thought or emotion, notice it and simply return to the breath. The key is to pay attention to the ever-changing process of thinking rather than to the contents of your thoughts. As you begin to see that they are indeed just thoughts, they will begin to lose their power. You will no longer believe everything you think! Continue to watch and become mindful of your thoughts, feelings, and sensations for five to 20 minutes."


2) Transcendental Meditation.

This one is fun. I have never tripped as hard on any drug as I have in this kind of meditation. It was crazy, when I came back I was sweating and felt high for an hour after.

You focus on a mantra. Which is a word. Any word really, but some are really common. Like "Om". Basically you just repeat the word over and over again in your head (or out loud). (this works especially well if you play a youtube video of the chant, and chant along. You may think it seems really weird, but it really can get you deep into meditative state. I suggest getting some where where you feel you will not be interrupted, because you can get pretty startled if (for say) your dog walks into the room when you are really deep into the meditation. The only bad experience I ever had was due to a similar experience at my school where everyone finished and I tried to come out of the meditation too fast and was really disoriented.

If I think of anything else, I'll edit this post. It's really a life-long habit that can increase your enjoyment of many things. Along with exercise, it's really been the best thing for my depression and anxiety.

[Ghost]

Sonny Said

I need to get back into doing that. If I ever have time. Here is a resource I've used for years.

http://www.wildmind.org/

[raven100]

Found the Alan Watts guided meditations to be pretty useful - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxJ0N2vq2GM

[Bigmum]

Don t laugh at me please, but i found this very useful
https://youtu.be/mDX8QrcDI_o

[GIXXER]

Love Alan Watts.

Meditation really does help with those low mood days.

[jaiho]

I've been getting good at this, and i think it really helps with anhedonia symptoms.

Of note is that SSRIs decrease activity at the anterior cingulate, and Meditation increases activity there, so it may assist to counter some PSSD symptoms.

[Kk88]

Does anyone find it harder to meditate since PSSD? I struggle a lot with concentration and a million thoughts getting tangled in my head at once. I have no idea if thats PSSD related, but the timing adds up. I struggle to find that hazy place in my head that helps you get into a meditative state.

[raven100]

I actually have the opposite problem. Since SSRIs my brain has been far emptier than it used to be, and meditation made me more aware of this which was pretty frustrating. Now i think Ive gotten over that somewhat so im starting to reap the rewards of meditation more