The Science of Meditation

I haven't given up on meditation. I really think it's a worthwhile endeavor, not just for me but for many or all of us. I have been struggling though. My mind is on one of those hamster wheels with a big fat rat running on it as fast as its little legs will go. Crazy thoughts, smart ideas that I will forget an instant later, ruminations of the past, all jumble together as they fly out of the wheel.

I guess you are not that interested in it because I only got one comment on my first post, Meditation for Godless Heathens. But it was a great comment, by easydoesit. It mentioned an episode of Scientific American Frontiers with Alan Alda, which was called Worried Sick. You can click the link to watch the whole episode. Robert Sapolsky was in it talking about baboons and stress, plus a bunch more research. It really enforced my desire for learning to meditate, because I suffer from PTSD and chronic anxiety, and I know it's not good for me.

PBS also has a page for that episode called Meditation 101. Here it goes over the 4 steps to meditate simply. I tried this for a couple of days and had varying success. My problem is my hamster wheel mind. So I thought I'd try some guidance. Here again I ran into the "airy-fairy" garbage I try to avoid as a skeptic.

What I'm after is medically and scientifically sound basic meditation. Yesterday I found an interesting guy, Jon Kabat-Zinn, a Professor of Medicine Emeritus and founding director of the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He teaches mindfulness meditation as a technique to help people cope with stress, anxiety, pain and illness.

Meditation For Godless Heathens

I gave up God long ago. Awhile after that I gave up spirituality and all things "airy fairy", like the idea of reincarnation, the concept of the universe having some kind of intelligence and connectedness, and the belief that "energy" was in everything and could be tapped and manipulated for healing and other magical uses. Now I use my skeptical powers and scientific wonder to evaluate new information. It gets much easier with practice.

One thing I never gave up was meditation. That's because I was never able to do it in the first place. Long ago I tried it and hated it. I was a dismal failure at it.

But, as a science-minded skeptical atheist, I love to learn about new research. For that I use keep an eye on Science Daily and Scientific American. Recently Science Daily reported that Brief Meditative Exercise Helps Cognition (see below for some of the report)

This intrigued me, because it said brief, not expert meditation. As a middle-aged woman, I find myself increasingly struggling to think clearly when it comes to reading or processing information. It's alarming and disturbing. So when I saw this study I thought, what the hell, that's something I can experiment with myself. Why not just try it and see if I can then think better?

So, based on the information in the report, I looked up Samatha Meditation and also found BuddhaNet.

So I tried it, just focusing on my breathing. I said I'd do it for 1 minute, just to see if I could. I read that doing a short burst of it often is better than trying to force yourself into a long session. So here's the amazing bit, I comfortably meditated, focusing on my breathing and letting thoughts go, for 10 minutes! I think I can do this! After I opened my eyes I felt refreshed and happy. I think I like it!

~Later: I tried another two times today. Once I meditated easily for 20 minutes which refreshed me as much as a 3 hour nap. A bit ago I wanted to wash dishes but my shoulder was burning (a recurring problem I've had for awhile now). Normally nothing makes it better, not painkillers, stretching, nothing. I thought, hey, what if I meditate for 10 minutes? I've heard that can help with chronic pain. I'll be damned 10 minutes later I was stretching and feeling pain-free. It came back but only after an hour and not nearly as bad. I think de-stressing and relaxing is very healthy for such things. :)

~

Here's the thing. The information I found was all stuffed full of "musts" about some god or other and mystical energy, and a bunch of other nonsense. Getting through all of that to get to the instruction on the actual meditation technique is a challenge.

It would be nice to find online instruction on mindfulness meditation from a secular point of view. Does anyone have any resources?

An excerpt of the report: