Monday, November 19, 2018

Mantra Meditation Decreases PTSD

Transcendental meditation decreases PTSD
After three months of treatment, meditation was found to be just as effective in reducing PTSD symptoms as the most commonly used psychotherapy, prolonged exposure therapy, and better than health education classes.

Prolonged exposure psychotherapy focuses on re-experiencing the traumatic event through remembering and engaging with reminders of the trauma, as opposed to avoiding them.

Monday, November 12, 2018

Meditation Becoming More Popular

More adults and children are using yoga and meditation

The use of meditation increased more than threefold from 4.1 percent in 2012 to 14.2 percent in 2017.

Saturday, November 10, 2018

Psilocybin Could Be Legal for Therapy by 2021

We learned about a month ago that Psilocybin was given Breakthrough Therapy status, essentially fast tracking the drug for depression treatment.

But it's interesting that Rolling Stone decided to cover it, in Psilocybin Could Be Legal for Therapy by 2021.


Tuesday, November 6, 2018

Meditation Plus Running as a Treatment for Depression

Meditation Plus Running as a Treatment for Depression

The protocol was 20 minutes of breath counting meditation, followed by 10 minutes of walking meditation, followed by 30 minutes of aerobic exercise.
“We know from animal studies that effortful learning, such as is involved in learning how to meditate, encourages new neurons to mature” in the hippocampus
The lead researcher commented "I've started meditating".

Monday, November 5, 2018

Microdosers: Higher Wisdom, Openness, Creativity

People who ‘microdose’ LSD and magic mushrooms score higher on measures of wisdom, open-mindedness and creativity

Interesting pilot study based on self reporting from online participants.  At this point we don't know whether microdosing actually led to the differences, or whether people with such attributes are more likely to microdose.