
Employees who practice mindfulness meditation are less motivated - RangerScience
https://boingboing.net/2018/06/17/tune-in-turn-on-slack-off.html
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thisisit
Earlier discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17329396](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17329396)

Additionally, was there a need to submit the same thing twice? Article here
and the paper here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17342635](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17342635)

~~~
Nancy59
Thanks - I like that previous thread better.

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diametralis
Direct link to NYT article:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/14/opinion/sunday/meditation...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/14/opinion/sunday/meditation-
productivity-work-mindfulness.html) . I found it a bit more informative.

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nadezhda18
I do agree with the conclusion of the article to some point. I think it
(mindfulness as the result of the meditation) must really depend on each
person and each character.

Anecdotally, in my case, mindfulness as a result of meditation and similar
mind-calming practices (like jogging, stretching) helped me to advance my
career from a dev to a team lead and eventually helped me to get a courage to
pursue my dreams of being an entrepreneur.

I can conclude that in my case, it did not decrease my motivation but helped
me to:

1\. overcome my anxiety and become a better employee

2\. see what I truly want and get rid of the mental stuff the others (meaning
the corporation) imposed on me (following the said corporation's goals)

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WalterSear
And fwiw, Mindfulness meditation exacerbated my anhedonic depression to the
point where I was no longer able to take care of myself.

Before the well-meaning but condescending comments arrive: no, I was not
'doing it wrong. If my experience threatens anyone's romantic view of
meditation, kindly keep it to yourself.

~~~
Nancy59
Studies have found that getting issues like what you experienced as a result
of mindfulness meditation is extremely low – so, you cannot blame it on
meditation. Also, I have been to many retreats and I am yet to see someone who
had a negative episode during a retreat.

~~~
WalterSear
'Studies?'

Post them, or it will be safe to assume you are lying in reaction to the
threat to your ego.

~~~
Nancy59
Here are three articles:

(1). Wong, S. Y., et al. (2018). The Safety of Mindfulness-Based
Interventions: a Systematic Review of Randomized Controlled Trials.
Mindfulness, 1-14.

(2). Creswell J.D. (2017). Mindfulness Interventions. Annual Review of
Psychology. 68: 491–516.

(3). Shonin, et al. (2014). "Are there risks associated with using mindfulness
in the treatment of psychopathology?". Clinical Practice. 11 (4): 389–92.

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endlessvoid94
Anecdotally, a couple years ago I was meditating every day, for about an hour.
Sometimes a little longer. I noticed a marked decrease in my ambition in
myself (since mindfulness is all about increasing the awareness of your
thoughts and emotions).

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cryoshon
more context of your own existence held firmly and consistently in mind will
reduce motivation for all sorts of intrinsically unrewarding tasks. this is
the same reason why some people who take psychedelic drugs reorient their
lives away from consumerism etc.

think about it for a second. you're a modestly self-aware animal, living on
some tract of land on some planet during a blink of time. your day-to-day
context and frame of mind ignores this fact -- it's too broad of a worldview
to live in. but once you are in the habit of considering your own thoughts as
natural and impersonal phenomena like light scattering on a mountainside, you
start to live in that worldview anyway.

you observe the phenomena of your body going to work; you observe the
phenomena of your mind while it is at work, and observe its stress.
observation usually implies separation between observer and object, however.

in mindfulness, the two are the same. the sobriety of a wider and more
naturalistic perspective as provided by mindfulness makes explaining the
phenomena of anxiety trivial. anxiety at work is an emotion which drives the
worker to generate revenue. task motivation is similar. you don't need to be
an expert at mindfulness to detect the relationship between work and anxiety.
these observations will not trigger someone to explicitly thoughtfully
conclude that being motivated to perform a task at work is not worth the
effort. but these observations will silently undermine the sense of urgency
that comes with not being able to see very far in front of your nose.

the answer to the question "what's the point of being alive" is not
forthcoming with mindfulness. in my experience, it just makes the response
much easier: "not this."

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nicodjimenez
I think many forms of stress, if lowered, will cause productivity to go down
by some metric. The issue is the metric is so hard to get right. When people
get stressed they do busy work that may look productive but are not especially
productive in reality.

~~~
chiefalchemist
Which raises the question: How motivated must you be to be productive? That
is, does a drop in motivation cause a like drop in productivity.

Put another way, just because you're being productive doesn't mean you're
doing the right thing. Perhaps mindfulness means less work but better results?

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wgerard
I think this is one of those results that doesn't seem _too_ surprising once
you start thinking about it, as the article notes:

> Mindfulness is perhaps akin to a mental nap. Napping, too, is associated
> with feeling calm, refreshed and less harried. Then again, who wakes up from
> a nap eager to organize some files?

I imagine the benefits of mindfulness/napping/etc. aren't about motivating
employees to work harder or faster on that business memo, but rather that
employees are less likely to feel miserable while editing said memo.

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Nancy59
This study is a typical example of a very low-quality study on mindfulness.
They have used one single meditation session (just a few minutes of it!) for
participants in the experiments, and these participants were also new to
meditation! With such a brief time on meditation, the chances are these people
would have felt sleepy/lazy and that explains well the results they found!
Hundreds of studies have shown that meditation improves many variables that
contribute to motivation.

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knocte
Title is wrong. After reading the article, what the journalist meant is not
"motivated" but "productive".

(You can still be motivated about many things except your work)

~~~
chiefalchemist
Agreed. The difference is ultimately priorities. That is, what gets energy and
attention.

The fact is, to __not__ give work all your energy and attention takes
motivation. It's different. But it's still motivation.

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emlynmu
Stress is a hell of a motivator.

~~~
xivzgrev
Cocaine is a hell of a drug, according to Rick James.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_4bp8bBNVw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_4bp8bBNVw)

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mistrial9
is burnout still recognized as a problem? or better yet, post-industrial
revolution, humans are described in machine terms like 'productivity' and
'effectiveness' rather than classical human virtues like patience, prudence or
wisdom. If humans allow themselves to be measured by some metric only, work is
then a literal rat-race.

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russdill
• State mindfulness had no overall effect (good or bad) for performance on
same tasks.

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Finnucane
" A central technique of mindfulness meditation, after all, is to accept
things as they are. "

That is a debatable point. From a Buddhist perspective, the goal is not so
much to _accept_ things as they are, but to _perceive_ things as they are,
which means letting go of your accretions of illusions attached to things. The
fundamental mechanism of capitalism is to foster a sense of eternal
dissatisfaction with your material state, but Buddhist thinking is directed
toward relieving yourself of this, and encouraging the realization that more
attachments means more discontent.

~~~
vokep
I agree with the comment about "a bit of column a, a bit of column b"

By default we are immersed purely in illusion. I'm sure you have your own
mental image of a person who is entirely immersed in the illusions presented
by media etc etc. Often these illusions are driven by needs/wants which are
interpreted as all being needs. Full Buddhist perspective is that all but the
most basic for survival are wants, not needs, but that is at odds with
capitalism and the survival of the species. If we don't have some way of
technological advancement, we may live happy simple lives, but eventually
something cosmic will happen that the species can't handle and thats it. With
technology that can change, which is where capitalism comes in. Capitalism
reminds that in the bigger picture, there is a need for anything the helps
survival.

Given that, at least personally what I take away is, capitalism motivates us
to do things we don't "need" to do, but may be very important one day. To the
extreme, it implies that everything is needed and anything short of perfect
may as well be death. The other side of the coin is nice but vulnerable.
Together - use mindfulness to stay rational and aware - and pay attention to
capitalism to understand and situate yourself into the future. Together they
are quite powerful - I feel I live a pretty happy life enjoying the benefits
of both.

TL;DR stress motivates, but sucks. mindfulness is good but doesn't build the
future. together in the right balance they're amazingly powerful

