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Ask HN: Does meditation work to cultivate genuine Happiness?

by shire on 10/24/14, 8:37 AM with 6 comments

Is there science or research behind it?

  • by WorldCitizen on 10/24/14, 11:24 AM

    Just see it as a time to "declutter" your brain. Especially working in programming it's been so helpful and basically it will free up new space for inspiration / thoughts / ideas / whatever.

    Don't worry about science behind it. Take some good headphones, listen to nature sounds and just try to wind down. There is no magic behind it, you can try hypnosis on YouTube. It is just guiding you to focus on simple things and your brain will relax. I like to use Thunderspace app or youtube hypnosis or just every hour programming I have 5 minutes sitting outside doing nothing.

    That's what meditation means to me, doing nothing :)

    So long answer cut short.

    If you have your space to relax, wind down the mind then you will naturally be more happy and more productive and inspired.

    Like a memory clean

  • by rudimental on 10/24/14, 9:58 PM

    There's a lot of science or research related to meditation. I like mindfulness meditation. Meditation definitely seems to reduce negative emotions, and also cultivate positive ones (or at least make space for them).

    "Mindfulness meditation programs improved multiple dimensions of negative affect, including anxiety, depression, and perceived stress/general distress ... the effects were significant for anxiety and marginally significant for depression at the end of treatment, and these effects continued to be significant at 3-6 months for both anxiety and depression"

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness_(psychology)#Overal...

    "[Loving-kindness] meditation practice produced increases over time in daily experiences of positive emotions, which, in turn, produced increases in a wide range of personal resources (e.g., increased mindfulness, purpose in life, social support, decreased illness symptoms)."

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3156028/

    A recent meta-analysis:

    http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=18097...

    Meditation is pretty easy, and definitely cheap- definitely worth trying yourself :)

  • by percept on 10/24/14, 11:41 PM

    Have you tried it? (In the Pali canon of Buddhism, different levels are referred to as "jhānas.")

  • by ilyaeck on 10/25/14, 4:25 AM

    Rather, it works to minimize unhappiness.

  • by nodata on 10/24/14, 8:39 AM

    Work for what? and which kind of meditation?