Meditation is boring

There, I said it. A friend and I were chatting earlier today about ways of revamping the brain. I wanted to suggest meditation -- as I have a thousand times in the past -- but I hesitated, and not only because I hate sounding like a preachy bastard all the time. It's also because I've been lousy at keeping up my practice myself, and I suppose it's not hard to understand why.

The thing is, meditation isn't supposed to be fun. I know that as well as anyone. But if I feel it's so boring that I don't do it, maybe it's time to be more practical and less idealistic. So here's an alternative I suggested to him. It's one I do myself when I'm not too lazy.

Pick up a challenging magazine that's only marginally interesting to you. I use The Economist. Spend five or ten minutes reading articles, being careful not to let your mind wander from the topic at hand, or even far from the details of the passages. Every paragraph or so, give yourself a very brief quiz ("What was this paragraph about? The PM of Japan. What's his name? Naoto Kan. Check."). Try to be as engaged as possible, allowing those details to seep into longer-term memory, even as you read on.

It's similar to attention meditation in that you're expected to carefully monitor your attention and detect when it's going off course. It's easier in that the subject is generally more engaging (than your breath, for example), and that you're able to wander further from the exact subject before you must accuse yourself of being off course (the sensation of the breath at your nostrils is a rather precise percept).

But even this simple exercise is not trivial to do well for most of us, and I believe that practicing it is a step in exactly the right direction if you're looking to strengthen the circuits in your brain that allow you to live your life in a directed and conscious manner (more on that soon).

So if you're not ready to give full-blown meditation a try, or are just feeling lazy, reach for a nearby magazine or book and give your brain a more manageable workout.

Revisiting a hard-to-pronounce Greek word

I guess it's high time I update this thing. Had a few thoughts yesterday, and figured I'd commit one of them to writing.

In Nov 2009 I wrote about a condition called anosognosia. That's a condition where you have a disability but don't know you have it. I'll repeat one of the quotes:

Neuroscientist Edoardo Bisiach at the University of Milan in Italy reported one 74-year-old stroke patient who repeatedly claimed that his left hand belonged to the doctor examining him. The doctor finally grasped the paralyzed hand between his own two and held it up to the patient's face.

"Whose hands are these?" he asked.

"Your hands," the patient replied.

"How many of them?"

"Three."

"Ever seen a man with three hands?" the doctor asked.

"A hand is the extremity of an arm," said the patient. "Since you have three arms, it follows that you must have three hands."

When we are attacked or affronted by another person, how do we decide how much to blame the offender? For many people, part of that decision is based on how much we think the other person should know better.

Well, how do we know whether they should, or even can, know better? For an amputee with anosognosia, surely he should know he's missing an effing arm. And still, no amount of yelling at him will change the fact that he does not.

I really enjoy learning about neurological disorders because they remind me how profoundly differently other people may experience the world. And I'm constantly reminded that the only thing people seem to have in common is that we're all trying to do well for ourselves, with the limited mental resources we have.

What mistaken beliefs might you hold you don't know about? Are you sure you'd recognize or accept them if they were pointed out to you by even your closest friends? I'd like to end again with the same quote as last time. It's something I believe fiercely:

"Looking at patients like Mrs. M. can be spooky at first," says Ramachandran, a neuroscientist and physician at the University of California at San Diego, and the Salk Institute nearby. "But then you realize you're really looking at yourself, in amplified form."

Do yourself a favor and spend an extra 15 seconds asking yourself if you're really really sure you're right the next time someone criticizes you. You just might be missing an arm.

Andrea Yates

A story in the news today about a woman suspected of drowning her own kids, and the hateful comments from readers, reminded me of the Andrea Yates story. She drowned her 5 young children in 2001, and had comments sections been widespread on Internet news sites, I shudder to think of what people may have posted.

As it turns out, and as often happens, the media missed the real shocker behind the case: her husband was at least as much to blame as, and in some ways more so than, she was.

Andrea had already been committed more than once for postpartum psychosis, and her psychiatrist noted, before she had her last child:

"Apparently patient and husband plan to have as many babies as nature will allow! This will surely guarantee future psychotic depression."

Wikipedia then notes:

Andrea revealed to her jail psychiatrist, Dr. Melissa Ferguson, that prior to their last child, "she had told Rusty that she did not want to have sex because Dr. Starbranch had said she might hurt her children." Russell, she said, simply asserted his procreative religious beliefs, complimented her as a good mother, and persuaded her that she could handle more children.

Author Susan O'Malley goes on to explain:

"During the trial, he'd successfully maintained the position that Andrea would be found innocent. He had fantasies of having more children with her after she was successfully treated in a mental health facility and released on the proper medication. He worked his way through various fixes for their damaged lives, such as a surrogate motherhood and adoption (horrifying Andrea's family, attorneys and Houston psychiatrists) before giving in to reality."

So, tell you what, all you wonderful armchair life-livers: feel free to judge once you've tried on a pair of those shoes. Me, I'm gonna count my mental health blessings.

Oh, how I love SMBC

Mental illness is for losers

When I don't have time to post (which is apparently almost always), perhaps I will comment on a comment or two from a CNN article. Naturally, CNN features stories that draw emotional responses. I'm constantly surprised at just how ludicrous and mean some (most) responses are.

The other day I read an article about a child abuser attacking a convicted serial killer in prison. Obviously, it's hard to generate sympathy for either party. But what kind of response is this?

Shawn44

If they are mentally ill, then there is no rehabilitating them; all the more reason to put them down like the rabid animals they are.

1 week ago | Like (13) | Report abuse

This person even uses correct grammar and punctuation; clearly he's got some intelligence. And his message is: the mentally ill cannot be rehabilitated, and should be treated like rabid animals? And this is amongst the most "liked" comments on the page.

Born to be good

I invited Prof. Dacher Keltner to speak at Google on his book "Born to be Good," and you can watch his talk here. Enjoy!

Another piece of the puzzle: mindfulness

Okay, hopefully you had time to read the David Foster Wallace commencement linked from my last post. Now, read this:

Psychology Today: The neuroscience of mindfulness

If you're an overachiever, see if you notice the link between DFW's speech and this article. I promise, it's not unimportant.