
Regular meditation may be more beneficial than vacation - prostoalex
http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/relaxation-benefits-meditation-stronger-relaxation-benefits-taking-vacation-2016102710532
======
not_an_account
Mindfulness meditation is one of the pillars on which my life rests. If you
have never done it before, realize that it's hard, especially if you fall
anywhere on the ADHD spectrum, and it's just brutal for the first few weeks
for anyone. As your brain becomes more still and your focus improves you'll
notice your productivity improve. As the mental chatter drops you'll also
notice the problems in your life, that you've ignored or been too distracted
to see, impeding your ability to meditate. Only _working_ to fix them will
allow you to continue, but you'll be better off for it.

I rarely talk about meditation in professional circles because, for one,
people think it's weird or have a preconceived notion of what it is, but more
so it's so damn effective that it's seriously my secret weapon in life and
part of my competitive edge. (As an aside, it has nothing at all to do with
"strange religions", vegans, or yoga pants.)

Start slow, 10 minutes a day for a week, then add 5 for the next week, and so
on, and don't rush. Take it seriously and don't disrespect it. I simply cannot
recommend it enough.

~~~
elcapitan
> I rarely talk about meditation in professional circles because, for one,
> people think it's weird

No, it totally makes sense. Long walks in the woods or long runs are almost
like meditation for me, and it is definitely like vacation for the mind.

I just wonder where to get started with actual meditation - I have to admit I
find the predominant literature about that topic extremely esoteric, and
that's something that easily puts me off.

Any tips what a good starting point would be?

~~~
zuzuleinen
I recommend HeadSpace
[https://www.headspace.com/](https://www.headspace.com/). I think it's great
that you start slowly and guided which is perfect for a beginner.

~~~
noja
Seconded, HeadSpace is amazing. Surprised to see it only mentioned here once.

~~~
elcapitan
Ok, I've heard from that before, but it looked too much like a game to me,
I'll try it out then :)

------
skankhunt42
Now I can show _this_ to my employees when they ask for vacation days. I won't
allow anything but the best for them and meditation can be efficiently packed
into the lunch break time frame.

~~~
neves
This is what bothers me about meditation. Sometimes meditation looks like a
panacea. Your life s _cks, your boss is an_ ssh*le, your personal
relationships a mess, but if you meditate everything will be all right. Better
to put some prozac in the water system.

~~~
lujim
Life doesn't relent. Even young, rich, beautiful people are susceptible to
feelings of unsatisfactory-ness that leave them reaching for the booze and
hard drugs or just feeling all around unfulfilled and miserable. Humans are
built to run on a hedonic treadmill, not to be content in the moment.

Meditation is a tool so that when your life scks, your boss is an ssh*le, and
your personal relationships are a mess, THEN someone cuts you off in traffic
you take a minute or two of breath awareness and open monitoring instead of
running them off the road and karate kicking them in the head.

It helps you relax into feelings of anger, pain, or depression instead of
running from them and chasing your addictive behavior of choice to escape.
Also like every other tool out there it isn't 100% effective.

~~~
droopyEyelids
Your example was extreme with the 'running them off the road' bit, but
actually meditation isn't helpful _unless it pushes you to that breaking
point._

You need to get worked up, speak your mind, start the argument, quit your job
when things get too bad. Life isn't a float on the lazy river. Feelings of
anger and pain exist for a reason.

Thats why meditation, as it's sold, is bullsh*t. You're describing an
alternative to xanax.

~~~
lujim
I've noticed a lot of people that meditate struggle with aversion of thoughts
and feelings vs "letting go" of thoughts and feelings. You certainly feel
every bit of pain, anger, and sadness as a non meditator would.

The distinction is that you work on "meta-cognitive awareness". You try to
avoid getting swept up in the narrative thought stream if possible. So here
goes from my own experience (doesn't work 100% of the time).

without mindful awareness Guy cuts me off -> "WTF is that guy doing? What a
moron! Someone always has to mess with me! Look at how smug he is. I want to
jam his nose into the back of his head"

with Guy cuts me off -> "WTF is that guy doing? Woah feeling that anger. I can
feel it right in my chest and kind of a warm feeling in my face and arms. Hmm
interesting. I wonder if he is rushing to the hospital or to some emergency.
Just like me, I've accidentally cut someone off before. Oh well what's on the
radio"

It helps you build more mature mental models. Mental models are useful but
often wrong. Mindfulness can help you question your own mental models and take
things less personally. Tons of reputable studies will back up mindfulness and
meditation as a standalone or complementary tool for stress, anxiety,
depression, and pain. Medication still plays a very important role.

Edit: Upvote to you for bringing up a good point. It is very hard to sort out
the bull*hit in the meditation community. There is an awful lot of tradition,
psudo-science, and plain old snobbery in this community. Anyone that gets
involved should start with the basics and avoid as much of the spiritual hype
as possible.

------
origami777
I've been going through challenging times and have been confronted with
somethings I've never had to deal with before. There are a couple of things
that trigger anxiety in me on a daily basis now. I wake up in the middle of
the night with little anxiety episodes. I'm unfocused at work because of what
feels like underlying emotional issues.

The only thing that's helped (I am trying to fix without medication) are the
tools from HeartMath. Their "Transforming Stress" book has been a god send.
It's not a get well fast type thing, but I've been practicing the sessions
daily for a month now and am in much better control of my stress and anxiety.

I have practiced Tai Chi, meditation, and visualization via NLP techniques in
the past. I'm not a novice when it comes to the types of techniques that
HeartMath teaches. However, the way theirs are structured are the most
effective I've found for dealing with these issues.

If you're going through hard times I highly recommend using their tools.

~~~
snissn
Do you drink coffee? Try 100% cutting out caffeine!

~~~
puranjay
Any strategies to cut? If I don't drink my morning cup, I get bad headaches
around the evening and basically stop functioning.

~~~
blawson
The painful way is pretty simple! Wait until you have a few days you can be
"down" and just go cold turkey. I find I do OK the first couple of days, then
get a pretty bad headache. When that's gone I'm back to normal.

~~~
melvinmt
This. The withdrawal symptoms of coffee usually last for about a week. The
thing that is perhaps most surprising is that after that week you'll also feel
less tired. Turns out that while most people consider coffee as a remedy to
tiredness, it's the coffee itself that actually makes you more tired, so you
need more and more of it, just like any other addictive drug.

------
didibus
Vacations are wide and broad. Normally I try to cram so much traveling,
visiting, sight seeing, partying and drinking/eating into my vacation that I'm
more burned out when they are over then when I started them. I often joke that
I need a vacation from my vacation. I also have this habit to book my flights
as close to when my job ends/starts, like take a red-eye right after work and
come back the day I start work again, going straight from airport to work.

Given that, I absolutely can believe meditation is better then vacation. But
I'd have to wonder, if my vacation consisted of calmly driving to a Cabin in
the forest and pleasantly sitting on the side of a lake reading or pondering
or looking at the lake by myself for the whole vacation, would that still be
worse then meditation? Or is this starting to count as meditating?

~~~
jdietrich
Americans just don't get enough vacation time. If you only get two weeks a
year, you feel compelled to cram as much in as possible. Four to six weeks is
the norm in Europe, so you don't feel guilty about "wasting" a week. With that
amount of vacation time, you can take several short breaks and still have time
for a big summer trip.

~~~
pc86
Most professionals get more than two weeks. Two weeks of paid vacation is
really minimum entry-level stuff. I walked into 3 weeks and negotiated 4 weeks
for next year in my review, and I've known people who (much further in their
careers) have 5 or 6.

One of the problems in the tech industry specifically is a lot of the PTO
schemes in the US are tied to length of service at that company. If you're
jumping around every 2-4 years it's hard to get more than 3 weeks unless
you're at a much higher level. At one of my previous very conservative,
corporate/public, healthcare industry jobs there was a developer who had been
at that company for over 20 years and he got 6 weeks a year. The manager had
been there for a year so only got 2 weeks.

~~~
jdietrich
>Most professionals get more than two weeks. Two weeks of paid vacation is
really minimum entry-level stuff. I walked into 3 weeks and negotiated 4 weeks
for next year in my review, and I've known people who (much further in their
careers) have 5 or 6.

Americans tend not to use all of their vacation time; professionals often end
up working remotely while on vacation. There's a fear of losing your job or
being overlooked for promotion. This is a largely alien concept in Europe,
where job security is much stronger.

[http://www.marketwatch.com/story/55-of-american-workers-
dont...](http://www.marketwatch.com/story/55-of-american-workers-dont-take-
all-their-paid-vacation-2016-06-15)

~~~
pc86
"Americans don't use their vacation" is a lot different than "Americans don't
have enough vacation." And while I'm sure there are companies and cultures
that expect you to work on vacation, I've been working in tech professionally
for over a decade at multiple companies and have never felt remotely pressured
to do anything on vacation, and doing so is certainly not the norm.

------
trprog
>He went on to explain that other factors that often go hand in hand with
meditation (for example, exercise, diet, even exposure to incense) could help
explain these improvements. “So that as well remains to be more fully resolved
in future studies.”

Sounds nice and vague although that is understandable. It reminds me of
studies suggesting that taking regular naps give all sorts of health and
longevity benefits. Is it the naps themselves or that you have a lifestyle
that permits you the opportunity to take naps? If nothing else the ability to
decide to nap indicates the individual is in control of their time which would
seem to correlate with lower stress levels Vs someone who has their daily
schedule dictated to them in such a way as to make laying down for 20 minutes
impossible.

There are so many confounding factors the outcomes are always going to be
really fuzzy.

------
microtherion
How long until the trend in unicorn startup will be to give employees zero
vacation days but unlimited meditation?

------
kome
> You say vacation, I say meditation…

Beneficial to what? The point of a vacation isn't about being more
productivity at work. Productivity is not the goal.

~~~
delecti
I would argue that productivity is probably a good proxy for mental health on
a per-employee basis. It's not the goal, but it's an easily measurable
correlated value.

------
agumonkey
One thing that strikes me often with vacations of the average person is how
much of a runaway it is.

\- Fed up with work, I need holidays.

####

\- Fed up with holidays, can't wait to get back to work.

~~~
pmyjavec
I've noticed this too, some says it's a bad habit energy we've developed in
our modern society, always running to the next thing, always looking to
consume. It's as if there is a sense of uneasiness that comes along with
stillness.

Maybe we need to relearn the art of doing nothing?

I've been out of full time work for a while (mostly voluntary due to
travelling) and I can, after 6 months feel myself beginning to settle
somewhat, The first week of lying on a tropical beach did feel a little bit
like torture to be honest!

I do meditate, but without being in a meditation community or "sangha", it can
be hard to stay at it for extended periods, especially while travelling.

~~~
nether
the consumption cycle is sustained because it benefits the powers that be.
humans are _insatiable_ , and as long as you are convinced that contentment
requires "just one more thing," you will never be happy, you will always be
hungry, and you will always want more. happiness isn't pleasure, because of
hedonic adaption, pleasure eventually becomes boring and empty. happiness is
contentment with what you have. it is escape from the pain-pleasure cycle.
when you're content, you even _avoid_ strong pleasure, because it disrupts
your tranquility.

it's insane that young people of today believe that a good life requires
living a big city, gourmet foods, craft beers, urban scavenger hunts etc.
these are forms of leisure that were all but inaccessible to 95% of the world
up until 200 years ago. so happiness didn't exist until today? staying in the
cycle ensures that you'll be devoured by labor, until you get that "fuck you
money." it's as if some guys "crushing it" really do believe that work will
set them free, some day. it's just as said in "my dinner with andre":

> I think that New York is the new model for the new concentration camp, where
> the camp has been built by the inmates themselves, and the inmates are the
> guards, and they have this pride in this thing that they’ve built—they’ve
> built their own prison—and so they exist in a state of schizophrenia where
> they are both guards and prisoners. And as a result they no longer
> have—having been lobotomized—the capacity to leave the prison they’ve made
> or even to see it as a prison.

many techies are enormously proud of the addictive, attention-as-a-commodity
prison they have built, that's kept people anxious and distracted and most
assuredly unhappy. they're convinced that giving more of their labor is the
answer; it is not.

~~~
pmyjavec
Thanks for the good response. I've been quite aware of these things for
sometime, but how to communicate and build awareness to an already hopelessly
anxious and distracted populous?

That seems to be the trouble.

~~~
crawfordcomeaux
I believe our design processes have to change to ones that are more mindful &
we need a system w/mass appeal/access to teach people mindfulness.

------
raarts
> vacation has beneficial but very temporary effects, and that mindfulness
> therapies have sustained beneficial effects.

Proving the obvious.

But I would choose vacation over meditation any time. Seeing the world and
other cultures does a lot for my mental health too.

------
soulnothing
Last year I took two months off between contracts. It was more a staycation,
but realistically it had been over 10 years since my last vacation, or more
than a day off.

That time period did so much to help rejuvinate me and make me better. Working
on personal projects, and other items. Towards the tail end I took on part
time work and was still happier than I had been in years. The biggest thing
was being able to meditate daily. Pick what I want that day, whether it be a
novel, research, or software.

I took an actual vacation this year. I was more stressed, and frazzled going
into it, and even worse coming out. I had just rented my house, and the
vacation was rife with calls from the police about trouble from my tenants,
and missed payments. The travel was also frought with layovers and delays.

I also meditate, did tai chi, etc. Gym time and meditation was crucial for my
over all well being. But now being one of those mega commuters, which is about
to end. I didn't really have the time. Being crunched for time, it was easier
to reach for a bottle of whiskey to ease my tension. Which is by no means
ideal. I had actually gone dry for three years, and broke that several months
prior.

I've also found my meditation is largely based on relieving stress from work.
Where I'm not fulfilled in the slightest at work. I then meditate to try and
combat that feeling. It's a cyclical cycle.

------
lqdc13
It is not clear from the article if the meditation group stopped meditating or
not.

The headline conclusion only makes sense if nobody in the novice meditation
group meditated after that week.

------
she11c0de
I'm also a big fan of meditation - I believe it changed the way I perceive
every day "threats" and allows me to see the roots of any problem I encounter
instead of just allowing automatic subconscious defense mechanisms to kick in.
That being said, in this study it seems that the experimental group really had
a vacation AND meditation, so I'm not surprised they had better results.

------
peterwwillis
Meditation is about clearing your mind of distractions. A vacation is supposed
to be a chance to see the world and do things you normally wouldn't.

You should try to be stress free in your daily life. Your vacation should be a
little stressful. All my best travel stories feature stress (or some conflict,
or challenge, or misadventure, ...)

Sitting on a beach is nice, but it's also safe and boring. Go get lost
somewhere.

------
charris0
I would agree for the most part, as meditation (from my experience) can
provide a consistent, harmonising and content feeling that would persist for
longer than the joy that comes from pure escapism or novelty of experience of
a vacation.

I've been doing Transcendental Meditation I learnt through ZivaMIND for over a
year now and I couldn't imagine being as on the ball emotionally/with
reference to myself without it. I've found it so brilliant.

IMO, Meditation, and more broadly speaking, the uninterrupted time we allow
for ourselves, should be taught in schools and by parents ubiquitously, as its
an obvious antidote to our constant connectedness eating away at our wellbeing
and creativity and compassion/gratitude.

------
kirubakaran
I found these free guided meditations to be extremely helpful:
[http://marc.ucla.edu/body.cfm?id=22](http://marc.ucla.edu/body.cfm?id=22)

They are from UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center.

------
cryptica
Meditation does nothing for me. It's ironic that the people I know who are
into meditation tend to be completely out of touch with themselves and
meditation doesn't seem to actually change anything about them.

~~~
cheez
I've found two kinds of people who meditate: those who should be on drugs, and
those who look like they're on drugs because they are so zen.

One of the benefits of regular meditation is a letting go of things that don't
matter and focusing on the things that do.

------
lujim
There are mountains of good and bad info on meditation. Here is a primer on
mindfulness as I understand it from Ronald Siegel (Assistant Clinical
Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School, author etc)

The human brain has two default modes of operation and you have very little
control over them. They exist because they offered an evolutionary advantage
in much more dangerous times, but don't necessarily promote a sense of well
being/happiness in a modern relatively safe world. a) Pleasure seeking and
pain avoidance b)Self referential thought ("Am I good enough, smart enough and
do people like me?")

Mindfulness offers a third option. Relaxed open awareness with general
acceptance. It can be done my anchoring awareness on a physical sensation like
the breath. You won't be able to hold your concentration there very long
before you realize you're thinking of something else. You are mindful when you
realize your mind had drifted and you bring it back to your anchor.

It offers tons of well studied and documented benefits like increased activity
in the left prefrontal cortex with is good for reasons that google can tell
you.

A note from my experience. Expect the timeline of benefits to be similar to
starting a cardio or weight training program. Your first few times may seem
like a waste of time but the benefits start piling up after a few weeks.

------
Confusion
That headline is misleading. It was an experiment with 91 female volunteers
and the 'vacation' was not something I would consider a vacation.

------
andyjohnson0
There was some useful discussion of meditation on HN a few years ago [1].
Reading it, I was surprised by how many people here use meditation and benefit
from it - professionally as well as personally.

This [2] post by twotimesposter is a particularly good answer to the question
of "how to meditate to achieve mindfulness?". So much so that I bookmarked it.
Really must get around to trying it.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4926642](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4926642)

[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4928060](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4928060)

~~~
q-base
No need to make such a big deal out of doing it or getting around to doing it.
As someone else recommended take the free Headspace 10 day course or search
Jon Kabat-Zinn, he has some videos where he teaches mindfulness in front of an
audience.

If you make it too big a "thing" both "it" and you will fail and not achieve
whatever you have set your mind on it achieving.

~~~
dasboth
Kabat-Zinn's book "Wherever you go, there you are" is also recommended.

------
bshastry
Nice try, capitalist hawks!

------
tskarthik
Give up expectations. You will be free from stress. Thats it.

~~~
kirubakaran
Simple, but not easy :-)

------
amerkhalid
If anyone gets turned off by spiritual/religious aspects around Meditation, I
have found this podcast very helpful in understanding:
[https://secularbuddhism.com/](https://secularbuddhism.com/) It is not mainly
about meditation but general Buddhist concepts. I am finding that it is
helping me be mindful more often and meditate once in awhile.

If you do start listening to it, start with first 5 episodes.

------
mcguire
" _a recent study comparing a mindfulness meditation and yoga retreat to
regular vacation in terms of mental health as well as physical health
outcomes_ "

The study compared a week of health lectures and "fun outdoor stuff" to a
week-long meditation retreat. This isn't meditation vs. vacation, it's
meditation+vacation vs. vacation.

------
rohinibarla
"As there is a science and technology to create external wellbeing, there is a
whole dimension of science and technology for inner wellbeing.”

Here is a study conducted on 536 Isha practitioners

[https://www.innerengineering.com/ieo-
new/benefits/](https://www.innerengineering.com/ieo-new/benefits/)

------
diegoloop
Here is one interesting App helpful for relaxation but in a different way.

I notice some improvements since one month using it. \- better sleeping \-
more focus \- positive thinking

(Unfortunately the app is just for iOS at the moment)
[https://appsto.re/de/8PGcfb.i](https://appsto.re/de/8PGcfb.i)

~~~
curun1r
Forgive me for speculating, but given your username (diegoloop) and the name
of the developer of that app (Diego Lopez), it kinda feels like you're
promoting your own app.

If that's the case, you should definitely disclose that rather than pretending
to be just a user of the app.

------
jaakl
I know a startupper who struggled for almost 10 years, then started meditation
and yoga practises and then in less than 1 year the startup growed
significantly and eventually got sold successfully. That was me. Was it a
coincidence ?

------
cthalupa
I've got hundreds of memories that I treasure dearly from traveling the world.

I suppose it depends on if you're vacationing just to get away from work, or
if there's something you really want to do/see/experience.

------
hiryuken
Playing Tennis twice a week made my life much better. I suggest everyone to
try it if you suffer from stress, anxiety and lack of mental focus. That's
also great to loose some weight and get in a better shape.

------
debt
seems most beneficial then to both vacation and meditate simultaneously.

~~~
mcshicks
Anecdotal data here. I'm a regular mediator for the past 10 years. I'm not
currently working, but when I was I would one or two 1 week meditation
retreats a year instead of a "normal" vacation. My experience was a one week
meditation retreat felt like a 3-4 week normal vacation getting a break from
my job. Generally by halfway through the first day I more or less was not
thinking about work anymore. However I don't necessarily think the experience
would be the same if I didn't have a regular practice and doing the retreat
with people I normally meditate with.

I'm skeptical in general about health benefit claims for meditation, what I
would say is if you think it might help you, try it, but gradually. Like maybe
do a 1 day or 3 day meditation retreat and see how it goes.

------
desireco42
This is classic western scam to get you not to go to vacation :). I wouldn't
trust anything.

Meditation is good for you and you will realize that you need to go on
vacation during your meditation.

------
jeena
Meh I don't buy it, the method of the study seems not very sound. I myself was
on a 10 days meditation retreat
[http://www.sobhana.dhamma.org/](http://www.sobhana.dhamma.org/) where we
meditated for 16 hours a day or something and sure it helped with the mood,
relaxation, etc. but it wore out after a couple of weeks and I never had the
nerv to meditate daily because it was not worth it. Btw. my brother and sister
attended it too and both say the same about it.

~~~
rpeden
A quick question, because I'm genuinely curious: if you never did it daily,
how do you know it wasn't worth it?

~~~
jeena
I did it "daily" for 10 days very intensive, and the bliss or what you want to
call it was there but not worth the hassle. But I also have a suspection that
I'm the wrong person for that because my normal level of being is already very
calm and relaxed. The only thing which can get to me if I don't sleep enough.

------
Benjamin_Dobell
_The study was conducted at a resort in Southern California_

It's an incredibly deceptively named article. The study showed that meditating
_whilst_ on vacation is more beneficial than a vacation without meditation.
All participants _were_ on vacation.

Also, the participants who were meditating already knew how to meditate, so at
best we have a correlation between the kind of people who learn to meditate
and feeling less stressed during/after a vacation.

~~~
ephextom
I accept your point that the results of the study should be taken with
caution, but don't these statements at least partially refute your dismissal?

 _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._

~~~
lukeschlather
The headline implies that instead of taking vacations, you should simply
meditate. But the article doesn't support that in any way.

Rather, it suggests that you should spend at least 1 week of vacation per year
in a secluded environment doing structured mindfulness activities such as yoga
and meditation.

------
pkaye
I misread this as "medication" and was confused for a while.

~~~
daptaq
Not as bad as me who thought this was "Meditation" vs "Vaccination"

------
burnbabyburn
I still prefer holidays though.

------
dschiptsov
And meditation is? Sitting in a public place in yoga pants holding fingers in
a mudra? Vacation defined as? Does vacation include visiting Buddhist
countries and Indian meditation retreats? How long a vacation should be?

Hint: meditation requires a profound changes in ones assumptions about his own
nature and conditioning. That's why the teaching of the Buddha has been a
philosophy, not a book of asanas. Meditation is the tool to realize accuracy
and correctness of Buddha's insights. To test and validate his hypothesis by
yourself.

there is a good place to start: [https://www.coursera.org/learn/science-of-
meditation](https://www.coursera.org/learn/science-of-meditation)

~~~
aaimnr
The course mentioned by parent is definitely worth watching for anyone
interested. Lot of valuable information both on neuro/psychology of meditation
and Buddhism.

I wouldn't agree with the statement that medidtation requires profound changes
in ones assumptions. One can start with just a simple instruction, eg. "don't
think about the breath, but watch for sensations that constitute the
experience of breathing" and, as they develop mindfulness, incporporate more
and more conceptual knowledge about what Buddha called Right View while
testing it in practice.

I guess you're right, though, that without right information you could
possibly sit in your yoga pants and mudra (vide any stock photo with
'meditation' tag) and don't get anywhere for years.

------
jomamaxx
" statistically significant improvements in scores of stress and depression"

It's hard to measure what 'benefit' means.

These things are a matter of choice as much as anything else.

Moreover, it may very well be that some of the answers were 'primed' by the
content of the retreat.

