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.

My Stress Portfolio

What's your stress tolerance? (Credit: Mike Richey)

I'm no investor.  Far from it.  I've bought maybe 10 stocks in my lifetime and I recall the best performer losing half it's value.  I'm also no sucker, so I learned from my mistakes and quickly outsourced my meager investment portfolio to the professionals and haven't looked back.

Now, when I talk about "investment professionals", I should clarify.  I really don't trust the stock-picking ability of anyone since the financial markets are complicated and I doubt that anyone can predict how anything that complicated will behave.  Fortunately, I'm not alone in this opinion and a subset of the investment community relies on the principle of diversification of risk as a bedrock strategy for coping with the uncertainty of the markets.  Through diversification, an investor can rely on historical information about the best performing investment types without putting all her eggs in a single proverbial basket.

Now let's shift gears to stress.  Life activities and events are like investments.  We are investing our time and attention in activities that may bring us happiness, pleasure, grief, or stress.  The payouts or losses may be on the timescales of days, to weeks, to years.  As an investor of our time and attention, we must weigh the probabilities of gains with the risks of losses: driving hard at work could bring promotions at the cost of personal relationships, for example.

I propose the concept of a Stress Portfolio as a strategy to balance our activities to allow both personal growth while managing the risks that come with stress, like poor health or burnout.  My Stress Portfolio is a introspective sense of the balance of five components of my reaction to daily life: distress, eustress, flow, relaxation, and boredom.  I think of each of these as representing a decreasing level of stress one might experience.  As events happen in life both within or outside my control, I can reevaluate the distribution of my stress portfolio and "rebalance" my intensity to compensate.

What is the right distribution of stress?  I think the answer to that question will vary by the individual. For example, some people are more resilient than others and may benefit from a greater allocation of activities in the distress or eustress categories.  This is an interesting area for research as proper allocation of stress will determine the degree of success an individual can achieve.  To much stress and a person may crumble and give up.  Too little stress and a person is not challenged and may not rise to their full potential.

As a general rule, I think most of our time should be spent in a state of relaxation or flow with a decent amount of time in a state of eustress (exciting or exhilarating situations). I also don't advocate total avoidance of stressful situations or boredom (the extremes).  These act as high and low intensity activities that can permit personal growth and recovery, respectively.

Until more research is done to determine the right allocation, all we can do is look within and ask ourselves what our portfolio should look like.  Just like an investor must evaluate her risk tolerance, an individual must evaluate her stress tolerance to find the right allocation and maximize performance over time.

Stay happy!

On the Superiority of Thanksgiving

And a search for "monkey eating turkey" results in....

While I'm moments away from solving a number of the great mysteries of consciousness, I feel it is timely that a thorough analysis of holiday strengths and weaknesses was performed. 

Via this process (which was thorough indeed, but I won't bore you with the details) I have concluded that Thanksgiving is unquestionably the superior holiday, especially as it relates to brain function.  This conclusion stems from the characteristics of the Thanksgiving holiday that I refer to as the three F's: frugality, football, and food.  Each F significantly reduces cognitive load.  In this way, Thanksgiving has the unique ability to literally rebuild the brain (that's my professional opinion).

Frugality: Oh, presents.  Christmas and similar holidays have a central element of gift-giving.  But this activity is too emotionally demanding.  How much money? Who got what? To regift or not to regift?  When one is in a state of leisure, these stressful decisions are to be eschewed.  In this regard, Thanksgiving takes the lead over all gift-focused holidays.

Football:  Oh, mindless aggression.  Football has a direct hotline to the primal, "reptilian" regions of the brain.  In this way, it spares the higher cognitive brain regions, like my favorite the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, from excessive effort.  By doing so, football provides the brain with the vacation it deserves.

Food: The brain is an organ.  It is made of protein, fat, PUFAs, MUFAs, cholesterol, etc.  Also, it is a hungry hunk of meat, consuming a reported ~20% of the body's energy (although, I haven't confirmed the calculations...).  Thus, Thanksgiving scratches the brain right where it itches.  Turkey? Boom.  Tubers? Pow.  The brain needs fuel and raw materials.  Thanksgiving gets er' done.

QED.  I think the case is closed, don't you think?  When it comes to brain happiness, and my happiness, Thanksgiving wins the ribbon.  So, I send out a thanks for Thanksgiving... A meta-thanks, if you will? Thank you, Thanksgiving.  Thank you for making my brain happy.

7 Free Guided Relaxation Sessions

Just relax.

When work and life stress increases, I tend to get into a state of feeling like I always have to be "on".  It's at these times, when things get really complicated, that I find it hard to know when it's O.K. to relax, unwind and let go of all the worries.

When I'm "on", the last thing I can do is relax.  I'm just too jacked up on an adrenaline-laced need to get shit done that when I sit down and try to unwind, I end up getting more frustrated because I just can't come down.  More frustration and I'm even less likely to relax: the stress goes through the roof.

For me, I've found that relying on guided meditations increases the likelihood that I'll be able to relax successfully, because it takes the pressure off of me to think about how to relax: someone has done all the work for me.  I highly recommend using guided relaxation sessions, especially when you're really having a hard time calming down.

I've personally listened to the following free, guided meditations and can vouch for the quality.  I also selected the following because they promote many of the concepts outlined in The Relaxation Response, a classic in the science of relaxation, especially passiveness and a focus on breathing.

Try them out!  I always feel so relaxed after doing any of these.  Hopefully you'll find they work for you.

From Diana Winston of the UCLA's Mindful Awareness Research Center:
1. 19 minutes - Mindful meditation with instructions
2. 12 minutes - Body, breath and sound mindfulness
3. 7 minutes - Meditation for working with difficulties
4. 10 minutes - Empathy and compassion

From Duke University's Student Health Resources:
1. 19 minutes - Progressive deep muscle relaxation
2. 20 minutes - Basic meditation exercise
3. 10 minutes - Quick, relaxing meditation

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.

Good hands and the Goldilocks zone

Stay focused.

As an amateur molecular biologist, I often wrestle with lapses of concentration.  This can be linked, I speculate, to the simultaneous terror and boredom that molecular work entails.

Picture this: six, clear tubes, labelled in a simple code that belies the complexity of the underlying experiment.  I add liquid, typically clear with no discernible color, hue or other distinguishing features that might signal that this is anything more than water.

I set a timer.  Ten minutes of incubation at room temperature.  I place the tubes in a centrifuge and spin, 15,000 cycles per minute.  I wait fifteen minutes more, remove some clear liquid and add more, but a different kind.  I repeat each step six times, one for each tube.

In between actions, I change the tip of my pipetman - the device that allows microliter control over the liquid added to the evolving biochemical reaction.  Change tip, add liquid, next tube. Repeat.

During these day-long exercises in repetition, I've experienced some failures.  These mistakes fall into one of two broad categories: external or internal.  In the external class, I become distracted by something happening outside my head.  A conversation between colleagues or a conversation I've started.  When these conversations reach some mystical level of distraction, I will realize in a moment of panic that I've skipped a critical step.  Or, I've lost track of the tubes.  Or, I've lost count.  Failure.

Passive

I can't sleep!

OK, today's the day: we've dedicated a whole week to crafting the ultimate pre-sleep routine.  We've got all the elements we need to get to sleep faster and stay asleep longer.  However, we actually haven't talked about the most critical step of all: falling asleep.  Our routine prepares us to sleep, but what do we do in that final, critical moment when it's just us and our thoughts?  Well, we actually want to do nothing at all; but that can sometimes be very hard.

Previously on The Happy Homunculus, we tried a series of relaxation challenges during the Week of Relaxation.  On the second day, we went through the exercise of being as "Passive" as possible.  In that post, I argued that the last thing we should try to do when we're trying to relax is to, well, try at all. Phew.  Trying is the most counter-productive thing we can do during relaxation.  Similarly, trying to sleep is a contradiction - trying requires energy, effort and focus.  To sleep, we must let go.

So, today, let's revisit the Passive challenge and apply that mindset in the minutes leading up to sleep.

Passive

Task: Lie passively in bed in the moments leading up to sleep.

Info: Close your eyes and let go. Thoughts will come in and out of your mind - this is fine! But, whenever you find yourself wandering, gently return to a more passive state. The key is to not try but to let go.  If your problem is too much thinking, gently label the process "thinking" and move slowly to observing your breathing or the smoothness of the sheets.  Be mindful of your surroundings as an alternative to thought.  If thoughts keep creeping in, be patient and continue to return to a more passive state.  Finally, if you start to get frustrated with your lack of sleepiness, get up and start your bedtime routine again.  Return to bed when you feel sleepy again.

Goal: Maximize the feeling of passivity.

I find that practicing mindfulness meditations help me develop the state of mind needed to let go.  Check out these great guided meditations from UCLA's Mindfulness Education Program for some tips on how to approach passivity.  Good luck!

Further Reading
- Who needs The Happy Homunculus when we have Yahoo Answers' guide to sleep?
- Listen to the Mayo Clinic: Don't try too hard!
- It's not just me: other people think thinking is over-rated.
- Finally, thinking: bad for sleep and feeling good!

Sixty Days of Cognitive Fitness

Thanks for stopping by!  Please considering subscribing to The Happy Homunculus by RSS, email, or twitter to get all my latest musings on metacognition.

Normally, when I hear "mental fitness" I think word-puzzles, sudoku, and sequences of numbers. Basically, I think about the SAT and my homunculus gets a little queasy.

Homunky loves metacognition!

However, life is more complicated than word games. I have to motivate myself, interact with people, process new information, and stay calm enough so my friends and family don't disown me.  Instead, I need skills for dealing with life: mental toughness, optimism, self-awareness, self-control, people-skills and more. I need some metacognition up in here.

Week of Relaxation

You go girl.

Is it possible to be too relaxed?  Because, if it is possible, then I think I'm in trouble: the Week of Relaxation was a success!  I'm kidding, of course.  In today's pressure-packed world, chronic stress and a go-go-go mentality seems like the standard mode for most of us, myself included.  That being said, taking time to "reboot" is even more critical as being chronically stressed out can lead to some nasty brain stuff.  But, thankfully the relaxation response can be triggered with some simple meditation-inspired techniques.

During the week, we took some time for ourselves and completed six meditation-oriented Daily Mind Games to try to shift our brains into a more relaxed and calm state. Guided by strategies summarized in The Relaxation Response, we adopted a passive mindset and cleared our minds of anxiety-producing clutter.  Hopefully, this approach helped you become more relaxed.  I really enjoyed these challenges, and am going to try to incorporate this type of meditation into a daily routine.

Did you miss the Week of Relaxation?  No problemo: get caught up!

Week of Relaxation

Day 1: Peace and Quiet - Find a meditation spot.

Day 2: Passive - Do nothing. Seriously.

Day 3: Mantra - The secret weapon of the uber-relaxed.

Day 4: Heavy - Get loose.

Day 5: Down - Get down.

Day 6: Timeless - Escape the clock.

Now that we're all relaxed and happy, I think it's time to get back to some heavy cognitive lifting.  A basic definition of metacognition is awareness of our own thinking and understanding.  Next week, we're going to extend that definition a bit and include our behavior as a part of our metacognitive domain.  In other words, we can observe our own thoughts as part of an applied metacognitive strategy but we can also observe our own behavior.  This would be a behaviorist approach to metacognition.

What's the point you may ask?  I would argue that, for most of us, our biggest "problems" are problems in behavior: we eat too much, we don't work enough, we spend too much, etc.  Unfortunately, most of us (myself included) often don't realize what's going on until the negative consequences are born out.  Next week, we're going to work on self-awareness in order to combat bad behaviors that result from a "mindless" approach to life.  Specifically, we're going to consciously track our own behavior across a series of critical domains in order to generate a more accurate assessment of our own behavior.  Time to get serious!   

Links: Check out other Weeks of Metacognition

Timeless

Congratulations mental athletes - we have almost completed the Week of Relaxation here at The Happy Homunculus.  Isn't it sad?  But, don't fret yet.  Before we move on to a new weekly theme, we have one more challenge that will truly test our ability to get relaxed and stay relaxed.  Consider this our relaxing final exam.  Wait, that's not a good metaphor at all...

Down

Shhh!  Don't wake my homunculus...

Shhh!  My homunculus is sleeping and I don't want to wake him...  I don't think I've ever seen him this relaxed, but this Week of Relaxation is really working!  Let's keep pushing this relaxation thing, though, shall we?  I'm going to see just how docile I can make the little guy.

This week we've been trying some meditation-inspired challenges pulled from the pages of The Relaxation Response.  So far we've found a meditation spot, done nothing, adopted a mantra, and loosened up.  Today, we're going to continue with a visualization-based challenge.  We're going to visualize sinking.

I don't know about the universality of this, but the phrase "falling asleep" is interesting, isn't it?  Why does sleeping carry with it a sense of falling?  For me, I frequently experience the distinct sensation of falling when I'm about to sleep.  Has that happened to you?  Isn't it weird?!  Today, we're going to exploit this "falling down" imagery to switch our brains into an even deeper state of relaxation.

Down

Task: Visualize sinking during 15min of meditation.

Info: The rules are the same as before: let's hit up our meditation spot, adopt a passive mentality, and start focusing in on our mantra.  Now, each time the mantra comes to mind, let's visualize sinking down into a dark, relaxing space.  I try to really picture the surfaces moving around me in a way that maximizes the effect of slow descent.  Also, I frequently cannot maintain the effort of visualization for a full 15min.  This is ok, I'll often just return to a standard meditation or open my eyes and chill out for awhile.  Remember, this should be relaxing, Okie-dokie?

Goal: Maximize the perception of descent during the meditation.

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Heavy

My homunculus is getting so relaxed.  He has been in and out of consciousness for the past two days, which is great because I can finally get some work done!  But, I'm not finished yet: it's time to kick this Week of Relaxation into another gear.  Today we're going to add some progressive relaxation techniques to our meditation in a sort of odd, metacognitive thought sandwich.  Yum!

Mantra

During this Week of Relaxation, we're applying meditation techniques inspired by The Relaxation Response to achieve a deep state of relaxation.  Yesterday, we attempted to achieve a state of pure passiveness.  Today, we will use an age-old trick of self-distraction in order to foster an even more passive mindset: the mantra.

Passive

Doing nothing: easier said than done.

This week at The Happy Homunculus, we're trying some meditation-inspired challenges in order to foster a more relaxed mindset.  Yesterday, we picked a spot for doing meditation and lounged-about.  Today, we're going to try to trigger a solid relaxation response by adopting a particular mental attitude during meditation.  The goal?  Do nothing.

More specifically, we're going to be as passive as possible during our brief meditation.  This does not just apply to movement - of course, we will sit still during the meditation - it extends to our thinking: the goal is to reduce our mental activity as well.  Easy, right?  Wrong.  Where this gets especially hard is when we include the thought "don't think" as something to avoid. Yikes!

Let me put it this way: if our goal is to relax, "trying" to relax is likely to have the opposite effect.  I mean, we're trying!  That's different from relaxing.  The goal for today is to achieve pure passivity.  I recommend letting thoughts come and go, but gently nudging your homunculus into a state of tranquility.  Personally, I find this very, very hard.  I always feel like I should be doing something, even during meditation.  Truly letting go is something I continue to work on.  I hope you find it easier!

Passive

Task: Sit passively in your meditation spot for 15min.

Info: Close your eyes and let go.  Thoughts will come in and out of your mind - this is fine! But, whenever you find yourself wandering, gently return to a more passive state.  During the meditation, feel free to check a clock to know when you're done but try to avoid feeling like you're watching the clock.

Goal: Maximize the feeling of passivity.

Did you try this?  Share your experience with other readers in the comments!

Peace and Quiet

Some go to great lengths
to find peace and quiet.

Meditation isn't just for hippies anymore, so don't be so judgmental.  Meditation is increasingly becoming recognized as a strategy for training our minds and initiating the relaxation response.  It must be in vogue since neurojournalist-extraordinaire Jonah Leher has picked up the scent, right?  So, being the open-minded cognitive superstars that we are, we're going to be meditating this week to relax.  Are you excited to relax?  Me too: I just high-fived my homunculus...

This whole week, we're going to be applying meditation-inspired techniques to initiate a relaxation response.  For this reason, it is very important that we decide on a place where we can meditate without being disturbed.  Finding your special place is today's challenge.  Simple, right?  Then do it!

Peace and Quiet

Task: Decide on a mediation spot and sit there for 20 minutes.

Info: Finding a great place to have peace and quiet is so important.  You want to feel like you can have the privacy to zone-out and relax without being bothered.  Find a place that maximizes solitude and quiet.  I appreciate that this can be difficult for some people (city-dwellers, particular jobs) but do your best.  I used to work in a warehouse and I remember seeing some coworkers heading out to their cars for peace and quiet.  Try to be creative, but decide on a place to meditate and stick with it for the week.  And, one final thing: think about when you'll be meditating.  The challenges this week will require 20-30 minutes, so consider where and when makes the most sense to meditate.

Goal: Enjoy your meditation spot for 20min.  Don't do any fancy meditating yet.  Just sit and relax.

Also, help other readers come up with ideas by posting your where you meditate in the comments. The more creative, the better!

I hope you are enjoying The Happy Homunculus.  If you are, please show your support by subscribing to our feed or by email.  Thank you!

Week of Optimism

That is one optimistic monkey.

Optimism is a hot topic this week on the intrawebs: some pundits like it and others don't.  Personally, I could use all the optimism I can get (my homunculus gets cranky easily), so this week at The Happy Homunculus we've been filling glasses of water half-way and contemplating just how full they are...  That was an optimisim joke. Uggh.

During the week, we listened to our thoughts following bad events and completed six Daily Mind Games to try to shift our brains from a pessimistic state to an optimistic one. Guided by research summarized in Learned Optimism, we tried to avoid thinking about things in a permanent, pervasive, or personal way.

My homunculus is still cranky, but less so.  Why don't you see how your homunculus responds?

Week of Optimism

Day 1: Hear the Homunculus - Listen to your automatic thinking.

Day 2: Ignore the Homunculus - Put a nasty homunculus in time-out.

Day 3: Temporary - Nothing lasts forever, bad stuff included.

Day 4: External - It's not always about you.

Day 5: Specific - Stop catastrophizing.

Day 6: Take Control - Escape the shock.

Whew!  I'm all tuckered out from all this metacognition and self-improvement that I need to unwind.  Don't you?  Next week, we're going shed our go-go-go mentality and try to relax.  But, worry not, partner-in-metacognition, we'll have our usual Daily Mind Games, but each day we're going to try to relax more and more.  After next week, you might be able to cancel your next vacation.  Another joke! 

An old classic that discusses the science of relaxation is The Relaxation Response.  While the "science of relaxation" may not sound relaxing at all (dramatic pause), the book is a great source of information about how to achieve a state of relaxation and the positive effects this state can have on our health and mood.  The book is a bit out-dated, but the main points still ring true. The Daily Mind Games for next week have been inspired by this book.

What's the point you may ask?  Well, our minds don't exist independently of our bodies.  In fact, our mental state can directly impact our physiology (our brains are an organ, after all) and vice versa.  For me, I'm always wound a bit tight - I'm kind of a nervous dude.  This seems to have given me a touch of the high blood pressures.  But, I'm not nervous about being nervous, the strategies in The Relaxation Response have been shown to reduce both blood pressure and other biomarkers of stress.  Joy!

Links: Check out other Weeks of Metacognition