
Cost Effectiveness of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction - luu
https://acesounderglass.com/2017/11/20/cost-effectiveness-of-mindfulness-based-stress-reduction/
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inglor
My sister is a mental health professional and she has recommended meditation
and headspace (an app) to me a year ago. I've found it to be a great help and
to the exercises to have a measurable impact on my life.

It provides techniques (reflection, visualization, noting etc) that offer
tools to deal with day to day stress related information.

There are a lot of studies about meditation's effectiveness:

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29110263](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29110263)
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29126747](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29126747)

I'm always surprised that when people discuss it with me they're surprised I
do it. Somehow it has a reputation for pseudoscience but there are easily a
hundred articles supporting the benefits.

~~~
moxious
I think it has a reputation as a pseudo science because it's derived from
religious practice. While religious practice isn't always bunk (as is the case
here) assuming that religious practices are bunk is a pretty damn effective
heuristic.

~~~
tlb
In our Western post-Enlightenment society, most of the beneficial aspects of
Christian practice were adopted into secular practice. Consider: charity for
the needy, monogamous marriage, burial of the dead, a 7th day of rest.

We haven't adopted as many practices from other religions. We eventually
(1800s) adopted regular washing from Islam, but adoption was slowed by its
taint of foreignness, much to the chagrin of millions of people who died of
disease. The stretching aspects of yoga became mainstream within the last 50
years. Meditation and yoga breathing are still exotic. Perhaps some day they
won't be, and our descendants will wonder how people from our era stayed sane
without daily meditation.

The
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_of_Living_Foundation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_of_Living_Foundation)
teaches meditation and yoga breathing worldwide, including regular classes in
the Bay Area, if you want to try it yourself.

~~~
zamalek
Another example: if you don't want worms or salmonella, don't eat poorly
cooked white meat. No doubt the meat was considered cursed after people
consistently fell ill after eating it.

When it comes to eastern practices (yoga, meditation and so forth) my bullshit
barometer is calibrated much, much higher. I'm far more likely to approach
their practices with an open mind. Take spirit guides as an example; while I
certainly don't agree that there are spirit guides, it is a religious
explanation for the subconscious - your autopilot that guides you through
small decisions every day. I can't see why you wouldn't try to wield it to
your advantage (obviously with the appropriate care that eastern religions
have unwittingly formulated).

Even the core of Christianity can be helpful. Life is far less stressful if
you are generous in the most insignificant ways. Simple acts like letting
traffic enter in front of you, over time, drastically erodes the stress that
you feel in those situations.

From my perspective, religious texts have at least a few pragmatic
observations - even if they lack scientific explanations.

~~~
KozmoNau7
> Even the core of Christianity can be helpful. Life is far less stressful if
> you are generous in the most insignificant ways. Simple acts like letting
> traffic enter in front of you, over time, drastically erodes the stress that
> you feel in those situations.

I believe James May (of Top Gear fame) specifically calls this "Christian
driving". It's amazing how much more relaxed you are after a drive, if you
simply stop thinking of traffic as a race or a competition. You're not going
to change your arrival time by any significant amount anyway, so you might as
well just relax.

In traffic, the only winning move is to not play.

~~~
zamalek
> thinking of traffic as a race or a competition

People behaving like traffic is a race still raises my blood pressure. At the
end of the day I still need to get into the toll lane, but I can't because
there's 20 cars trying to get back into traffic at 75mph and I'm far too
damned courteous to butt in at 60mph. It's far more of a blessing than a curse
(I'm getting far more out of my habits), but the downsides do certainly exist.

It's not at all consistent, but my behavior is sometimes viral. I'll see the
vehicle behind me keeping a generous following distance, or letting someone
in. Almost every time that I've tried to resolve a traffic jam in Seattle, the
person behind me has caught on - they will keep their distance and keep
rolling in order to compensate for the tailgating person in front of me.

> competition

My favorite competition is to improve the commute of those behind me. There's
always the guy who cuts in front of me, forcing me to stop, but there's also
always the guy behind me who has caught on. Getting everyone home quickly is a
far more interesting, and far less pointless, than the game of trying to beat
everyone else home.

~~~
KozmoNau7
I do my best to keep a decent following distance, and try to match the average
speed of traffic in rush hour. Sure, some people will merge in front of me,
but there's usually enough buffer space that I don't have to adjust my speed
by a lot. And when traffic inevitably clumps up, I slack off the speed a
little instead of having to brake. I've notice that some people are perfectly
happy to stay behind me and match my speed, to avoid stop-and-go.

I also try to position myself to make my merging intentions clear. I try to
find a reasonable space to match speed and merge in, instead of trying to
force myself in front. If traffic is completely blocked up, I will drive
closer to the car in front if it's necessary to encourage a proper zipper
merge. I sometimes see people getting really pissed off at that, usually the
people who seem to be glued to the rear bumper of the car in front of them.

The basic rule I adhere to is that whoever's front bumper is the furthest
forward gets to merge in front. It should be so self-evident and obvious, put
people just don't want to let other people "win".

------
khedoros1
> The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United
> Nations that is concerned with international public health.

> The disability-adjusted life year (DALY) is a measure of overall disease
> burden, expressed as the number of years lost due to ill-health, disability
> or early death

I knew the first, but thought that someone else might not. I didn't remember
the second abbreviation offhand, and thought someone else might appreciate a
short explanation too.

------
maxxxxx
We should work on actually reducing stress instead of abusing mindfulness to
handle stress better.

~~~
basetensucks
I agree with you to a degree, but I think you might be missing a major benefit
mindfulness meditation. In particular, mindfulness meditation helps you to
reprogram the way you relate to experiences and thoughts in a way that, in my
experience, does eliminate stress.

In other words, my relationship with experiences and thoughts can tend to be
either more objective or more subjective (perhaps reactive is a better word).
The more objectively I view things, the less those things elicit a stress
response. Again, this is in my experience and might not be universally true.

Sure there are stimuli that, for most people, will always elicit a stressful
response. I would guess (emphasis on the word guess) this comprises at most
~10% of a person’s thoughts and experiences which is likely much less than
most people think.

Anyways, just my two cents.

~~~
hinkley
You also realize when someone is trying to appeal to your insecurities to
extract something from you. You start avoiding those situations and the kinds
of stress that they embody.

~~~
warent
You just named a very specific thing that I've been wondering how to fortify
myself against. Thank you for the succinct endorsement, this is very helpful
for me

