[javajosh]

The Buddhists approach this a little bit differently, and it's not as easy as taking a pill, but I think it has it's own special benefits. And that's meditation. Not just any meditation, but Vipassana, which is simply being aware of sensations and equanimous with them, allowing all verbal thought to subside.

The mind races here and there, you have terrible (and wonderful) fantasies, you think about the future (personally, I love imagining giving lectures). The mind rebels, sometimes very strongly indeed and in all kinds of ways, against the act of simply observing the breath (or any other single object). Eventually, if you stick with it, something good may happen, and the experience will stick with you for a lifetime - and you can protect that experience with daily meditation.

[hacker_9]

Yes. This. I used to have social anxiety for seemingly no reason - my mind would just constantly repeat negative emotions/events that happened in the day, or the week before or the month before or the year before, constantly. It was pretty crushing and I thought that 'well this my life now forever' and it was extremely bleak and depressing.

I tried meditation as an experiment after reading about how it helped people - and from day one I was hooked. As soon as I realized it was possible to 'slow' the mind and take control of your thoughts it was like an epiphany. Realising that all this stuff that was making me anxious was just made up stuff in my head, and meditation gave me the power to observe these thoughts as if they were not a part of me, has completely changed my life.

It's quite amazing to be in a situation where people are looking at you (social groups, doing presentations etc) and have zero anxiety - instead you're just one with your mind and feel so relaxed and natural about the whole thing. I recommend it to anyone has suffered anxiety and can't find a way out.

[KurtMueller]

Can you talk a little bit about the before and after and how much, if any, it had on the type and quality of your relationships?

[nota_bene]

I fully agree, this is the "other window" I know of (I would say though that it is a different window, it adds something different, neither better nor worse).

And it physiologically rewires your brain - for the better, as you can read here: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/01/eight-weeks-to...

[mistermann]

Do you think using psychedelics might be a reasonable substitution for meditation? Not that it is guaranteed, but that under the right circumstances with the right person it could achieve the same results.

[gress]

No. Psychedelics can be a useful way to get some of the insight that meditation can also provide, but meditation practice over a sustained period changes the brain, so that more positive states of mind are available all (or at least more of) the time.

[mistermann]

Does it physically change it, or does it kind of rewire the way you think?

[gress]

Both

[drzaiusapelord]

This is my thinking as well. Everytime I hear the "make all drugs legal now" people make their various fantastic arguments it reminds me of the kids I grew up with, who mostly did about the same amount of drugs as each other. Half of them recovered and the other half more or less became burn-outs. I don't think we remotely understand how LSD use affects us, especially non-neurotypicals and those with mental illness or sub-clininical issues. The latter group developed this hard to quantify attitude, like this dead look in their eyes that never really went away and is matched by just a real lack of creative thinking and motivation - both of which they had before drug use. I think drugs are much more dangerous than we think, even pot, for at least certain demographics; especially young people who are still developing. Yeah, 30+ year old guys don't have much to worry about, but there is rational and non-biased research showing this and I fully believe my friends have been victim of liberal drug attitudes. I believe Duke university found a 70% IQ drop for regular pot smokers compared to their peers by age 35 and other studies have found lowered executive function, increased risk of mental illness, and a messed up reward processing system.

I'm certainly not advocating for the status quo, but if things like pot, shrooms, or MDMA or even LSD become legal, there needs to be strict age and dosage limitations. The idea that they're a "fix all" is dangerous and disingenuous to me. Maybe in a clinical and controlled setting there could be realistic positive outcomes, but certainly not in a recreational one.

Meditation is safer but takes more effort than eating blotter paper. As a long time meditator, its raised my quality of life significantly. Sadly, when I try to sell this onto some of the people mentioned above I get nods of approval and then a "Let me get high first before I try it," comment which pretty much invalidates whatever benefits you can get. To them, drugs only make things better, in fact, life is kinda terrible sober. Not to mention, I've never had a 'bad trip' or paranoia or anything negative with meditation. Its incredible that we have this simple tool available to us at all times, but dismiss it because its weird or because people think they can take a shortcut to retraining their minds with drugs. Hint: you can't. Everything worthwhile takes some level of labor. Instant fixes don't really exist.

Sometimes I wonder if baby boomer drug liberalism has cost us a few Einsteins and Newtons. Or what wonderful things John Lilly or Tim Leary, both men who I consider near-genius level, would have come up with if they didn't go down the burn-out path. Its a scary thought. The entire boomer drug experiment didn't pan out, did it? By the time Leary and Lilly were in their prime years, they became obsessive weirdos going on about trans-dimensional aliens and such and morphing into empty-suited but profitable celebrity caricatures. What a waste of two fine minds.

[KurtMueller]

Can you talk a bit about how meditation has impacted your life?

[drzaiusapelord]

The mental changes are pretty subtle. I think I'm more focused and daydream less. I also feel that I have less of a temper and handle the negative parts of life better. My fight or flight response is harder to kick off now, so things like social anxiety are better managed.

From a philosophical perspective I have absorbed some Eastern concepts that I probably wouldn't have without exposure to mediation and the various Eastern philosophies and religions that influence it. I pretty much accept that life is unsatisfactory in general, so I try to not beat myself up when I realize I'm, say, doing worse than my peers financially or whatever. I also stopped believing in the myth of progress, that humanity is on this course to utopia. I'm at peace with things being cyclical - the rise of liberal democracy is temporary and dictatorial autocracy will once again take over, then back again, etc. Today might be good but tomorrow might be bad. Everything is temporary really and there's no permanent fix to anything. I will die someday and it shouldn't be that big of a deal, etc.

The above attitudes really have been the only things to significantly help my depression. I think being at peace with some of this stuff and having realistic expectations in life goes a long way towards good mental health.