
Meditation associated with slower age-related loss of gray matter in the brain - ca98am79
http://www.kurzweilai.net/meditation-associated-with-slower-age-related-loss-of-gray-matter-in-the-brain?utm_source=KurzweilAI+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=b176317d81-UA-946742-1&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_6de721fb33-b176317d81-281895037
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goonte
A friendly reminder that correlation does not imply causation. There is no
contradiction between this result being real, and meditation being absolutely
worthless at preventing loss of grey matter.

This is a small sample, and it's just as plausible that (I'm making this up)
vegetarians are more likely to meditate, and a vegetarian diet correlates with
more grey matter.

If this is a significant result, the takeaway isn't that "I should meditate to
keep my grey matter", but rather "I should be the kind of person that would
have meditated in this study if I want to keep my grey matter".

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porter
What exactly would imply causation in a study like this? What should people
look out for so they don't get fooled?

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ternaryoperator
It might well be that meditators react to situations less stressfully, so that
it's actually stress that's the negative agent rather than meditation the
positive one; and so any stress-reducing activities will have similar
benefits. To show causation, it seems (I'm not a statistician) would require
eliminating a lot of factors: diet, lifestyle, etc.

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coderholic
If you're interested in getting started with meditation, checkout
[http://calm.com](http://calm.com), and our iPhone and Android apps (search
the stores for "calm")

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mapleoin
Wow! I took the 2min one and it made me feel great. I especially love the
ending with [SPOILER]"this is you, alive and present"[SPOILER].

Thanks a lot!

