How efficacious (REALLY) are yoga, meditation etc. ?

[pelov]

I don't have any specific links, but studies have shown that meditation can (at least slightly) change your brain. There are many, many subjective reports that it helps with depression, anxiety, helps one focus better, etc. At the very least, it acts as an exercise for your brain that you can apply throughout your life in many other subtle ways.

It extends past meditation, though. Any exercise that puts you in a meditative state will provide the same benefits.

I'm inclined to call it a case of 'placebo effect' but the truth is that it's not that easy. Yes, you can see derive the same positive aspects of meditation or yoga or even acupuncture by other methods of exercise (or "exercise") or what-have-you, but there's little doubt that they certainly help. I think the more pertinent and interesting discussion to be having is what beside meditation or yoga you can do to see the same benefits. Goat fucking perhaps? Orgies at senior citizen centers?

 

[Ventanni]

Practicing Yoga doesn't cure aids, or herpes, or any serious illness like that, and no yoga practitioner is going to make those claims unless they're on drugs. But what yoga does do is help the body and mind relax. The human body is well capable of healing many, though not all, ailments on its own. Simply place it in the right environment and let nature do what it does best. But a lot of times things like stress and negativity can have an impact on that process, releasing hormones that suppress the immune system or restrict blood flow to the areas that need it most (the human body can and will route blood to critical areas first). There's nothing magical about it. It's just how the human body works.

With that said, you can interchange yoga for any [actual] stress reducing activities (not TV or being lazy on the couch) and achieve similar effects.

As for Chi...I'm a man of science, reason, and proof, but while I was in massage therapy school, I literally saw one of my classmates turned into Gumbi after our instructor cut her Chi off. It was the most bizarre, yet coolest thing I've ever seen.

 

[OinkBoink]

Practicing Yoga doesn't cure aids, or herpes, or any serious illness like that, and no yoga practitioner is going to make those claims unless they're on drugs. But what yoga does do is help the body and mind relax. The human body is well capable of healing many, though not all, ailments on its own. Simply place it in the right environment and let nature do what it does best. But a lot of times things like stress and negativity can have an impact on that process, releasing hormones that suppress the immune system or restrict blood flow to the areas that need it most (the human body can and will route blood to critical areas first). There's nothing magical about it. It's just how the human body works.

With that said, you can interchange yoga for any [actual] stress reducing activities (not TV or being lazy on the couch) and achieve similar effects.

As for Chi...I'm a man of science, reason, and proof, but while I was in massage therapy school, I literally saw one of my classmates turned into Gumbi after our instructor cut her Chi off. It was the most bizarre, yet coolest thing I've ever seen.

Presenting Baba Ramdev:

Completely cure Cancer Though Pranayam -IIT khadakpur [sic] Student

The man has millions of followers in India. He claims to be able to cure several diseases through Yoga, meditation etc. And he is so confident in his claims, that I once heard him state that the only reason he hasn't been awarded a Nobel Prize is because he doesn't have white skin.

This man isn't a singular occurrence. There are loads and loads of people like him in India, and not just in India but all over the world.

Also, about intelligent people not giving in to stuff like this; I'd say that native intelligence (also credentials) and awareness aren't always mutually inclusive.

These kind of things aren't unique to India either. You could be an intelligent, (formally) educated person and still hold beliefs unsubstantiated by evidence. If you're in India these beliefs may be associated with Yoga curing HIV, and if you're in the US, they may be about the Earth being 6000 years old. It all depends on a multitude of factors.

This is why it is important to separate science from pseudoscience. Labels like "Yoga" have a religious/cultural connotation to them. As such, refuting anything that comes under the label may become a political issue because it may be perceived as going against someone's religion and/or culture.

As Richard Dawkins once stated; if any of the practices within the realms of "alternative" medicine (or fields or whatever) were substantiated by evidence, they would cease to be a part of alternative medicine and simply be called medicine.

 

[Scotteq]

... Orgies at senior citizen centers?

..."I have to tell you I have Acute Angina..."

"I sure hope so, 'cos your tits sure are ugly..."

/drumroll

 

[Juddog]

Presenting Baba Ramdev:

Completely cure Cancer Though Pranayam -IIT khadakpur [sic] Student

The man has millions of followers in India. He claims to be able to cure several diseases through Yoga, meditation etc. And he is so confident in his claims, that I once heard him state that the only reason he hasn't been awarded a Nobel Prize is because he doesn't have white skin.

This man isn't a singular occurrence. There are loads and loads of people like him in India, and not just in India but all over the world.

Also, about intelligent people not giving in to stuff like this; I'd say that native intelligence (also credentials) and awareness aren't always mutually inclusive.

These kind of things aren't unique to India either. You could be an intelligent, (formally) educated person and still hold beliefs unsubstantiated by evidence. If you're in India these beliefs may be associated with Yoga curing HIV, and if you're in the US, they may be about the Earth being 6000 years old. It all depends on a multitude of factors.

This is why it is important to separate science from pseudoscience. Labels like "Yoga" have a religious/cultural connotation to them. As such, refuting anything that comes under the label may become a political issue because it may be perceived as going against someone's religion and/or culture.

As Richard Dawkins once stated; if any of the practices within the realms of "alternative" medicine (or fields or whatever) were substantiated by evidence, they would cease to be a part of alternative medicine and simply be called medicine.

People believing that crap are just suckers, and there is one born every minute. It's no different than faith healing in one of the churches down south; they had the same claims of ridiculous miracle work until it was exposed that they were hiring people to be the healed (e.g. having someone who could already walk sit in a wheelchair and pretend that the faith healing suddenly gave them the power to walk).

 

[Ventanni]

Presenting Baba Ramdev:

Completely cure Cancer Though Pranayam -IIT khadakpur [sic] Student

The man has millions of followers in India. He claims to be able to cure several diseases through Yoga, meditation etc. And he is so confident in his claims, that I once heard him state that the only reason he hasn't been awarded a Nobel Prize is because he doesn't have white skin.

This man isn't a singular occurrence. There are loads and loads of people like him in India, and not just in India but all over the world.

Also, about intelligent people not giving in to stuff like this; I'd say that native intelligence (also credentials) and awareness aren't always mutually inclusive.

These kind of things aren't unique to India either. You could be an intelligent, (formally) educated person and still hold beliefs unsubstantiated by evidence. If you're in India these beliefs may be associated with Yoga curing HIV, and if you're in the US, they may be about the Earth being 6000 years old. It all depends on a multitude of factors.

This is why it is important to separate science from pseudoscience. Labels like "Yoga" have a religious/cultural connotation to them. As such, refuting anything that comes under the label may become a political issue because it may be perceived as going against someone's religion and/or culture.

As Richard Dawkins once stated; if any of the practices within the realms of "alternative" medicine (or fields or whatever) were substantiated by evidence, they would cease to be a part of alternative medicine and simply be called medicine.

Oh, I completely agree with you. The man is a fraud. There's no way you can make those claims just by meditating for a little while. Only Western medicine is capable of performing such a feat, and any true Eastern practitioner will freely admit that their practice only goes so far.

I also think he's exactly the type of individual who puts a bad name for the positive benefits for things like yoga, meditation, etc. Obviously I'm more biased towards massage therapy than anything because that's what I went to school for, but I'm not going to underlie the benefits of practicing yoga. It's not going to work for everybody of course, but there are physical and mental benefits to doing so. But, it's just like the massage therapists who go out there and turn their practice into something sexual; it just soils the reputation for the rest of us.

 

[JBT]

Stress causes lots of problems, both mentally and physically. These exercises work on both of those. Will it "cure" it directly? no I'd guess not, but I don't see it hurting any, and it WILL help make the person FEEL better. FEELING good aids in recovery.

 

[OinkBoink]

Personally, this "eastern" vs "western" dichotomy has been a source of irritation for me. "Eastern medicine", "western medicine" etc.

I know people just use it in everyday usage, but it goes deeper than that.

The thing is, there are those ideas which work and those that don't. You have to reason your way through them and you ought to substantiate your reasoning with evidence. It doesn't really matter whether those ideas originate(d) in the east or the west.

In the sense that, there are lots of people from the east who have contributed immensely to "western" medicine and I see people from the west doing "eastern" things all the time. I just wish we could do away with this dichotomy when not necessary. Even in social and political terms, it wreaks havoc, but that's another thing.

 

[Juddog]

Personally, this "eastern" vs "western" dichotomy has been a source of irritation for me. "Eastern medicine", "western medicine" etc.

I know people just use it in everyday usage, but it goes deeper than that.

The thing is, there are those ideas which work and those that don't. You have to reason your way through them and you ought to substantiate your reasoning with evidence. It doesn't really matter whether those ideas originate(d) in the east or the west.

In the sense that, there are lots of people from the east who have contributed immensely to "western" medicine and I see people from the west doing "eastern" things all the time. I just wish we could do away with this dichotomy when not necessary. Even in social and political terms, it wreaks havoc, but that's another thing.

You have to think of it as lines of evolution of ideas.

The "eastern" style philosophy and medicine has had hundreds or thousands of years to develop. The "western" style of medicine is based purely on science, facts, and evidence.

Given that the world hasn't really had a medium for collective thought and analysis until the age of the internet, it's no surprise that there is currently a dichotomy; I would say you won't see a balanced blending of ideas until another 50-100 years from now.

There was a TED talk recently that I watched, where the speaker mentioned the two different approaches to wellness, both in mind and in body.

Our current approach to medicine is really focused on stopping something bad from happening, versus focusing on building up the good which also has some degree of preventative effects on the health of a patient.

In other words, you can become extremely healthy via exercise, proper diet, and proper mental stimuli. Instead of focusing on "stopping something bad" from happening, you're focusing on boosting the good. This is the true balance that society in general needs to aim for.

A more clear example: say we have a large obese person, and the doctor tells them "quit drinking soda, it's bad for you". That obese person cuts out the soda, but then their body craves that same sugary fatness, so they turn to other sources of calories to keep their body happy with the overflow of calories. Now let's say you take the other approach: Encourage the person to exercise as much as is reasonable to keep them burning calories, which has a number of positive side effects. They are now boosting the "good", instead of just not doing the "bad". The true approach is to use both methods: tell the patient to lower soda intake but also to exercise at the same time, to create a balance.

This is really what preventative care is about. Boosting the "good", while cutting behavior that leads to "bad". Performing Yoga, meditation, Tai Chi, etc., are all boosting the "good", in many ways that have been proven via university studies. Some of the good effects go beyond strengthening muscle tissue and flexibility; for example the increased bloodflow to the brain acting, in a way, as a "smart drug" by simply providing more nutrients and oxygen and bloodflow to the brain cells that need it.

Likewise meditation (and prayer, which has roughly the same effect when studied via scanning tech such as MRI), has an actual positive influence.

Here is one such study:
http://www.sfgate.com/health/article/Stanford-studies-monks-meditation-compassion-3689748.php

Is Yoga positive? Absolutely.
Is it going to cure AIDS or make you into some kind of super human? Obviously not.

 

[OinkBoink]

The "eastern" style philosophy and medicine has had hundreds or thousands of years to develop. The "western" style of medicine is based purely on science, facts, and evidence.

Don't take this in an east vs west sense, just in a rational sense; how applicable is philosophy when it is not substantiated with facts and evidence?

I'm not at all against pure philosophy in anyway, but there's a reason we have things like peer review, double blind studies, randomised controlled trials etc. They help separate fact from fiction. They've given us practical and useful developments.

The fact that something has had 1000s of years to develop doesn't outdo its flaws.

That being said, do you think evidence based medicine has flaws? If so, what are they? Just curious.

 

[Juddog]

Don't take this in an east vs west sense, just in a rational sense; how applicable is philosophy when it is not substantiated with facts and evidence?

I'm not at all against pure philosophy in anyway, but there's a reason we have things like peer review, double blind studies, randomised controlled trials etc. They help separate fact from fiction. They've given us practical and useful developments.

The fact that something has had 1000s of years to develop doesn't outdo its flaws.

That being said, do you think evidence based medicine has flaws? If so, what are they? Just curious.

Evidence based medicine has a major flaw in that it's based solely on what we know and have seen. New things come along which have a benefit by themselves, which is later on incorporated into western style medicine.

An example would be red wine - for years it had benefits, but it wasn't until one of the the components of it was isolated in a lab, that it was discovered why it had benefits.

Western science is also limited in what it can perform tests on in a legal sense. There are many things we could be doing right now, but are not, simply due to laws which are based upon religious ideas or otherwise.

One example is stem cell harvesting. Other examples would include experimentation with schedule 1 substances being heavily restricted. There are many more, but essentially experimenting with a human being's genetic code is typically strictly off limits. We could be using stem cells from aborted fetuses to further science, instead it's just thrown away as garbage.

Once these things are studied and picked apart, they become absorbed into western science, but we have to wait on the process. The technology is there, in university research, and often we have to wait 10-20 years before we see it practiced in a doctor's office or hospital.

Another example is that we have people that are suicidal, and we have other people that can use their bodies. Why not combine the two - allow people who want to commit suicide to sign off on some forms, which grant a huge lump of money to those they designate as beneficiaries, and then take their body apart while they're still alive to have the freshest possible organs?

 

[OinkBoink]

Evidence based medicine has a major flaw in that it's based solely on what we know and have seen. New things come along which have a benefit by themselves, which is later on incorporated into western style medicine.

An example would be red wine - for years it had benefits, but it wasn't until one of the the components of it was isolated in a lab, that it was discovered why it had benefits.

There are many drugs whose mechanism of action is not precisely known. But they're still used because we do know through studies that they work because the benefits are higher than would be expected by pure chance alone.

Western science is also limited in what it can perform tests on in a legal sense. There are many things we could be doing right now, but are not, simply due to laws which are based upon religious ideas or otherwise.

How does non-"western" science do better in this regard?

I'm no scholar in these things and there's a lot I'm not aware about, so this is just in the spirit of inquiry.

 

[Juddog]

There are many drugs whose mechanism of action is not precisely known. But they're still used because we do know through studies that they work because the benefits are higher than would be expected by pure chance alone.

That's true but we still have to play the waiting game, and many drugs may not ever see the light of day if the pharmaceutical company doesn't feel it's worth it to introduce it to the market (for example they may have a slightly better version of an existing medication, but if people have to pay 10x the amount per pill, then how will they make money from it?)

The thing to consider is that pharmaceuticals are doing what they do for the big sums of money involved. It's a high stakes game though, and losses can be ridiculous as well due to our legal system allowing for such humongous claims. It's my opinion that no single loss of life should ever lead to a settlement greater than around $5 million.

How does non-"western" science do better in this regard?

Some of the eastern style medicines have had years to develop their own technique, and the techniques they used back then didn't have the legal constraints that we have today. There is also little incentive for doctors to work on the "good" versus just preventing / mitigating the "bad". Eastern style medicine encourages the good via proper diet, self-control, and exercise, because it combines philosophy into it's techniques along with the practical parts (such as the stretching and exercise of Yoga).

For example, if you look at martial arts and eastern medicine, you're not just learning how to stop something from happening; you're exercising and learning about your body, enhancing self control, while maintaining discipline. There is no western style of medicine that can do that.

 

[KeithTalent]

I do yoga about three times per week. I don't meditate or anything like that, but the actual yoga is fantastic and is a pretty awesome exercise for strength. It also really helps me stay limber for running.

KT

 

[Sulaco]

For example, if you look at martial arts and eastern medicine, you're not just learning how to stop something from happening; you're exercising and learning about your body, enhancing self control, while maintaining discipline. There is no western style of medicine that can do that.

What a bunch of crap.

So...western medicine knows nothing of "exercising and learning about your body" while "maintaining discipline" (when it comes to the body) ?

Are you kidding? That's such a profoundly obtuse statement I don't even know where to begin with that.

 

[disappoint]

Placebo effect. Like praying.

Random dumbass: I know praying works because I asked for my Aunt Millie to get over her flu and she did!

Oh and so you didn't bother praying for world peace or an end to hunger, disease, oppression, crime, natural disasters etc.? Thanks for that you clueless, deluded dingbat!

Having said that, exercise has been shown to have some health benefits like tennis elbow, worn out joints, pulled muscles, sprained ankles and various other injuries not the least of which is that if you run, you won't get away from death and taxes, you'll just die tired. And taxed.

Have fun.

 

[sandorski]

Too efficacious. After awhile I couldn't keep track of all the demons, so I had them identify themselves whenever they attempted communication. Things are good now.

 

[Juddog]

What a bunch of crap.

So...western medicine knows nothing of "exercising and learning about your body" while "maintaining discipline" (when it comes to the body) ?

Are you kidding? That's such a profoundly obtuse statement I don't even know where to begin with that.

Please show me a western style medicine book that focuses solely on philosophy and self discipline that is used by doctors - I'd love to read it. I've never seen such a book in any doctor's office I've ever been to, nor have I ever had a doctor throughout my entire life speak of philosophy, or anything resembling the "whole package" you get with eastern style medicine (the combination of discipline, philosophy, exercise).

Every visit I've been to the doctors has focused on: "what's wrong", and "here's some medicine to fix it", or "exercise more", "drink less", etc..