WEBVTT - Meditation Lab: Empathy and Energy 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:05.840 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:14.680 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:17.640 My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick. And Robert, 0:00:17.680 --> 0:00:20.759 you're a guy who practices meditation sometimes, right, Well, I 0:00:21.079 --> 0:00:26.680 practice yoga, which entails a certain amount of meditation. Uh, 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:28.960 And I have I have dabbled in meditation, but I 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:34.080 do not currently have a rigorous meditative practice in place 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:37.199 in my life. When you've dabbled, which of the schools 0:00:37.240 --> 0:00:40.600 of meditation did you try? Oh? You know, it was 0:00:40.640 --> 0:00:41.919 one of these where I just kind of ran up 0:00:41.920 --> 0:00:45.519 to the buffet of meditation and tried what was you know, 0:00:45.520 --> 0:00:48.720 which steamer tray had been most recently filled and was available? 0:00:48.760 --> 0:00:53.320 So everything, Yeah, a little of everything. Because I've tried 0:00:53.400 --> 0:00:58.160 some closed eye meditation, some um, some open eye meditation. 0:00:59.400 --> 0:01:03.480 I've some monterra Ronian cheese. Yeah, I mean I've well, 0:01:03.480 --> 0:01:05.920 I've tried stuff that's more on the secular side and 0:01:06.000 --> 0:01:09.240 stuff that's that has more of a spiritual connotation to it. 0:01:09.520 --> 0:01:12.440 And uh, it's one of those things where I feel 0:01:12.440 --> 0:01:14.240 like the first time you try it, especially if someone 0:01:14.240 --> 0:01:16.880 has convinced you that you need to try meditation or 0:01:16.920 --> 0:01:18.560 you need to try Look like, it's the same thing 0:01:18.560 --> 0:01:20.760 with yoga. When you're when someone tells you you need 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:22.959 to try this out, there's a strong chance you are 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:25.839 you're not going to really get it the first time, 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:29.600 that you might even dislike it the first time. But 0:01:30.480 --> 0:01:32.720 when you have time to reflect on what you experience 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:34.840 and then you time to try it again, kind of 0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:36.920 at your own pace, then you can begin to see 0:01:36.959 --> 0:01:38.920 the value in it. You know, something I've noticed in 0:01:39.000 --> 0:01:43.959 recent years about the role of yoga and meditation in 0:01:44.040 --> 0:01:48.000 Western culture is that it has gone from something that's 0:01:48.280 --> 0:01:52.440 widely considered a kind of uh, you know, esoteric practice 0:01:52.520 --> 0:01:55.800 to something that is almost kind of a I don't 0:01:55.800 --> 0:01:59.600 know what you'd call it. Like. Sometimes it seems weird 0:01:59.640 --> 0:02:04.120 to meet people who don't do yoga. I don't do yoga, um, 0:02:04.160 --> 0:02:07.160 but it seems like everybody I know it does yoga 0:02:07.240 --> 0:02:10.600 at least a little bit or or talks about the 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:13.560 benefits of meditation. And I wonder if this is just 0:02:14.040 --> 0:02:15.880 something that changed. I don't know, when I moved to 0:02:15.919 --> 0:02:17.919 a bigger city. When I you know, when I moved 0:02:17.960 --> 0:02:20.240 to Atlanta, I started noticing a lot more people were 0:02:20.240 --> 0:02:22.640 into meditation and yoga. But I don't know. Have you 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:26.920 noticed this similar trend in the past five years or so. Yeah, well, 0:02:26.960 --> 0:02:29.840 I mean part of it is urban centers are going 0:02:29.880 --> 0:02:31.880 to have more opportunities for this sort of thing. But 0:02:31.919 --> 0:02:37.760 there there has been a steady influx of meditative yogain 0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:41.720 I just kind in Eastern and New Age ideas in general. 0:02:42.240 --> 0:02:46.080 But it feels like these ideas have become mainstream in 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:49.120 Western culture fairly recently. Like they you know, they were 0:02:49.160 --> 0:02:51.720 there as an esoteric practice in Western culture for some 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:55.400 number of decades, maybe since the middle late twentieth century, 0:02:56.120 --> 0:02:59.280 and then and now they're fully mainstream. You see yoga 0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:03.160 studios every where, their meditation apps that everybody's talking about there, 0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:06.000 they've all got on their phones biz bros or trying 0:03:06.000 --> 0:03:08.720 out meditation. I know you've seen this trend to right, 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:11.600 All all the biz bro manager types are like, yeah, 0:03:11.680 --> 0:03:14.960 I use meditation to maximize my potential. You might not 0:03:15.040 --> 0:03:18.360 remember this, but we had a yoga teacher come to 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:22.639 how Stuff works in recent years and he did a 0:03:22.720 --> 0:03:26.440 yoga class for the company, of which I was the 0:03:26.480 --> 0:03:30.079 only person who attended. But this was years ago. You 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:31.720 might not I don't know if you're even I don't 0:03:31.720 --> 0:03:33.680 think I was aware of this, but he had a 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:37.240 full list of his offerings and it included like yoga 0:03:37.320 --> 0:03:42.400 for golf fires, yoga for CEOs, that sort of thing, 0:03:42.480 --> 0:03:45.480 you know, Um, yoga, yoga for how to fire people. 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:49.560 I guess, yeah, how to detach and all. Um. Yeah, 0:03:49.560 --> 0:03:53.520 it is. It is interesting because on one hand, it's 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:55.320 easy to look at it and say, well, you're taking 0:03:55.480 --> 0:03:59.720 you're taking something that maybe has more cultural value or 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:03.120 more religious or spiritual value, and then you're sort of 0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:06.080 boiling it down or you're you're stripping it apart and 0:04:06.080 --> 0:04:09.120 then selling those parts to people. Well, yeah, I mean, 0:04:09.280 --> 0:04:12.800 and whether you take a a spiritual or religious or 0:04:12.880 --> 0:04:17.680 a secular view of meditation, these are profound, meaningful cultural 0:04:17.720 --> 0:04:22.159 practices that go back for thousands of years. Yeah. I mean, 0:04:22.320 --> 0:04:24.440 there are certainly cases with especially with yoga, where we 0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:28.640 don't we're not always aware of how recently they've been 0:04:29.000 --> 0:04:32.839 changed by by Western hands and Western minds. But um, 0:04:32.880 --> 0:04:35.600 I guess I was thinking specifically of meditation. Yeah. Well, 0:04:35.640 --> 0:04:37.800 I keep I keep coming back to this example when 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:40.960 it comes to things like this. So, uh, years ago, 0:04:41.240 --> 0:04:43.240 I was at like a dinner party or something, and 0:04:43.400 --> 0:04:45.640 I got to talking about I think I think I 0:04:45.640 --> 0:04:48.239 was talking about Buddhism or something with someone and Alan 0:04:48.279 --> 0:04:51.560 Watts came up. Familiar with that one Watts a little bit. Yeah, 0:04:51.640 --> 0:04:55.479 so uh. The other individuals said, well, you know Alan Watts, 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:59.040 he's he's kind of the Walmart of Buddhism, isn't he. Uh? 0:04:59.320 --> 0:05:01.040 And I think she kind a minute as a as 0:05:01.160 --> 0:05:03.880 as a put down of of Alan Watts. And and 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:06.640 sometimes I think back to that and and if you 0:05:06.760 --> 0:05:08.839 if you look at it with the idea that the 0:05:09.160 --> 0:05:12.040 Buddhism in this case has a central truth to it, 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:16.080 a truth that should be shared with the world, and 0:05:16.279 --> 0:05:18.400 or even you know, wants to be shared with the world, 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:21.680 then don't you want it in Walmart? Like you need 0:05:21.839 --> 0:05:23.720 you need there to be a Walmart of Buddhism, you 0:05:24.440 --> 0:05:27.320 need there to be a Walmart of yoga and meditation 0:05:27.360 --> 0:05:30.280 if you would all believe in the values of these things. Yeah. 0:05:30.320 --> 0:05:32.719 So that's um, that's sort of the question I was 0:05:32.720 --> 0:05:36.040 wondering about, Like, if you are somebody who participates in 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:41.160 in this deep, long rooted, profound cultural tradition of meditation, 0:05:41.200 --> 0:05:43.479 so you're a you're a monk or something who does 0:05:43.520 --> 0:05:46.840 meditation as part of your spiritual practice. Are are you 0:05:47.320 --> 0:05:51.200 offended by yoga for golf? Are you offended by you know, 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:53.479 the meditation app that will help you be a better 0:05:53.680 --> 0:05:57.520 business manager? Or is that or do you just say yeah, 0:05:57.600 --> 0:06:00.360 that that's great. More more people are taking it up, 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:02.359 more people are seeing the benefits, and it's going to 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:04.360 more of the world. Yeah, I guess it's one of 0:06:04.400 --> 0:06:06.040 those things where it's the answer is going to vary 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:10.240 from person to person and tradition to tradition. But uh, yeah, 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:12.359 we obviously we'd love to hear back from listeners on 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:14.640 that because I know we have a number of listeners 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:18.080 who are involved in various UH yoga or meditation practices. 0:06:18.400 --> 0:06:21.800 So when we're talking about meditative practices and meditation here, 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:25.280 UH meditative practices date back at least as far as 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:28.840 the second millennium BC and UH and this goes back 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:31.640 to the Vedic traditions in India, and since that time, 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:34.920 countless models have spread throughout human culture, weaving their way 0:06:34.960 --> 0:06:40.640 through Hindu, Buddhist, Daoist, Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions. Secular 0:06:40.680 --> 0:06:46.000 approaches range from elementary school mindfulness instruction UH to meditation apps, 0:06:46.160 --> 0:06:49.559 which you mentioned already from the modern tech savvy human 0:06:49.839 --> 0:06:53.360 and styles of meditation also range from stationary to walking, 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:57.160 closed eye to open eye, seeded to floating. Yeah, and 0:06:57.200 --> 0:07:00.120 there there are these major schools of meditation you've probably 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:04.719 heard about, such as like the mindfulness meditation or the 0:07:04.800 --> 0:07:10.000 transcendental meditation or compassion meditation. Right, and then of course 0:07:10.000 --> 0:07:13.680 there are different schools, transidental meditation being a major one. 0:07:14.080 --> 0:07:18.120 That's the one that goes to the Mahirishi Maheshioki, right, yes, correct, Now. 0:07:18.960 --> 0:07:20.920 I think it's worth noting though, that at the center 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:24.240 of all of these practices, essentially as you have awareness, 0:07:24.960 --> 0:07:28.000 one of, if not the key attributes of human consciousness. 0:07:28.040 --> 0:07:30.520 We come back to that again and again on the show. 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:34.320 So meditation you could maybe think of as uh, first 0:07:34.360 --> 0:07:39.040 person experiments in attention something like that. Yeah, like I was, 0:07:39.200 --> 0:07:42.080 I was thinking about it recently. Like it seems like 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:45.080 it's nothing short of the deliberate manipulation of the human 0:07:45.120 --> 0:07:48.960 experience itself. I am changing my awareness, or I'm refocusing 0:07:49.000 --> 0:07:52.760 my awareness, and in doing so, I'm kind of reshaping 0:07:53.000 --> 0:07:57.160 my world. I'm kind of reshaping my uh, my experience 0:07:57.160 --> 0:08:01.000 of reality. At least in the short term. It's weird 0:08:01.040 --> 0:08:02.720 to think about how much of our lives we go 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:06.920 through without intentionally controlling what we're paying attention to. We 0:08:07.040 --> 0:08:10.000 just pay attention to whatever it occurs to us in 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:12.880 the moment to pay attention to, rather than making a 0:08:12.880 --> 0:08:17.080 deliberate effort to concentrate our awareness in one way or another. Yeah, 0:08:17.160 --> 0:08:19.360 and it's one of the reasons I think everyone should 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:22.880 try some sort of meditation or some sort of yoga 0:08:22.920 --> 0:08:25.520 at some point, like some sort of a mindfulness exercise, 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:28.040 even if it ends up not being the thing for you. 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:31.520 Uh it. At times it can kind of like, I 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:32.760 feel like you can kind of wake you up, You 0:08:32.840 --> 0:08:35.800 can kind of force you to realize, um, you know, 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:37.640 what kind of noise is going on in your head 0:08:37.679 --> 0:08:40.920 at any given moment. One meditative thought that you introduced 0:08:40.920 --> 0:08:42.720 to me that I've never heard before, but you brought 0:08:42.720 --> 0:08:45.360 it up on the podcast one time was just sitting 0:08:45.400 --> 0:08:49.640 down and coming back to the thought repeatedly, I wonder 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:52.440 what my next thought is going to be. Since you 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:58.200 mentioned this, I've tried it and it's a really interesting experience. Cool. Yeah, 0:08:58.240 --> 0:09:01.760 that one, I believe that was an Eckhart tolle uh idea. 0:09:01.840 --> 0:09:03.880 I mean it's kind of a mantra, and in many respects, 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:06.800 but a very simplified, boiled down mantra. It's just kind 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:10.280 of like sticking a sticking a little roadblock into your 0:09:10.400 --> 0:09:14.120 constant highway of mental traffic. Yeah. It has a way 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:18.320 of calling attention to the fact that your mind is 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:21.520 sort of this deep chasm through from which things emerge 0:09:21.640 --> 0:09:25.280 without really you having any control over. And usually this 0:09:25.400 --> 0:09:28.480 just happens to you and you don't notice. It is 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:31.959 just like, yeah, I'm just thinking, but thinking about thinking 0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:36.760 makes thinking become very mysterious. Yeah, it does. It. It 0:09:36.920 --> 0:09:40.040 forces you to to to reflect on your own cognitive 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:43.800 processes and trying to figure out what's going on there. Now. Meditation, 0:09:43.840 --> 0:09:46.760 obviously is everyone can tell from the discussion thus far. 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:51.960 It touches on cognition, It touches on various aspects of 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:55.360 of of human health, and therefore there have been a 0:09:55.440 --> 0:09:58.400 number of studies over the years that have looked into 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:04.480 it's it's possible effectiveness on mental or physical health, looking 0:10:04.520 --> 0:10:06.880 at exactly what it does, like what is the meditative 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:10.920 meditative state look like in the brain and uh, and 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:13.679 you know, there have been some some key findings that 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:16.840 have certainly made the rounds over the years and sort 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:22.040 of forced people to to to look more closely in meditation. Uh. 0:10:22.400 --> 0:10:24.840 One one study that they made a lot of headlines 0:10:24.920 --> 0:10:27.080 was the two thousand twelve study from the Institute for 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:31.000 Natural Medicine and Prevention. They that found that African Americans 0:10:31.000 --> 0:10:35.439 with heart disease who practice transcendental meditation were less likely 0:10:35.520 --> 0:10:38.600 to experience a heart attack or stroke. Yeah, so I 0:10:38.600 --> 0:10:40.480 want to come back to that claim in a minute. Uh. 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:44.960 I've got complex feelings about the medical research on meditation, 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:48.440 which we were talking about this off Mike before we 0:10:48.480 --> 0:10:51.720 came on. But um, I would not put them in 0:10:51.800 --> 0:10:55.840 exactly the same bucket with but sort of adjacent to 0:10:55.960 --> 0:11:00.560 the bucket of prayer studies, meaning that both, I guess 0:11:00.600 --> 0:11:03.120 both fit into a larger bucket in this world of buckets, 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:06.520 the Russian dolls of buckets that we live in. Um. So, 0:11:06.640 --> 0:11:08.520 when it when it comes to these types of research, 0:11:08.600 --> 0:11:11.240 I think some skeptics would look at prayer studies and 0:11:11.320 --> 0:11:14.920 meditation studies and say, why would you waste your time? 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:18.280 You know what? Why what what can be gained from 0:11:18.360 --> 0:11:20.440 studying this? You can already be pretty sure it's a 0:11:20.440 --> 0:11:23.320 bunch of magical bs, and it's going to be conducted 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:25.439 by believers who are going to cut corners and their 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:29.600 methodology to make their worldview look good. And so there's 0:11:29.640 --> 0:11:31.840 part of that I agree with. In part I don't 0:11:31.880 --> 0:11:34.360 agree with. I don't at all agree with the idea 0:11:34.400 --> 0:11:37.760 of why would you waste your time because I don't know. 0:11:37.800 --> 0:11:39.800 I think it makes more sense to be the kind 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:42.239 of skeptic that says, well, bring it on, let's see, 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:45.160 um if it gets good results, and if other people 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:48.360 can replicate those results, especially hostile people who are you know, 0:11:48.440 --> 0:11:52.000 not part of this worldview, can replicate the same results, 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:55.000 I think that's something we want to know about, and 0:11:55.000 --> 0:11:59.200 certainly if it's something that can be scientifically studied. Yeah. Now, 0:11:59.240 --> 0:12:01.559 on the other hand, I do think there's some merit 0:12:01.679 --> 0:12:04.280 to the idea that things like prayer studies and meditation 0:12:04.360 --> 0:12:08.840 studies require some careful scrutiny before we accept their results, 0:12:08.880 --> 0:12:11.800 because there are some people who are convinced of the 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:15.319 results before they start looking for them. Now, that's definitely 0:12:15.320 --> 0:12:18.559 not true of all meditation researchers, I think, right, Yeah, 0:12:18.600 --> 0:12:22.360 I mean I mean for starters with prayer there, it 0:12:22.360 --> 0:12:25.560 seems like that's more likely a problem because there's not 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:27.800 really much in the way of secular prayer out there. 0:12:28.120 --> 0:12:29.559 I feel like, for the most part, if you are 0:12:29.559 --> 0:12:33.160 praying to a deity or a group of deities, you 0:12:33.240 --> 0:12:35.720 have some level of belief where you usually you're taking 0:12:35.720 --> 0:12:37.840 on some level of belief in those deities. Though, I 0:12:37.840 --> 0:12:40.480 think you could come up with secular explanations for the 0:12:40.520 --> 0:12:43.960 successive prayer. Like, certainly if you had prayer studies that worked, 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:46.760 I think that wouldn't necessarily prove any kind of magical 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:48.640 thing and would just say, well, prayer has some kind 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:50.760 of benefits, and you could explain that in terms of 0:12:51.000 --> 0:12:54.640 psychology of groups, social dynamics, all kinds of things. Yeah, 0:12:54.679 --> 0:12:56.440 but again to I mean, to your point, there are 0:12:56.440 --> 0:12:59.760 plenty of models of meditation that they don't involve belief 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:03.080 in the deity or belief in some sort of you know, 0:13:03.120 --> 0:13:06.600 particular model of bodily energy or you know, some other 0:13:06.679 --> 0:13:10.320 kind of like New age mechanism. Yeah. Absolutely, And in 0:13:10.360 --> 0:13:13.240 a minute, we're actually going to air a an interview 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:17.000 Robert did with a local meditation researcher. What is this 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:20.320 researcher's name, Rob This is Dr Jennifer and Mascara, and 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:23.240 she's an assistant professor of Family and Preventive Medicine at 0:13:23.280 --> 0:13:26.680 Immer University here in Atlanta, and she investigates meditation from 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:30.400 a secular scientific standpoint, So that can absolutely be done. 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:34.240 But coming back to these medical effects that people claim 0:13:34.240 --> 0:13:37.880 are demonstrated by meditation, I don't want to rule them out, 0:13:37.920 --> 0:13:40.200 and I think research on this is valid and I 0:13:40.200 --> 0:13:42.080 think we should pay attention to it. But I think 0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:45.040 it does deserve scrutiny because coming back to that one 0:13:45.640 --> 0:13:49.800 result you mentioned about heart disease and transcendental meditation, I 0:13:49.840 --> 0:13:54.280 found an American Heart Association scientific statement from seventeen. It 0:13:54.400 --> 0:13:57.520 was actually just released this year. So first, a general 0:13:57.559 --> 0:14:01.760 comment they make, quote, further research on meditation and cardiovascular 0:14:01.880 --> 0:14:05.240 risk is warranted. Such studies, to the degree possible, should 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:09.640 utilize randomized study design, be adequately powered to meet primary 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:13.840 study outcome, strive to achieve low dropout rates, include long 0:14:13.960 --> 0:14:17.280 term follow up, and be performed by those without inherent 0:14:17.360 --> 0:14:21.880 bias in the outcome. So generally, they're saying that it 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:24.440 does appear that there could be some some good places 0:14:24.480 --> 0:14:27.800 to go with meditation and cardiovascular health. Research, but a 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:30.200 lot of the studies that exist today have some of 0:14:30.200 --> 0:14:33.400 these problems with methodology that make them less robust or 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:37.240 convincing than they could be. And referring to that twelve 0:14:37.360 --> 0:14:41.440 study about cardiovascular health and transcendental meditation, they say, quote 0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:44.520 the study though, was conducted in two phases after a 0:14:44.560 --> 0:14:48.200 one year hiatus, with fifty eight patients not participating in 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:51.480 phase two of the study, and some concerns about analysis 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:54.440 of the data have been raised. So it sounds like 0:14:54.840 --> 0:14:57.360 that when you get this big claim like this, wow, 0:14:57.440 --> 0:15:00.400 you know, you get these amazing results from transcendental NEETs aitation, 0:15:00.680 --> 0:15:04.200 they're saying, Okay, we we might want to be cautious 0:15:04.240 --> 0:15:07.880 about over interpreting these study results because the methodology was 0:15:08.000 --> 0:15:11.800 less than perfect, right, and is consumers we have to 0:15:12.000 --> 0:15:14.200 be careful about sort of having the red wine or 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:17.000 chocolate effect with studies like this, where we like red 0:15:17.000 --> 0:15:19.280 wine or chocolate and then when a headline comes out 0:15:19.320 --> 0:15:21.560 that supports the thing we like, we just kind of 0:15:22.280 --> 0:15:24.400 we we kind of check it off in our mind 0:15:24.480 --> 0:15:27.240 and move on. Well. Yeah, and to be cautious about 0:15:27.240 --> 0:15:29.240 those studies is not to say that red wine and 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:32.960 chocolate do not have their their wonderful benefits in terms 0:15:33.000 --> 0:15:35.840 of flavor and enjoyment, And the same thing could probably 0:15:35.880 --> 0:15:38.120 be said about meditation. I would say, even if you 0:15:38.240 --> 0:15:42.640 don't find that meditation has any measurable cardiovascular benefits or 0:15:42.640 --> 0:15:46.280 anything like that, benefits on long term chronic health conditions, 0:15:46.360 --> 0:15:49.880 or pain reduction or anything like that, it's still obviously 0:15:49.960 --> 0:15:53.000 has this role in people's lives that you know, people 0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:55.720 get imans pleasure from it. They find that it changes 0:15:55.760 --> 0:15:58.960 the way they view the world. It it does do something, 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:01.960 even if it does do everything people claim it does. 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:06.160 So Ultimately, I think meditation research is a highly valid 0:16:06.240 --> 0:16:08.440 field of study and I and I wouldn't be surprised 0:16:08.480 --> 0:16:11.120 if it turned up really effective results. But I also 0:16:11.160 --> 0:16:13.080 think it's a field where I would I would just 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:16.600 tend to treat claimed results with special caution and scrutiny. 0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:19.480 Not a fault of meditation itself. Nothing wrong with the 0:16:19.520 --> 0:16:23.080 practice of meditation. But but but I but I always 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:25.200 try to be cautious whenever I see a new claim 0:16:25.240 --> 0:16:33.960 about meditation results. So I recently partnered with the videographer 0:16:33.960 --> 0:16:37.400 and audio producer Tyler clang Here at the Office on 0:16:37.480 --> 0:16:41.040 a couple of interviews for a meditation video project. Now, 0:16:41.080 --> 0:16:43.680 company priorities changed and that kind of left the project 0:16:43.720 --> 0:16:45.960 in limbo. But I didn't want to lose the great 0:16:46.000 --> 0:16:48.600 time content we'd already achieved, So we're gonna feature some 0:16:48.640 --> 0:16:52.640 interview content with every university meditation researcher Dr Jennifer Moscaro 0:16:53.160 --> 0:16:57.080 and with a physician vedic meditation teacher, Jill Wiener. This 0:16:57.080 --> 0:16:59.840 will also enable us to to finish the video in 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:01.720 some form and you can look for that in the 0:17:01.760 --> 0:17:04.639 near future. Obviously, we'll put that up on Stuff to 0:17:04.640 --> 0:17:07.679 Blow your Mind dot com and and also on the 0:17:07.680 --> 0:17:10.320 social media platforms. So let's go ahead and introduce Dr 0:17:10.400 --> 0:17:13.480 Jennifer Mascaro here again. She's Assistant Professor of Family and 0:17:13.520 --> 0:17:16.920 Preventive Medicine at Emory University here in Atlanta, where she's 0:17:17.119 --> 0:17:20.679 also worked with the Department of Anthropology. She specializes in 0:17:20.680 --> 0:17:25.399 the variation in and plasticity of human social cognition and 0:17:25.480 --> 0:17:29.399 the biology of interconnectedness. She recently came into the studio 0:17:29.400 --> 0:17:31.960 and chatted with us about the current state of meditation 0:17:32.040 --> 0:17:35.159 research and her own fascinating contributions to the study of 0:17:35.160 --> 0:17:39.280 not only mindfulness meditation, but compassion meditation. Robert. I want 0:17:39.320 --> 0:17:41.320 to say I enjoyed this interview and I thought Dr 0:17:41.400 --> 0:17:44.000 mscarro was great. Awesome. Well, let's take a quick break 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:46.200 and when we come back, we will just jump right 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:52.000 into the interview questions with Dr Muscarrow. Thank you, thank alright, 0:17:52.040 --> 0:17:55.440 we're back. Hi. Dr Mscaa, thank you for joining us here. 0:17:55.600 --> 0:17:59.399 So my first question is just broadly speaking, what's the 0:17:59.440 --> 0:18:02.520 current foe because of your research at Amory, Yeah, a 0:18:02.560 --> 0:18:05.679 lot of the research that we're doing is on different 0:18:05.680 --> 0:18:09.680 meditation practices that we think have the most evidence for 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:13.200 impacting people's well being UM. And so in particular, we're 0:18:13.320 --> 0:18:15.639 looking at two different types of meditation. So one is 0:18:15.680 --> 0:18:19.760 called mindfulness meditation, and that's actually what most people think 0:18:19.800 --> 0:18:22.960 of when they hear about meditation UM. But we're also 0:18:23.080 --> 0:18:26.080 doing a lot of research on a compassion meditation practice 0:18:26.200 --> 0:18:29.760 that comes from a very old Tibetan Buddhist tradition UM 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:34.320 and is thought to cultivate feelings of connectedness with others, UM, 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:37.600 feelings of compassion and empathy for others. And and it 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:39.480 turns out that that's really good for our well being. 0:18:39.720 --> 0:18:44.680 So what's your personal history with meditation? I started dabbling 0:18:44.960 --> 0:18:48.000 primarily with mindfulness meditation. Back when I was in high school, 0:18:48.000 --> 0:18:50.879 I was a really serious athlete, and um, it turns 0:18:50.880 --> 0:18:55.040 out that mindfulness meditation is really helpful for um mitigating 0:18:55.119 --> 0:18:59.480 stress and anxiety, especially when you're performing. And so I 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:02.800 used to do mindfulness practices when I was anxious about 0:19:02.800 --> 0:19:05.680 a big game or you know, in the aftermath if 0:19:05.720 --> 0:19:08.159 I felt like I didn't perform very well. It was 0:19:08.240 --> 0:19:12.360 really helpful for not ruminating. Um. And so I dabbled 0:19:12.440 --> 0:19:15.960 here and there. Um. But then uh, it really it 0:19:16.520 --> 0:19:20.560 um took a new direction when I started graduate school 0:19:20.600 --> 0:19:23.040 and I was interested in the plasticity of the brain. 0:19:23.720 --> 0:19:27.119 And here, you know, we have these practices that have 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:33.480 been um uh cultivated and perfected um over you know, 0:19:33.960 --> 0:19:36.879 many many hundreds of years that we think impact the 0:19:36.920 --> 0:19:38.760 brain and systems in the brain that I was really 0:19:38.840 --> 0:19:42.480 interested in studying. And so UM, I really turned from 0:19:42.520 --> 0:19:47.159 being a dabbling practitioner to really more of an at 0:19:47.240 --> 0:19:50.320 least hopefully objective scientist. So how do you go about 0:19:50.440 --> 0:19:54.879 conducting hard scientific research on something like meditation. We try 0:19:54.960 --> 0:19:57.639 to do research on meditation similar to the way you 0:19:57.680 --> 0:20:00.640 would do research on, for example, a dru or any 0:20:00.640 --> 0:20:04.560 intervention So the gold standard is with a randomized clinical 0:20:04.600 --> 0:20:09.240 trial where you randomize some people to the meditation practice 0:20:09.320 --> 0:20:12.720 that you're interested in, and you have another group that's 0:20:12.800 --> 0:20:17.280 randomized some control group. UM, the ideal study design has 0:20:17.720 --> 0:20:20.919 your compared meditation to an active control group. And the 0:20:20.960 --> 0:20:24.160 reason for that is because there are a lot of 0:20:24.200 --> 0:20:28.560 things about UH an intervention that could be helpful, could 0:20:28.640 --> 0:20:32.000 change people that aren't due to the meditation practice itself. 0:20:32.040 --> 0:20:34.359 You know, if it's a group practice, it may just 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:36.400 be meeting with a group of people that you think 0:20:36.440 --> 0:20:39.800 are like minded. Maybe meeting with a teacher, like a 0:20:39.840 --> 0:20:42.840 meditation teacher is really helpful because you you have someone 0:20:42.920 --> 0:20:45.000 to uh, you know, a role model. There could be 0:20:45.200 --> 0:20:48.480 non specific things that are kind of doing the work, 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:50.800 so you really want to try to control for those 0:20:50.920 --> 0:20:54.280 types of things. So UM, one of the big ways 0:20:54.320 --> 0:20:56.840 that meditation is studies is with that sort of design. 0:20:57.320 --> 0:21:00.240 Another thing though, that people do is UM. They point 0:21:00.240 --> 0:21:04.160 out that that misses a lot of the cultural, um 0:21:04.240 --> 0:21:09.080 and contextual factors that often accompany meditation. So some people 0:21:09.400 --> 0:21:11.639 UM and I think this is really important research to 0:21:12.400 --> 0:21:15.960 are doing research where they're really doing more qualitative research 0:21:16.000 --> 0:21:19.600 to try to dig in and understand what meditation means 0:21:19.640 --> 0:21:21.840 to people when they practice it. What are the fact 0:21:22.200 --> 0:21:26.359 the sort of contextual factors, the cultural factors that that 0:21:26.440 --> 0:21:29.440 might be UM at play. So you're talking about stripping 0:21:29.440 --> 0:21:32.360 away some of the ritualized cultural aspects to understand what's 0:21:32.400 --> 0:21:35.240 actually taking place in the body and mind. But isn't 0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:38.320 the counter argument that you can't separate these two aspects 0:21:38.359 --> 0:21:42.240 of meditative practice exactly? And that's an issue that accompanies 0:21:42.280 --> 0:21:45.320 a lot of different scientific domains. UM. You know, when 0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:46.960 you try to take something and put it in a 0:21:47.040 --> 0:21:51.439 laboratory setting to study it, you necessarily strip it front 0:21:51.520 --> 0:21:55.480 of UM extraneous features that might be really important UM. 0:21:55.600 --> 0:21:58.119 And so that is a debate that happens in a 0:21:58.160 --> 0:22:00.359 lot of domains of science, but it's particularly in portant 0:22:00.400 --> 0:22:04.200 with meditation because there are these UM sort of cultural 0:22:04.359 --> 0:22:08.080 embedded factors that might are likely very very important and 0:22:08.119 --> 0:22:12.800 maybe the most important. So you are often the researchers 0:22:12.840 --> 0:22:15.840 you study meditation are often sort of straddling this difficult 0:22:15.920 --> 0:22:21.480