Ask HN: Is meditation entirely a placebo effect? - a3voices
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aneeshm
No.

Mindfulness meditation has a measurable and significant effect not only on
stress, emotional regulation, recurrent thoughts/rumination, attention, and
decision-making, but also a physical effect in the brain in the form of a
reduction of amygdala size, and an increase in the activity (and size) of the
prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortices.

`Internally', it changes the meditator's subjective sense of self and of how
he experiences the world.

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collyw
I dislike the way scientists and "objective thinkers" (for want of a better
phrase) usually dismiss the placebo effect as something to be ignored.

If the placebo effect can be demonstrated to having positive effects in pain
killing, and healing, it should be studied with enthusiasm.

We all know how stress can have negative effects on health. Why should the
placebo effect and "positive thinking" not be able to have positive effects on
health?

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elevenfist
There are many different kinds of meditation, but some forms of calm
meditation have been observed to produce numerous benefits beyond placebo
effects, including lowering cortisol levels.

[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100816155000.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100816155000.htm)

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h1karu
Is day to day life experience capable of causing change in the neural anatomy
? We know the answer is yes because people who go through intense trauma end
up with brains that function differently in measurable ways, and that is well
studied. Meditation is a similar thing except that where trauma causes brain
damage meditation causes brain healing. Meditation is about learning to
control and direct your faculty of attention in order to upgrade your brain's
"wetware".

You're learning to choose a new primary neural pathway that tends to route
around the fight/flight parts of the brain and route into lesser understood
parts of the brain. The end effect is a calmer, happier, less worried you, but
it takes.. well... practice :)

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458QxfC2z3
It may have no effect for some people. I practiced samatha/vipassana for over
a decade at a Tibetan Buddhist center. This included daily sessions, one and
two week solitary retreats, week-end and month-long group retreats. I met
wonderful people but I experienced no change in attentiveness, clarity,
calmness, or acceptance of my shortcomings. Meditation instructors said, "Just
keep practicing." I did, but eventually lost interest and left the community
years ago. My level of attentiveness does not seem to have decreased since.
YMMV.

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seiji
There are a lot of before/after studies of meditation. This book covers a lot
of them from a pro-meditation point of view and includes brain scans comparing
monks to people beginning meditation to people who have practiced meditation
for a few weeks to a few months: [http://www.amazon.com/Pictures-Mind-
Neuroscience-Tells-Scien...](http://www.amazon.com/Pictures-Mind-Neuroscience-
Tells-Science-ebook/dp/B0032BW5BQ)

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elwell
Yes. But something being a placebo effect doesn't mean it isn't also a 'real'
physiological change.

