Is Meditation Self-Help Bullshit?

Are you wasting your time,
meditating monkey?

A recent article by Virginia Heffernan in the New York Time Magazine is excoriating the gradual westernization of mindfulness meditation, demonizing this trend as somehow running counter to the essence of this ancient practice.  I think at the heart of this article is a desire to protect people from self-help snake oil but there is a palpable vibe in the article of an anti-self-help bias that is unfortunate.

As I've discussed before, our attitudes about change influence our ability to change.  So, while I agree with Ms. Heffernan that self-help advice should be evaluated critically, binning the entire self-help movement as bullshit isn't helping anyone either.

In this context, I can't help but reevaluate the purpose of mindfulness meditation (and mindfulness, in general).  Is mindfulness mediation useful? 

As someone who has practiced mindfulness meditation as an attempt to manage stress, I have concluded that meditation is simply a concerted effort to implement a reappraisal of bad thoughts.  Specifically, it has been suggested that rumination, or the endless replay of negative thinking, may contribute to depression.  Cognitive reappraisal is a well-known approach for dealing with a number of negative or disruptive thoughts and meditation is just a practiced form of this.  In the mindfulness meditation style I have tried, namely Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction popularized by Jon Kabat-Zinn, one reappraises negative thoughts as "thoughts", taking a meta-level view of them and partitioning them as something distinct from our experiencing mind.

Personally, this makes sense to me.  Just as I wouldn't accept the self-help advice of some rando, I am not going to trust that my automatic catastrophizing about the world is based on fact.  During mindfulness meditation, I am taking a skeptical stance toward my own worries and recognizing them for what they are: worries, not reality.  Ultimately, the proof is in the pudding when it comes to the value of mindfulness meditation.  If it helps someone cope with the challenges of life, then great.  We should all be active participants in our own mental health, experimenting with approaches until we get results.

In this way, stress management is like exercise.  Is one form of exercise better than another?  Is meditation better than a book club?  The answer is: it depends.  It depends on who is doing it, whether they enjoy it and whether they stick with it.  If the answer to these questions is "yes", then the long term outcome is likely to be positive.

A Guide to a Happy Life

Eat some fruit every day.

Note: This is the first-ever guest post on The Happy Homunculus.  It comes to us from an anonymous philosopher who figured it all out and never told anyone.... Until now!

No one can make you happy (or unhappy for that matter).  That choice is totally up to you.   All some of us can do is point the way, and hope that you take a look.  Learning about yourself and living life well is a process that we ALL go through.  It’s about making mistakes…lots of them…every day.  The only way to learn is through our mistakes.  Did I mention that WE ALL MAKE MISTAKES?

Here’s the important piece-try not to make the same mistakes over and over again.  It’s hard, I know.  The first step toward that end is to THINK very highly of yourself.  You’ve probably noticed that the word think is in big letters.  That’s because it’s important.  Thinking rather than just feeling.  It’s a huge concept.  Not one that most people can wrap their minds around.  But it’s worth THINKING about. (Sorry, I just love caps)  Try not to act on feelings…most feelings mean very little, no matter how passionately you feel them.  Rather, act only after thinking those feelings through, and deciding whether it would be in your best interest to do something about them.  Most feelings just need to be acknowledged and then let go of.   Too much?

Speaking of feelings, it’s worth noting that we all carry around some emotional baggage from our childhood.  Those are feelings we were never allowed to feel or express at the time or never quite understood or were traumatized by.  The bad news is that those feelings can become repressed, hidden just under the surface.  They come out as anger or some equally disconnected painful emotion at the wrong time and usually targeted at the wrong person. Often times they are self- destructive.  Many people live their lives completely disconnected from themselves or their true feelings.  VERY UNHEALTHY for all of us!  The good news is through therapy or self introspection we can remember those less than happy times, relive those feelings and connect them to the appropriate person, place or thing, living or dead.   Once you confront those emotions and deal with them by connecting them to their original origin, then you can let them go and begin to heal.   Just remember, ALL FEELINGS HAVE TO BE RECOGNIZED AND EITHER LET GO OR DEALT WITH.  NEVER IGNORED!     Now you are free to begin to lead a much healthier, happier life and deal with emotions as they happen, without going through the much more complicated process of storing them for later, inappropriate use against an innocent bank teller, co-worker or poor hapless spouse.  It’s NEVER too late to treat your child within really, really well, especially if you weren’t treated well when you actually were a child.  Take responsibility for the care and feeding of that child and move on whistling a happy tune.

Your life has purpose and meaning.  If you were not born, those whose lives you’ve interacted with would not be the same.  We are all inter-connected.  We all share the same purpose.  It’s OK that you have no idea what that purpose is-that’s part of the process.  I can tell two very general reasons we are here (on earth) Ready?

LOVE  and  KNOWLEDGE.  There you have it.  Let’s keep it simple.

Love yourself first and when you’re in a really good place, then help others along.

The more you learn about yourself and others and life and, well, everything, the more advanced you become. The more you grow.  The further along in the PROCESS you go.  Easy!

Be positive rather than negative.  You cannot be both.  They are opposites and cannot exist in the same place at the same time.  Choose to be positive.  Trust me on this.

The more positive energy you put out there, the more will come back to you.  It’s a good thing.  The same is true with negativity.

Believe in yourself.  You are all you have.  Recognize all your successes and build on them.  They weren’t accidents.  Give yourself all the credit you deserve.  If you don’t, you’ll be constantly filled with fear and self-doubt and always starting from scratch.

Don’t confuse STUFF with success.  Clothes don’t make the man…or woman.  Success comes from the inside out, not the other way around.  If you feel empty inside, you will NEVER have enough clothes, drugs, cool friends, cars, shoes, beer, wine, money(you get the idea) to make you feel the way you want to feel.  NEVER EVER!! 

Fill that void with self-love.  Positive actions… A strong work ethic… Trust the PROCESS.

Keep doing the right things the best way you can, not perfectly, but the best you can and you will be successful.  I promise.

Here’s another important piece – if you do all this good, positive stuff and put yourself first and think before you act on feelings alone…if you do all this, you may still FEEL like crap.  It’s ok.  You can’t make a change after so many years and expect it to feel right.  If you stop smoking after 20 years, you will feel miserable for a while.  But keep with it and you will start to feel better.  It’s a process.  It takes time.   Oh yeah, don’t smoke.

Develop a support system.  Talk to people you can trust.  Don’t keep secrets.  They’re destructive.  Know who you can trust and let them help you through tough times.  Remember, we are all connected, and we’ve all gone through the same or much worse situations than you.  (Sorry, you don’t win the prize for terrible life stories)

DO SOMETHING GOOD FOR YOURSELF EVERY DAY. (Again, note the big letters)

It can be as simple as getting some ice cream or walking in the park.  It’s not what you do but why you’re doing it.  You’re doing it because you’re worth it. (put those last words in big letters in your mind)  You can create a positive mood with not much effort, as I have stated in my opening sentence!

(Admit it…I’m good!)

If you don’t know what to do, just do something positive.  As long as you move in a positive direction, you will find your way.  Believe in yourself.  Did I already say that?  It’s worth repeating.

Eat some fruit every day.

We all have stuff to deal with.  Know what is yours to handle and what is everyone else’s.  You are not responsible for anyone but you.  Not your mother or father or friends. Just deal with YOUR STUFF.  Let them deal with theirs.

Big finish…Treat yourself  well.  Believe in your abilities.  Be Positive.  Live life from the inside out.  Life is about one decision after the other.  Again and again… over and over.  If you don’t like a decision you’ve made – make another one!  Try to make better and better decisions for yourself.  You have a lifetime to practice.  Remember you are special.  Never forget that.

Smiling Alone

The poor man's painkiller?

The other day, I was rummaging around on Deric Bownd's MindBlog looking for some fun stuff on pain tolerance and I stumbled on this article that explored the relationship between laughing and pain.

To ruin the punchline, the authors found that laughter significantly elevated pain tolerance in a number of contexts.  What's more, the researchers do a decent job controlling for mood to tease out if the act of laughing, rather than good-feelings that come with laughing, explained the effect. It does.  In other words, the very act of laughing resulted in an increased pain tolerance, not "being happier".

This reminded me of the classic cause and effect conundrum: the act of smiling may boost mood.

Then I had the following thought: when I'm alone, I'm rarely smiling or laughing.  I did a little experiment and observed my own smiling/laughing behavior when I was alone and was even more bummed when I realized that I'm rarely smiling, grinning, chuckling, or tittering when I'm by my lonesome.

Instead, I'm normally "concerned" about something and wearing said concern on my face: a poker face, a scowl, a furrowed brow.

This is bad news, because as the above research suggests, I may be contributing to my own bad moods.  It is intuitive to think that our mood will dictate our external displays of our mood: we smile because we are happy.  That may be true, but some research suggests that the relationship may extend in the other direction.  The act of smiling may make us happier.

So I tried it: whenever I feel a little too serious (and I'm alone), I start grinning like an idiot.  And, it works.  I've found that if I start being goofy, I cannot stay in a bad mood.  This is great news, because often a bad mood is the number one killer of my work ethic.  If you read the above laughing-pain paper, the authors mention that laughter occurs most readily in a group, so the best way to get a mood boost is likely to be around a group of happy people.  However, sometimes we must be alone, so anything I can do to bump up my mood, I'll take it.  Even if it means smiling at nothing at all.  I'm strange.

Week of Sleep

Week of Sleep? Check!

The Week of Sleep worked for me.  I'm being totally serious.  I followed my own good advice and was blown away by the results.  Setting up a relaxing, circadian-cycle-friendly nighttime ritual (and sticking to it) has wired my brain to sleep on command.  Now, when my old-person bed time rolls around, I start to get all blinky-eyed and fuzzy-headed instantaneously.  How about you?

Did you miss the Week of Sleep?  Do you want to take your sleep routine to the next level?  Here's the summary:

Week of Sleep

Day 1: Bed Time - Set the clock.
Day 2: Dim - Let there be dark.
Day 3: Bedtime Snack - The way to sleep is through the stomach.
Day 4: Low Flow - Do something.
Day 5: Passive - Do nothing.
Day 6: Bright - Re-Set the clock.

I don't know if you noticed this (I didn't and I wrote all the posts), but the bedtime routine we've developed seems like something that would work for putting a toddler to bed.  And, now that I think about it, that's a pretty smart way to approach our own sleep habits.  I mean, if this approach works for the creatures with the least amount of self-control (i.e. little kids), then it should work for our inner children too.  Or, should I say, our inner monkeys!

Next week, the Daily Mind Games are going to be paused while your humble author heads to an awesome, geeky conference.  While I'm away, I'd love to get some feedback about future Weeks of Metacognition.  What kinds of topics would you like to see?  I've been thinking about Weeks of: Feedback, Creativity, Interaction, Toughness, or Open-Mindedness.  If you have any preference, please let me know in the comments.  Also, if you have any ideas of your own, I'd love to hear them.  I would love some feedback from my readers about topics of interest.  So, please!  Where we should go from here?

Until then, here's some fun/interesting stuff that's come my way over the last week, enjoy!

Homunky's Hot Hits:

To start, here's a retelling of an allegory/experiment about learned anxiety that I've encountered before.  Does anyone know the source of this?  Is it a real experiment?

Next, we've talked about Flow a lot here at The Happy Homunculus, but here is a great Intro to Flow if you'd like a fresh point of view on the topic.  And, of course, if you haven't read the original, you should do it.  Click the link and buy the book to support Homunky!

As someone interested in improving my performance and, as part of that, my pain tolerance, here is a great summary linking meditation, mindfulness, and improved pain tolerance.  This seems to be totally in line with the Mindfulness, Acceptance, and Commitment model for peak human performance: avoiding negative emotions and sensations is the sign of a beginner, while accepting the negative consequences of a task allows full engagement and eventual mastery.

Finally, on a more serious note, HelpForDepression.com is running a fundraiser in support of the non-profit To Write Love On Her Arms, a group dedicated to improving the lives of people struggling with depression and other mental health challenges.  They would appreciate any form of support. Thanks!

Take Control

Want to make a dog mad?  Shock the dog.  Want to make a dog depressed?  Shock the dog and don't let it get away.

Dogs take control.

Treating animals in this way may seem cruel, but experiments of this sort have provided researchers with a significant amount of information about what leads to depression.  Specifically, animals that are given a mild shock, but have no way to escape, develop many of the physical symptoms of depression.  In addition, when these animals are moved into a condition where they can escape the shock (they can jump over a barrier and get away), many animals don't even attempt to escape.  This is the learned helplessness model of depression: the animals have learned to be helpless - that nothing they do matters - and that is just demoralizing.  

However, don't worry - these animals are easily rehabilitated.  Researchers simply demonstrate to the dog that they can escape the shock, and the dog realizes that it actually has control over it's situation.  After that, the dog is all good.

What's the point?  Well, when life beats down on you for awhile, it's natural to learn a bit of helplessness - despite our best efforts, things didn't go perfectly.  However, for the dogs described above, after they were trained to be helpless, and were moved to a situation where they could escape, they just assumed that they had no control of the situation.  In life, we very rarely have NO control over what happens to us.  So, today we're going to take control and, hopefully, our feelings of empowerment will improve too.

Take Control

Task: Exert control over some aspect your life.

Info: Pick something small for this challenge.  The idea is to prove to yourself that you have control over many aspects of your life.  Leave work 5 minutes early.  Do something different for your afternoon break.  Change your daily routine in some way.  Take control over something in your life and demonstrate that you can influence the world in a new way.  When you feel more in control, life seems a little more hopeful.  

Goal: Successfully take control of one aspect of your life.

This is an open-ended task because what makes you feel in control is a very personal thing.  Decide on something that makes you feel empowered and do it!

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Specific

Stop catastrophizing, monkey!

This week at The Happy Homunculus, we're working on becoming more optimistic.  Research suggests that optimistic people out-perform pessimists in many areas by persevering in the face of adversity.  Plus, it just feels good to be more optimistic!  So, let's change our thinking, shall we?

Today, we're going to work on not making things a big deal.

By discussing strategies for being more optimistic, we've explored the thinking styles that contribute to depression and are doing the opposite.  According to research summarized in Learned Optimism, people at risk for depression tend to think about bad things a lot (ruminate), assume bad events will have permanent consequences, and assume that bad events reflect a personal problem.  A third characteristic of a hardcore pessimist is allowing a bad event to impact all aspects of life: it becomes pervasive.  Today, we're going to try to avoid thinking that results in a pervasive, pessimistic mindset.

Specific

Task: Curtail automatic thinking that allows a bad event to impact all aspects of your life.

Info: For this task, you can either recall a bad event or listen to your automatic thinking after a fresh annoyance.  Argue any thoughts that creep in that make the bad thing become pervasive.  Here's an example, let's say you were passed up for a promotion.  How will you let this road-block affect your home life?  This issue at work has nothing to do with what's going on at home.  What will your thinking be like if your significant other is in a bad mood?  "Everybody in my life is treating me like dirt, I can't escape!"  Or, "She must have had a bad day too - let's comfort each other."  

Goal: Convince yourself that the causes of a bad event are restricted to a single context.

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External

It's not always about you, monkey.

The Week of Optimism rolls on!  So far, we've tuned-in to our automatic thinking, ignored negative self-talk, and re-framed a bad event as being temporary.  These metacognitive skills are essentials in the toolkit of any optimist and, today, we're going to practice another approach to bad events.  Specifically, we're going to try not to take bad things too personally.

A characteristic of people who are at risk for getting depressed is a tendency to view bad events as stemming from a personal issue.  Your boss is in a gruff mood: I must have done something wrong.  No job offer: I must not be qualified.  Good-looking person turns you down: I'm not attractive to them.  In each of these examples, something less-than-ideal happened and the individual blames himself.  In reality, the causes of each event might have nothing to do with the individual.  Your boss might have had a fight with her spouse.  You may be overqualified.  That person at the bar may be in a relationship.

For today's Daily Mind Game, we're going to bring a bad event to mind and try to place blame externally. Of course, if it is clear that you were at fault, then it's important to take responsibility.  But, for this exercise, let's choose an event that has a truly ambiguous cause and look on the bright side.

External

Task: Argue automatic thinking that a bad event was caused by a personal issue.

Info: For this task, you can either recall a bad event or listen to your automatic thinking during a fresh annoyance.  Argue any thoughts that creep in that make the bad thing seem personal.  I think one of the best scenarios to apply this to is after a random fight with a significant other.  One might view the cause of the fight as something personal: I may be less compatible with them than I thought.  Or, we could look to external causes: It was late at night and we were both exhausted.  Think of a bad event and try to find external factors that may have contributed.   

Goal: Convince yourself that the causes of a bad event are external.

People who frequently think of bad events as having personal causes are more likely to be pessimistic and more likely to get depressed.  Want to learn more about the thinking-styles that contribute to depression?  Check out Learned Optimism.

Temporary

When things go badly, the hurt is normally so acute that it's easy to just focus on the badness and let it become your whole world.  However, one way to take a bad situation and make it worse is to start telling yourself that things are going to be bad FOREVER.

Ignore the Homunculus

Ignore your homunculus.
Yes, even if it's a gnome.

This week we're trying to get more optimistic, and I'm optimistic that we'll succeed...  I mean, we have science on our side right?  Learned Optimism has a ton of great information about being more optimistic and I'm eager to translate the science therein into real action.  I want to spend less time listening to a negative, nasty homunculus and more time listening to the supportive words of a homunculus with some mojo.  So what might a metacognitive master do when his homunculus is acting all mean?  Ignore his homunculus.

I've discussed this before, but thinking isn't always a good thing.  This is especially true if your automatic thoughts are tinged with negativity, self-doubt, and doom.  Yesterday, we started listening to our homunculus to learn more about types of things we say to ourselves. Hopefully, most of the stuff going on in your mind was good, but if you're typical, a fraction of your self-talk is likely to be on the negative end of the spectrum.

The floppy hat and beard theme continues. 

The science suggests that an unending stream of negative thinking (a.k.a rumination), is a major risk factor for depression.  More importantly, one step in combating depression (or enhancing optimism, for that matter) is to distract ourselves when bad thinking creeps in.  That is today's Daily Mind Game:

Ignore the Homunculus

Task: Ignore negative thoughts for one day.

Info: Continue to monitor your thoughts like you did yesterday.  However, today, whenever a thought creeps in that you don't like (i.e. a thought that makes you feel bad about yourself or what you're doing), come up with some way to distract yourself.  You could try saying "NO" in your mind (or "VETO", my personal favorite).  Another suggestion proposed in Learned Optimism is to wear a rubber band on your wrist and give it a gentle snap whenever some negative thinking creeps in. Do whatever it takes, but no negative thinking today.

Goal: An entire day without a negative train of thought lasting more than 1min.

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Thinking about thinking about thinking... too much!

"The doer and the thinker, no allowance for the other" - Jethro Tull

Thinking is good.  Sometimes.

Previously, we discussed the concept of metacognition and defined the term as thinking about thinking.  We concluded that this was not some arcane philosophical exercise but, rather, a useful practice that allows us to identify detrimental thinking habits and correct or eliminate them.

Implied in this approach is a critical concept: that we can change the way we think over time.  Why is this notion so far-fetched? If we can improve in all manner of intellectual and physical domains, why couldn't we improve how we think? In fact, this strategy is being studied and applied in a number of contexts including during the treatment of depression and substance abuse (in these cases, cognitive-behavioral therapies often emphasize metacognitive approaches) and practice may also make perfect for positive thinking.

However, thinking too much isn't always a good thing and, eventually, we must convert thoughts into actions if we will ever accomplish anything. Thus, while thinking about thinking has a time and place, the default  metacognitive skill should be the opposite: not thinking. You hear me? Don't spend too much time thinking or you won't get anywhere!  Of course, feel free to think about the details of any project you're tackling, but avoid ruminating on your problems.

When in doubt, don't think. Do.

Practically, what are some strategies we can use to stop thinking? Here are some rough guidelines for emptying your head of all those annoying thoughts:

1. Be gentle with your brain - Inevitably, thoughts will sneak into your mind. Don't get mad! Don't be impatient with your rambunctious inner voice! Just let it happen and gently try to let the thoughts go. All we need is love, and getting angry with ourselves doesn't do any good. Along those lines, don't get angry with yourself if you get angry with yourself... I know that sounds silly, but it will happen! Just laugh at your brain and move on.

2. Focus on something outside your head - This is a strategy used in traditional meditation all the time: focus on something else. You could listen to your breathing, or do the dishes, or go for a walk, or watch a dog. That's right, a dog.  Hello, dog. Distract yourself from your own thoughts. I've found that focusing on a task that helps someone else is the best way to clear your brain: now you're accomplishing something and are helping another person. If any thoughts creep in, they are likely to be about that someone else, not about yourself, and that just feels good.

3. Censor yourself - There is a great discussion in this post about how our brains are structured to initiate actions (and thoughts). A strategy inspired by these concepts is to simply censor thoughts as they creep in. One could playfully quip "VETO!" when some unpleasant, troubling thought pops in. Just repeat "VETO!" every time until that Homunculus starts to learn! Any phrase will do, just remember guideline #1 above: be gentle (and have fun).

Finally, a little mental training challenge. Tomorrow, for the entire day, play around with not thinking. Use the guidelines above, or invent your own strategies. Just try not to think (warning: it's really hard!).  Instead, do a whole bunch of stuff.  You'll feel good and get a ton done during a day without a ton of useless, distracting thoughts.

Stay Happy!