Comment · Fri, December 7, 2012 · Ceretropic
Why not meditate?
Original post in this thread
GuysRelax · 34 points
After reading through links and comments I find many people are concerned about safety. There doesn't seem to be a single substance that works on everyone so people are trying mixes. Some people are taking pictures posting to make sure their "substance" is legit. Apparently effects are subtle anyway. Some of the substances sold on amazon have either extremely positive reviews or extremely negative.
So after checking out the top posts, it seems about 10 months ago someone posted a study on meditation. Its the 9th top link of the year on this subreddit.
Of course I am speaking from an ignorant position having not tried nootropics but I would still like to reopen this comparison and ask if our goal is to enhance cognition and we have studies that show meditation does just this, why are we seeking substances?
Should I combine practices? Should we all?
What they were answering
octousan · 2 points
Well that was well said and I have little to add. Except that we do at least somewhat understand which brain regions are activated and how that differs depending on the type of meditation practiced.
[Meditation May Boost Neural Basis of Empathy] (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121004093504.htm)
[Event-related delta, theta, alpha and gamma correlates to auditory oddball processing during Vipassana meditation] (http://scan.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/09/23/scan.nss060.abstract)
Psychological and neural mechanisms of trait mindfulness in reducing depression vulnerability
Sorry it if seems like I'm misunderstanding and making us do a dance around a non-debate. I wish I had time to provide more helpful sources but it's finals week and none of the classes I'm enrolled in involve our beloved neuroscience (yet). I get the limitations. Unfortunately we can't dissect the brains of rats schooled in zen. BDNF release through meditation would be cool but I'm certainly not going to stop taking my noopept and lion's mane anytime soon.
The point I'm more stressing is that a calibrated observation of the subjective reality is the part that gives significance to the mechanistic end. When I say subjective, I don't imply muddying up the experience with sensational bias. Skillf…
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · Ceretropic
I would agree. However, it seemed OP was asking why we were even seeking substances at all, if we had meditation. My point was that, given our current abilities, chemical substances allow us to get closer to understanding the pharmacological mechanisms than meditation can. Just like meditation can get us closer to understanding our "self" than nootropics can. Ignoring one is to invite the same bias the other side is showing to your stance. I don't think either of the routes we have should be overlooked.