
Regular meditation more beneficial than vacation (2016) - evo_9
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/relaxation-benefits-meditation-stronger-relaxation-benefits-taking-vacation-2016102710532
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EndXA
The title seems very misleading to me, because much more than "regular
meditation" was involved.

Here is how they describe the study in the article:

> The study was conducted at a resort in Southern California... The
> mindfulness intervention was an established meditation and yoga retreat
> consisting of 12 hours of meditation, nine hours of yoga, and self-
> reflective exercises over a week. The participants were divided into three
> groups of about 30 each: experienced meditators, women who had never
> meditated, and a group who simply “went on vacation.” The 30 “vacation
> participants” listened to health lectures and then did fun outdoor things
> for a week.

> At the end, all three groups (vacation, novice, and regular meditators)
> showed statistically significant improvements in scores of stress and
> depression, which were measured using well-established and commonly used
> questionnaires. If we stop there, it seems that vacation is just as good as
> mindfulness exercises for stress reduction and mood lifting.

> But what’s really striking are the result from 10 months later: the regular
> meditators still showed significant improvements on these scores, the novice
> meditators even more so. However, the vacationers were back to baseline. The
> researchers had ensured that all three groups were equal in average age,
> education level, employment status, and body mass index. This finding is in
> keeping with prior research showing that vacation has beneficial but very
> temporary effects, and that mindfulness therapies have sustained beneficial
> effects.

~~~
oehtXRwMkIs
It was regular as in practiced on a regular basis. It's a key term since as
you might guess, one-off meditation is much less potent.

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loopz
Now, there are as many meditation practices as there are teachers and
practitioners. So approaches and answers may vary wildly.

To really investigate, I'd recommed to stay off the self-help books, tapes and
apps, and seek out a well-established group doing regular practice. There is
more to it and the support can be much more helpful, than just following words
and sounds. An experienced meditator could easily slip into meditation anytime
just by closing her eyes. Though there is nowhere to go and nothing to attain,
practice can be used throughout life. Letting go of expectations is key. A
robust group can help through many misconceptions, provide clear path and
reassurances, beyond that of meditation alone. If everything is not applicable
forever, at least it broadens perspective of life immensely, and provides
reference points along more dimensions of possibilities.

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skadamou
Articles like this pop up on my news feed from time to time and I am always
interested to read them to see if there is any kind of concrete action item I
can take in order to reap the benefits these types of articles espouse. I'm
usually disappointed.

I've tried meditation off and on for around a decade and still don't quite
"get it." I know my experience is entirely anecdotal but articles like this
always feel very pseudo-sciency full of quotes like "Regular meditators showed
both the same types of improvements’ at the molecular level" which really
turns me off to their conclusions.

With that said, I would love to take another look at meditation with an open
mind so if anyone has any resources or websites to recommend that helped them,
I am all ears!

~~~
rabidrat
Mastering the Core Teaching of the Buddha might be up your alley. I won't
strictly "recommend" it, as the path it espouses is intense and engineered for
enlightenment, which is (perhaps ironically) "no fun", in contrast to modern
western mindfulness meditation with phone apps which is pleasant and relaxing
but won't get you anywhere. But if you want results and are willing to put in
the work (which is 1000x the effort of just reading the book), you could give
MCTB a shot. Either that or join a Zen monastery for a couple years :)

~~~
skadamou
Thank you for suggesting this book. I'm not 100% sure what to make of it but
it's all available for free online and the introduction is really intriguing.
If nothing else, I now know something exists that I didn't before.

[https://www.mctb.org/](https://www.mctb.org/)

~~~
l_davis
Wow. The author of this book calls himself an arhat. That is, shall I say,
presumptuous? Not what I think I would look for in a Buddhist teacher (though,
full disclosure, I practice Buddhism with a school I am very happy with so
already have some opinions on the subject).

~~~
rabidrat
His whole schtick is "plain talk about enlightenment". I agree that it
"sounds" egotistical, but if someone really had attained arhatship, _and_
thought that the best way to promote spiritual training was to talk about it
in a plain way, I don't think he's being unreasonable. And his lineage
confirms his attainment.

~~~
l_davis
Can't tell what his lineage is from what I have read.

The temple that I belong to was founded in Japan. The honorifics we use to
describe our High Priest and other priests are never used by then to describe
themselves. That posture is consistent in Japanese society in general, not
just the sect of Buddhism I belong to. So this does seem very strange to me.

~~~
rabidrat
America is very different from Japan, and Americans respond to different
social signals when choosing who to follow. This obviously a terrible idea for
society in general, but you gotta promote to the market you're in :/

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ternaus
I tried to learn how to meditate a few times. It did not work so far.

A few friends told me that they have a similar problem, but after Vipassana
they were able to get the idea and started meditating regularly.

Sadly the pandemic made all the Vipassana places to close.

I hope that in 6 months they will start to reopen.

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mttjj
Which one improves reading comprehension? Because I had read this headline
about three times before I realized it didn’t say ‘Regular medication more
beneficial than vaccination’!

More on topic: I did some mindful meditation a few years ago when I had some
issues to work through. It really seemed to help. I should probably get in the
habit of doing it again.

That said, I won’t be giving up vacations anytime soon. I don’t even go
anywhere. I just take a week off from work and get my mind off of that stress.

~~~
bighi
> I just take a week off from work

A week...

Maybe this is article is only comparing daily meditation to the US version of
a vacation? A week shouldn't even be called vacation.

I find it hard to believe that something as ineffective as meditation could be
more beneficial than the 4 weeks to a month of vacation that you have in
civilized countries.

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Venkatesh10
Actually if you do proper yoga and meditation you'll get a better handling of
your thoughts. Provided that things are so volatile today in day to day life
,it might not guarantee the same effect as it did hundreds of years back.

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dang
Discussed at the time:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12869443](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12869443)

