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Originally Posted by Dent
Discussion ceased over a year and a half ago (Yoga thred.. also renewed recently I think) but I noted this in chapter one.
Doesn't sound like the "Before medication, yoga and meditation." mantra.
Waking Up by Sam Harris Chapter One - YouTube |
What Dent means, but was unable to communicate effectively, is that he deep-linked the Youtube video to a portion of the first chapter (transcipt below) which features what appears to be a CYA disclaimer on Sam Harris' part, then referenced a separate Nubblies thread (not linked) where we were discussing the benefits of yoga and meditation as a possible prerequisite (or replacement) to taking psychiatric medication.
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Originally Posted by Sam Harris
So I want to make it clear that the instructions in this book are intended for readers who are adults (more or less) and free from any psychological or medical conditions that could be exacerbated by meditation or other techniques of sustained introspection. If paying attention to your breath, to bodily sensations, to the flow of thoughts, or to the nature of consciousness itself seems likely to cause you clinically significant anguish, please check with a psychologist or a psychiatrist before engaging in the practices I describe.
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I would probably have to agree with Sam Harris on this point. Meditation can indeed decrease symptoms of depression (particularly as one pays more attention to their unconscious conditioned thoughts about society/reality, corrects them, and thus decreases negative thoughts as a whole), but I can also say from personal experience that sometimes the meditative state can be quite jarring and scary, especially when going through a
major depressive episode.
We live in a society that is terrified of death and many do not fully accept this inevitable fate until they are forced to by circumstances (death of a truly loved one, near death experience, etc) or until they are faced with their own death.
Clinical depression is a dangerous and generally misunderstood illness in itself, as those who do not suffer from it have a very difficult time understanding something that they cannot see and have not experienced (as opposed to more visible illnesses or injuries such as Cancer, or being a paraplegic) --- and this is one of the biggest challenges of American society today in my (biased) opinion, given that:
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...According to the National Institute of Mental Health, about "14.8 million adult Americans experience clinical depression in any given year -- or about 6.7 percent of the U.S. population over 18.----(1.)
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This means that if you are in a room with 100 people, about 7 of them are consistently plagued with suicidal thoughts and ideation.
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This is, quite clearly, a HUGE social problem, that will continue to go ignored for three main reasons that I have observed personally:
1. The majority of people who have never suffered from depression just simply don't understand it, and therefore are unable to empathize with those who are legitimately undergoing a major depressive episode -- preferring to mentally cast such judgments as "this person just wants attention", "you just need to buck up and stop moping around", "everybody gets sad, stop whining", etc.. It is extraordinarily damaging to a severely depressed person to issue these remarks when someone is very likely already feeling very guilty about feeling depressed in the first place and possibly considering suicide.
2. In general, people simply don't like to be around depressed people because their very presence/conversation tends to take those who are not depressed down their own avenues of negative thoughts and ideas about life, existence, and death, that they would to either not address or sweep under their own mental carpets. This is probably the saddest part of all, as it is quite literally compounding suffering.
3. Our society is very self-based (focusing almost exclusively on their own thoughts and dreams of personal gain rather than focusing on the happiness of a community as a whole), so many people don't even pick up on the "invisible" illness of depression in those they are close to until it is far too late.
Until we address these mass trends as a whole (something that I hope for eventually, but likely not in our lifetime), we will continue to lose valuable members of the human community to something that is generally treatable anad preventable.
If you are seriously interested in knowing what it is like to experience a clinical, long-term major depressive episode (lasting for weeks or months at a time), and actually have the ability/desire to empathize with your human brothers/sisters, this article is a good start: What It's Like Inside a Depressed Person's Head
P.S. -- for those not interested in listening to the audiobook, the entire excerpt of the 1st Chapter of this book can be found by scrolling down on the Amazon page for the book:
http://www.amazon.com/Waking-Up-Spir...ion/1451636016