
Much of the research around meditation and mindfulness has serious flaws - DanBC
http://www.newsweek.com/mindfulness-meaningless-word-shoddy-science-behind-it-682008
======
pmyteh
I'm shocked that a relatively new clinical practice with only moderate
evidence behind it would be overhyped to sell magazines. Shocked I tell you.

I was introduced to mindfulness practice as a therapy for depression several
years ago at my university. They were clear it was a new approach for clinical
use (though building on a long history of meditation) and that although the
initial research results were promising it was still very much a developing
area. For what it's worth, I've personally found it one of the more effective
techniques I've been taught for relapse prevention. I support both its ongoing
use _and_ a robust attitude to demanding high-quality evidence for/against it.

The article is just describing the hype cycle for technology as applied to
psychological therapy: "hey, I've a new idea" -> promising early results ->
hype -> "this new approach will solve everything" -> ["actually this sucks"
NOW HERE] -> "well, perhaps it's helpful for this area (for some people) (some
of the time) -> "hey, I've a new idea" -> ...

~~~
brianmcc
The "trough of disillusionment". Great term!
[http://www.gartner.com/technology/research/methodologies/hyp...](http://www.gartner.com/technology/research/methodologies/hype-
cycle.jsp)

~~~
amelius
In this particular case, the effect may be amplified, because expectations
(the y-axis in the graph) may have an effect on meditation/mindfulness.

~~~
brianmcc
A hype-based placebo effect perhaps?

------
lukev
I normally wouldn't weigh in here, since I am the furthest thing possible from
an expert, but after even a little dabbling in meditation I can see some major
misconceptions in the other comments.

It isn't about being bored, or about any of the benefits that may or may not
occur.

Meditation is a useful discipline because it is about training the mind to (a)
become conscious of and "reify" individual thoughts and sensations, and (b)
direct and maintain attention consciously, rather than the usual unconscious
process by which our minds flit from thought to thought.

Once you have these skills you can (presumably) use them for other things and
to achieve various effects. But it starts there.

~~~
mercer
In regards to (a), isn't it more about _not_ reifying your thoughts and
sensations? This might be semantics though; I do agree that the path of _not_
becoming a slave to thoughts and sensations starts with acknowledging them.

~~~
danielbarla
Semantics or not, that's actually a very important topic. From my limited
understanding, the meditation approach would be to firstly notice the thought
or sensation, but then to neither repress nor necessarily express the emotion
further or get carried away with it.

The rationale being that repression is a short term band-aid that does not
allow for resolution of the issue, and can also be a way to conveniently trick
yourself into ignoring important things (which you might want to be
considering / processing). On the other hand, you also don't want to get
further into the emotion, as it may add fuel to the fire (like getting carried
away with stories in your mind about what you should have responded with
during an argument, etc). So, there's some kind of balancing act there.

So reify might actually be a good word, although it may go to far, as you
pointed out.

~~~
visarga
Drawing parallels between meditation and reinforcement learning, I have
realized that those thoughts we are supposed not to sustain (about the future
and past) are simulations. We do model-based RL in our heads, simulating
(imagining) future events in our minds, in order to adapt. So mindfulness is
telling us not to simulate, and instead, just to perceive.

------
sevensor
> Major commercial players in the meditation space

The sheer insanity of this phrase astounds me. There's an industry devoted to
meditation. For such a thing to exist, you have to start by convincing people
that they're not meditating right. Which means some people are better at it
than others and you should worry about not being as good. What's next,
competitive meditation?

~~~
bitexploder
Guided meditation is a big deal. I know a number of people who use Headspace.
Also, obviously, some people are better at meditating. I think most meditation
practitioners tend to sort of remove ego, not add to it. So I don't see anyone
being competitive about it. But I do see people desperate for the benefits and
looking to those good at it to show them the way. There are worse things
people could be trying really hard to get good at :)

A lot of meditation and mindfulness encourages an active focus on other people
and how they are feeling. I think it is generally wholesome with a side
industry trying to take money from people who heard it was good.

~~~
sevensor
> obviously, some people are better at meditating

This is not obvious to me. This is the message the meditation industry is
trying to sell, and I'm not buying it. We have a long history in the West of
selling pre-packaged individually-wrapped enlightenment products and claiming
they come from the East, where enlightenment was invented. But that's
marketing, not reality.

~~~
mistermann
> This is the message the meditation industry is trying to sell, and I'm not
> buying it.

Why do you find this hard to believe? Meditation and mindfulness is a skill,
there are in fact various techniques or approaches one can take to improve the
effectiveness. Being opposed to charging money for this is one thing, denying
its existence is something else.

~~~
visarga
It really is a skill. You can get good at it in a very short time, or in a
lifetime, or never.

------
submeta
There is no need for scientific proof. I observe that being mindful changes
things for me: The way I listen to people, the way I eat, the way I handle
rejection or anger or any other feeling. I realize that being mindful (vs
mindlessly and blindly doing things) sharpens my senses, makes me think
clearer, makes me change perspectives, create more categories or realize that
I think within categories.

I got in touch with mindfulness by reading one of Jon Kabat-Zinn's books
("Wherever you go, there you are"). That was almost twenty years ago. Shortly
after that I read Ellen Langer's book "Mindfulness", which is more about the
negative effects of mindlessness.

I think that the pure process of observing something (mindfully) has the
potential to positively influence the results. Whether I sit down quietly and
observe my feelings and thoughts (things that happened in the past or things
that'll happen in the future) as they come and go. Or as I interact with
people, or as I walk, travel or engage in any type of activity.

I don't need scientific evidence that all of this has a measurable positive
effect. My own observation is enough evidence for me.

Edit: typo

~~~
moretai
If you need a book to meditate, you are probably doing it wrong.

~~~
kranner
How else is one supposed to learn without access to a teacher?

------
jokoon
Not really surprised. How do you even do measurements in a brain to see if it
has any effect?

It's already quite tricky to make sure anti depressants work, so I would not
trust meditation.

At best you just make people believe doing it will make them better, so as
long as they believe it, it might be reassuring enough.

I don't tell people to do meditation, I tell them to go to a quiet place
outside, in a park or woods, to sit and do nothing and let their thoughts go
around. No phone, no book, no toys. The mere act of doing nothing is already
doing a lot to relax you, and people have lost the simple habit of relaxing.
Stop being busy, that's what people need.

~~~
DanBC
> to sit and do nothing and let their thoughts go around.

Pretty dangerous if those thoughts are "I am worthless and no-one would miss
me if I die" or "my family would be better off if I kill myself".

~~~
mistermann
And this is where one needs wisdom that should be part of a healthy meditation
practice.

------
visarga
I have practiced meditation for 20 years but I still don't understand what is
the purpose of emptiness (I mean I used to think I did but now I'm not so
sure). What would be the purpose from a reinforcement learning point of view?
A state where I have no likes or dislikes, no goal, no reward signals, where I
feel no attraction or repulsion, where the distinction between self and other
disappears. An uprooted agent drifting in the world, trying to be 'nothing'.

Would that make me better? I have had many colleagues who dedicated their life
to meditation and ended up alone and without a career. I don't think they are
particularly happy now, and that is because they prioritised the spiritual
ideals above anything else, ignoring other legitimate needs. Is it even a good
idea to exist as a pure witness detached from anything around you, or to think
that you are not really a person?

What I approve of is being more aware, in the present moment. This practice
clearly has a purpose. It can lead to less impulsive reactions / more adaptive
actions, without so much internal struggle. But the rest is just playing with
your mind - mantras, chakras, Kundalini, they are just side effects of the
nervous system. They feel transcendent but are just a bunch of feelings.

~~~
wu-ikkyu
>"Meditation is the discovery that the point of life is always arrived at in
the immediate moment. And, therefore, if you meditate for an ulterior motive –
that is to say, to improve your mind, to improve your character, to be more
efficient in life – you’ve got your eye on the future and you are not
meditating. Because, the future is a concept; it doesn’t exist. As the proverb
says, “Tomorrow never comes.” There is no such thing as tomorrow; there never
will be, because time is always now. That’s one of the things we discover when
we stop talking to ourselves and stop thinking; there is only a present – only
an eternal now.

It’s funny then, isn’t it, that one meditates for no reason at all. Except we
could say, ‘for the enjoyment of it,’ and here I would interpose the essential
principal that meditation is supposed to be fun. It’s not something you do as
a grim duty. The trouble with religion as we know it, is that it is so mixed
up with grim duties, ‘we do it because it’s good for you, it’s a form of self-
punishment’. Well, meditation when correctly done has nothing to do with all
that. It’s a kind of digging in the present; it’s a kind of grooving with the
eternal now. And it brings us into a state of peace where we can understand
that the point of life, the place where it’s at, is simply here and now."

~Alan Watts, The Art of Meditation

~~~
visarga
I know that high level meditation is supposed to have no practical purpose,
but that is exactly what is bothering me. What would be the utility of that,
from an evolutionary point of view, or from a reinforcement learning point of
view (where we divide the world into agents and environment, with goals and
rewards).

The spiritual utility, as it is presented in tradition, is related to
attaining some sort of freedom and realization, a subjective feeling. But I am
thinking (devil's advocate) that all are just patterns of activation in the
brain, in other words, just perceptions and emotions. And from a practical
point of view, there is nothing useful about it - I am referring only to
emptiness, not to mindful attention.

~~~
uoaei
The emptiness you're referring to, if I understand you correctly, is that of
sunyata[1], wherein we realize precisely what you have stated: that there is
no thing besides patterns and activations, and that assuming these things
construct a whole person that has some sort of "centerpoint" is fallacious.
Your devil's advocate point arrives at the truth precisely.

The freedom arises when one accepts this fact wholeheartedly. This realization
isn't "supposed" to help you, or bring you anywhere, since that would be
assuming that the actions that are taken have some internal guidance mechanism
that bring it to fruition and bestow benefit on the actor. But no such thing
exists. It just happens, is, and you are ok with it (or not). The utility
doesn't need to exist because it can't exist: if all there is, is now, utility
has absolutely no goals or targets, and thus the only thing supporting its
"existence" is an assumption about what may yet does not exist.

[1] [http://buddhanet.net/cbp2_f6.htm](http://buddhanet.net/cbp2_f6.htm)

------
Delmania
Maybe we should have listened to the people who are Zen Buddhists about how
reaching satori is incredibly difficult?

~~~
vidarh
I don't think most people are expecting to get to that level, though. You can
get benefits without getting that deep.

But the key is you _can_ get _benefits_ rather than have a guarantee that you
will get very specific sets of benefits. It's not a wonder-cure for every
mental problem around.

------
SnacksOnAPlane
People should be aware that this does not mean you shouldn't meditate. At
least give it a shot. The risk/reward ratio is so heavily skewed toward reward
(what are the risks, really?) that you'd be foolish not to try it.

~~~
richk449
So like Pascal's Wager for meditation?

~~~
vanderZwan
Eh.. no? Mindfulness is something for which the results of trying it are
testable. Pascal's Wager is a gamble about what happens beyond the verifiable.
They are fundamentally different.

~~~
tigershark
Tell this to someone that committed suicide because of mindfulness.. Oh wait..
they look exactly the same to me in this case.

~~~
vanderZwan
This is you right now: [https://xkcd.com/1901/](https://xkcd.com/1901/)

EDIT: Ok, fine, I'll bite: exactly the same how exactly?

Anti-depressants can cause suicide too: some people are too depressed to _even
commit suicide_ , and the anti-depressants give them enough mental energy to
commit to that.

That doesn't mean anti-depressants are pseudo-science or a bad idea, it just
means their usage must be determined on a case-by-case basis

------
samarvir
I believe there are only 2 way to reach truth.

1\. experience your truth 2\. do statistically sound study to show if your
truth is in fact the truth of majority.

to challenge and test the use of , meditation and 'Mindfulness', JUST TRY IT
on yourself. this won't kill you or cost you fortune. find your own truth.

P.S. - I think this magazine Article to be somewhat hocus - pocus. I can't
pinpoint what's wrong1 except something just doesn't seem right!

~~~
physicsyogi
Number two seems not right. For the path you’re talking about to be useful,
shouldn’t it still work even if you’re the last person on left on Earth?
Number two also assumes that the majority of people are also searching for
truth (seems they aren’t, currently) or have already found it (which would
require that they’d been already searching).

~~~
samarvir
If, i am the last person on earth. I can still find my truth, by experiencing
it myself. it's not 1 and 2. it's 1 or 2.

------
moretai
Psychedelic Therapy will be the next one.

~~~
vanderZwan
Which is sad, because I get the impression that in the situations where it
_does_ seem to work (alcoholism for example), it's both very effective and one
of the few therapies that work at all.

------
moretai
Is there a term to describe the outrage that we seem to be sharing towards the
snake oil salesmen?

------
Sandorie
Between being a placebo and a straight up pseudoscience(if I even were to call
it a “science”) in my opinion “mindfulness” is a type of pavlovian
conditioning design to establish a self-empathy defense mechanism within our
minds.

I’ve been to “mindfulness events” for executives and corporate, where people
claim to let go of their ego only to look down on anyone who is not as “open
minded “ as they are.

Overall is another balancing act between our “ego” and “super ego”. But I
guess it does “works” for some individuals.

~~~
vidarh
I'm trying, but I can't find a way to understand what you describe in terms of
my experience with mindfulness practice.

Conditioning for _what_? Defense against _what_? It just seems entirely
disconnected from my experience, which is "just" a combination of deep
relaxation and a sensation of being more alert to (some) mental impulses
rather than blindly following them (all the time). It is not a miracle cure
for anything. It won't give you mental superpowers. But it offers a different
way of looking at things that sometimes offers surprising insights.

I'm sure there are some incredibly poor events for executives and corporate,
given the money you can potentially make, but that says very little about
mindfulness and more about these types of events.

~~~
Sandorie
I agree with your argument discribing the fact that, I should not judge a
single chronological event as means to an end. I should rather reason by first
principle rather than by analogy.

Yet experiences are a often influenced by various psychological and
environmental componets. The fact that we have different experiences is
absolutely natural, thus I’m capable of comprehending your argument.

I was simply stating my thought analogy based on my past experiences.

Since is rather hard to measure such statements (in a quantitative way) I
shall be skeptical of other people’s “experiences”. Thus staying true to my
thought process, unless I manage to find a comon ground by truly
“experiencing” what some call “mindfulness “.

------
uoaei
There's plenty of support behind cognitive behavioral therapy--mindfulness is
the same thing, but facing westward. Where is the discrepancy?

------
kaolti
Glad the title was updated.

------
anbende
Clinical psych graduate student and researcher studying, among other things,
group mindfulness interventions in a clinical setting. Thought I'd weigh in.

While there is a lot of not so good research surrounding mindfulness, there is
some decent research as well, some of which is mentioned in the original
article. Mindfulness-based interventions like Mindfulness Based Stress
Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness Basic Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) do show, as
stated, at least moderate effects for stress, anxiety and general well-being.
The difficulty that I'm finding in my own research (mostly still unpublished)
is that these groups don't do much more than just being in any group would,
and actually my current work is on parsing group vs meditation-specific
effects (outcome variance decomposition). Meditation-specific effects are,
indeed, proving elusive.

But there are a couple of things at play here. The first is that, it's nearly
impossible to separate the effects of ANY short-term treatment from so-called
"group" or "therapist" effects. One of the major findings of the last 10-15
years is that a therapist or group-leader's ability to convey confidence,
warmth and understanding and to establish rapport is a massively more
important factor than technique, at least in the short-term. We're talking 80+
of treatment gains. Of course, to do that you generally have to have at least
an effective-seeming technique, and one that you legitimately believe in, but
it doesn't seem to matter which one. Again, this is in the short-term.

The second issue, is that virtually all studies in any clinical intervention
are really quite short. MBSR is 8 sessions. How good do you think a person can
really get at meditation in 20 minutes per day for 50ish days? The answer is,
not very. And that's true for other cognitive and behavioral treatments as
well. Studies limit the length of their tested interventions to between 8 and
20 weeks, and usually on the lower end, for funding and convenience reasons.
Then they (we) find that group and therapist factors trump technique. It's
really not that surprising when you think about it. It's not that the
techniques don't work, it's just that it takes as long to master your mind as
it does to master anything else, 100s to 1000s of hours. And that research,
which would take years and be extremely expensive, just isn't done.

So yes, a lot of the mindfulness work out there is hype. But it doesn't really
bear on whether mindfulness is effective, just whether a person can make
massive gains in 2-4 months. My own view, is that mindfulness is an effective
tool for teaching awareness and attention control. I use it in conjunction
with other cognitive and behavioral techniques with my own clients.

Review paper on mindfulness effect sizes for anxiety and depression. I've seen
others which found moderate rather than large treatment gains:

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2848393/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2848393/)

The "Dodo Hypothesis" that the bulk of therapeutic treatment gains are the
result of "common factors" (therapist effects, rapport, empathy, etc.)

[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wps.20238/full](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wps.20238/full)

I think the second one is behind a paywall, but you should be able to grab the
DOI and "find it".

------
grabcocque
As somebody with clinical anxiety, I have been prescribed CBT and Mindfulness
on the NHS, I think this piece misses several key points.

For one thing, NICE (the UK NGO responsible for analysing evidence and making
recommendations on the efficacy of treatments and their cost effectiveness)
and an all-party Parliamentary group found signifcant evidence to recommend
Mindfulness as a treatment for anxiety and mild depression along with
traditional cognitive-behavioural therapy and SSRIs.

Secondly, mindfulness feels, to me, closely related to CBT, a tried and true
therapy. It appears to be very closely related to CBT in what it helps to
control: intrusive thoughts. The increased focus on meditation is why it's
more effective for anxiety and mild depression.

It's most certainly NOT recommended for serious cases of clinical depression.
As often, selected application of evidence and over-generalisation is the
problem here.

Mindfulness can help with a range of relatively-minor mental health issues,
and it can also help prevent relapses in those that have recovered. For those
of us who have been helped that's really not something to diminish.

It's not that there's no evidence for its effectiveness at all. There is.

(Disclosure: Mindfulness helped my anxiety a lot. I believe it to be more than
placebo, but then I would, wouldn't I?)

~~~
mettamage
> Secondly, mindfulness feels, to me, like an offshoot of CBT. It appears to
> be very closely related to CBT in both its approach and what it helps
> control.

Really? When I meditate I need to turn my thoughts _off_. With CBT you reframe
your thoughts by a process of what I'd like to call creative thinking and
empiricism. So for me, it's not an offshoot of CBT, since mindfulness is not
concerned with thoughts but with being mindful on whatever your object of
mindfulness is (in 95% of the cases it's your body).

Also, mindfulness was ripped out of Buddhism. Mindfulness was "Buddha's"
invention on top of Hinduism -- as I understand it. Hinduistic meditation
focuses on concentration (note: I stand corrected if I'm wrong), whereas
Buddhistic meditation shifts (eventually) towards mindfulness and depending on
the tradition you have like 4+ different forms of mindfulness.

What psychologists/neuroscientists did was take these techniques out of their
contexts to see if they were helpful for therapy. And apparently -- according
to their studies -- they were.

I just know from personal experience how mindfulness damages me, I also know
how it can heal me. I prefer to use it for healing purposes. For me, when I
need to be more connected to my body and to other people I use mindfulness and
loving kindness meditation (metta) as a practice. Metta makes me more
connected to people and mindfulness acts as a multiplier towards that
connection (since I am more aware of all my feelings). Whenever I need to
code, focus and analyze more I tend to be less interested in meditation
practices.

I'm noticing it's not a hoax. I've meditated 500+ hours and my baseline level
of being aware of my feelings is slightly but noticeably higher. Even if I
don't meditate for months.

~~~
rippeltippel
> When I meditate I need to turn my thoughts off

Good luck with that! From my experience and the teachings I received,
meditation is not about turning thoughts off (which is practically impossible)
but becoming aware of them in a way that you don't get lost into them, the
goal being to understand hands-on how the mind works.

> Mindfulness was "Buddha's" invention on top of Hinduism

That's completely wrong AFAICT, although I concede that the term "mindfulness"
can be perceived as a lay version of "meditation", without religious or
philosophical connotation.

~~~
vidarh
Mindfulness meditation indeed is not about turning thoughts off.

Concentration meditation on the other hand can involve turning thoughts off.
Mindfulness meditation involve a certain degree of concentration practice
(e.g. the use of breath meditation - anapanasati) to maintain focus, but too
much concentration is directly detrimental to mindfulness meditation.

------
sevenfive
Tangential, but has anyone else noticed a surge in newsweek links here and on
reddit? I feel like they hired some consultants.

~~~
DanBC
It's really easy to check if numbers of submission have increased.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=newsweek.com](https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=newsweek.com)

~~~
samfriedman
Judge for yourself:
[https://i.imgur.com/yPUg6pC.png](https://i.imgur.com/yPUg6pC.png)

~~~
sevenfive
Oops. Didn't notice it's cumulative.

------
js8
Few years ago, I read an article about mindfulness on HN, and it finally
clicked with me, why some people recommended me to meditate, and I dismissed
it because I was too skeptical. I have since understood it as training
yourself to being bored, and through that, focus better on a single task that
is boring but you have to do it.

It probably isn't a cure for everything, but looked at this way, it is still
quite useful.

~~~
titzer
> I have since understood it as training yourself to being bored...

There is a vast landscape of meditation practices from numerous traditions
that focus on different aspects, but I think your comment is an extremely poor
characterization of them. It's bit like describing playing guitar or piano as
"moving your fingers in some specific patterns." Uh, no.

~~~
Disruptive_Dave
I think OP is correct, it just wasn't stated as well as it could've been.
Meditation (at least some practice forms) is an act of forcing boredom upon
yourself AND exploring how your mind's default settings react in that
environment. There is a reason why focusing on something like your breath is
recommended vs. focusing on the television (breath is boring!).

“All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room
alone.”

~~~
titzer
Boredom is an emotional state, it is not the absence of stimulation.

~~~
Disruptive_Dave
And sitting down in a quiet, non-stimulated environment typically produces all
sorts of emotions, does it not?

~~~
titzer
YMMV but for many practitioners meditation does not imply boredom.

------
occultist_throw
"Mindfulness" is an occult method. End of discussion. It can be, and has been
studied not by science, but by people working with the occult.

And mindfulness is more of a byproduct of meditation, controlled breathing, or
other techniques that Shiva told Shakti.

We'll eventually be able to analyse these things in the words of science. But
not yet. If you're looking for proof, you will be looking for a very long
time, unless you're willing to do the research on yourself. And then, N=1
research usually isn't looked highly upon.

EDIT: How nice. -1's and hidden by a moderator. Somehow, something I said was
"wrong", or more likely disagreed with someone's world view. But instead of
discussing, it's easier to hide. Pity. I expected better from a group of
people who claimed to like science.

~~~
owebmaster
As we say in Brazil: "monkey that can't eat a banana will say it's unripe".
Some people try medidation and succeed, some don't and think that the ones
succeeding are faking it.

> And then, N=1 research usually isn't looked highly upon.

Genius!

~~~
occultist_throw
What's interesting is that "mindfulness" via what westerners think of
meditation is only one of 110 different techniques. Some of them don't work
now (wrong time), some wont work in the future, and some won't work for
certain people.

When going this route, its best to try different techniques until you feel a
change. Once you do, start working with the technique for a time. 3 minutes
starting, then 3 days, then 3 months, then 3 years. That provides mastery...
Then you can work on another one.

And no, meditation via breath doesn't work on me. I've tried with lamas. Nope.
However when I started working with visualizations (think Hololens without
hardware), I had other people near me that could tell me the shapes I was
projecting. That was -- neat.

