Saturday, April 29, 2017

Mindfulness works for women, but not for men?..new research

The "one size fits all" meditation programs/apps operate on the premise that their program works for everyone...every gender, age, nationality, religion, etc.  IME, that isn't the reality, as everyone unfolds in their own unique way and process, but there is little good research to prove it.

Willoughby Britton
Brown University
A recent article "Mindfulness may not work as well for men" begins with "Mindfulness courses have less effect on the attitudes and emotions of men than on those of women, new research suggests." This research, "Women Benefit More Than Men in Response to College-Based Meditation Training" by Rojiani, R. et al., was co-led by Willougby Britton.

Willoughby's work was featured in "Dark Night of the Soul - who/why/what to do" as she is a leading researcher on difficulties arising from mindfulness meditation, and is a serious meditator, clinical psychologist, and has "been there" in DNoS.

As the research points out, there has been "virtually no research investigating whether effects differ across genders - despite the fact that men and women differ in clinically significant ways".

Research demonstrates great differences between men and women, beginning in early adolescence, with girls being twice as likely by age 13 - 14 to suffer from depression and anxiety, and boys more likely to have "conduct disorder and substance use disorder".   This continues through adulthood and is found in many cultures.

There are also differences in how each gender copes with psychological distress.  Men tend to direct actions "outward"/externalizing with sports, video games, TV, etc.  Women tend to "internalize" by ruminating or writing.   (Many references.)

This study's initial population of 114 was reduced by 37 due to inadequate participation, follow-up, or incomplete questionnaires, leaving 36 women and 41 men, aged 20.5 (+/- 3 yrs), who were volunteers.   Data is from those who attended at least 50% (all italics mine) of the meditation labs and completed testing.  There was no apparent consideration of previous meditation experience.

Eleven students included in the study reported suicidal ideation during the study, some at the beginning and not at the end, others at the end but not the beginning.

A confound pointed out by the authors is that this is not a typical population.  They are Brown University undergraduates and consequently have well above-average intelligence, socioeconomic background and previous education.

This is a concern, given that mindfulness research studies (see "mindfulness meditation...does it work?") were found in a Journal of the American Medical Association study to be biased 79% of the time.  Also, 61% of social science research was not reproducible in a study published in Nature, a top tier journal.  Problems arise from limited resources, the demand for faculty publications, and personal bias.

Harold Roth
Brown University

Courses were 12 weeks long, on Brown's campus, for 1 hr, 3 times/wk, with 30 minutes of "contemplative practice from Buddhist or Daoist traditions" led by Harold Roth.  These were "primarily focused attention and open monitoring forms of practice" and "emphasized attention allocation rather than the non-judgmental acceptance that is common in more modern Western styles of mindfulness..".

IMHO, this is also a confound as it may well have improved results over those possible from "modern" mindfulness practices.

There were great differences in "intervention adherence" (how much folk meditated) ranging from 810 to 6,591 minutes.  IMHO, this is a confound as it really does matter how much you meditate.


The self-reported assessment measures were:

Negative Affect by Gender
         a) "Affect" which describes the degree to which one experiences:
       positive states like
           -interested
           -excited
           -enthusiastic
vs negative states like
          -ashamed
          -irritable
          -distressed


The Pre/Post figure shows that the negative affect decreased significantly in women, but increased in men.  Neither gender showed positive affect.
       


Mindfulness and Self-compassion by Gender
        b)  "Mindfulness" addressed:
             1. acting with awareness
             2. describing
             3. accepting w/o judgment
             4.  non-reactivity to inner experience
             5. observing
           
      c)  "Self-compassion" addressed:
              1. common humanity
              2. isolation
              3. mindfulness                                        
              4. over-identification                            
              5. self-judgment
              6. self-kindness

Women did better than men in all of these.


One confound the authors cited was limiting "gender" to two categories, when it is a continuum.

Old what's his name
in "Yoga for Wellness" by
Gary Kraftsow

The important conclusion was that men require "more active" mindfulness approaches such as yoga or Tai Chi to "better accommodate the external coping strategy more typical of men".   Also, some mindfulness approaches may be "contra-indicated"/harmful for some folk.

Using different approaches for different capabilities and temperaments has been recognized for millennia.  For example, the Bhagavad Gita provides three approaches...

                 a )  Karma Yoga, the path of action and surrendering any attachment to the outcome of one's work

                b)   Jnana Yoga, the path of wisdom, knowledge and direct experience of the One/Infinite Consciousness/"God" while renouncing both actions and desires

               c)  Bhakti Yoga, the path of devotion involving unceasing remembrance of, and surrender to a chosen "God"

Eido Roshi
i was drawn to Rinzai Zen which uses koans/questions to engage and confound the intellect's "conceptual thinking".  Soto Zen focuses on "shikan taza", or "nothing but precisely sitting" or "sitting to hit" w/great intensity.  When i co-led our regional zendo, both types were practiced.

i studied with a man and a woman.  One, a traditional, strict Japanese master - the now "controversial" Roshi Eido Tai Shimano, the other - the late iconoclastic Toni Packer.

Toni rose to be Philip Kapleau's successor at the Rochester Zen Center (RZC).  After encountering J. Krishnamurti's teaching and rebelling against organized religion, Toni was excommunicated from RZC and formed a no robes, no titles, no rituals, voluntary-sitting center - the Springwater Center.

The RZC and Eido practices represent traditional Rinzai Zen, and Toni's Springwater practices represent a "modern" meditative inquiry.

Springwater Center
The traditional Rinzai  koans, translated from Japanese and Chinese, did not "work" for me, and i suspect many others who had no context, history or deep understanding of the Japanese or Chinese languages or traditions in which they were framed.

In their stead, both Toni and Eido approved my using the "natural" self-inquiry koans of Bassui ("Dharma Talk on One Mind"), which was expounded fully in Ramana Maharshi's teachings.  Also, i did a "more active" approach with lots of various yogas.   After much work, Toni and Eido both passed me and Toni said i could teach.

It is important to find your own path, tailored to your temperament and capability, the essence of the Brown study on gender in mindfulness.   That is why i work so much 1/1.



Mother Goddess
of Catalhayouk
6000 B.C.E.

On the subject of gender bias, whether you are a man or a woman, i strongly recommend streaming the BBC video "The Ascent of Woman".  The earliest organized societies were egalitarian, and the first writer and "Gods" were women, which continued for millennia, until it didn't.  The Ancient Greeks, for all their supposed sophistication, were some of the worst misogynists.   An eye-opening, and illuminating series.
  

22 comments:

  1. Deeply appreciated, Gary. An illuminating and provoking commentary. IME, it is easy for the 'tech' to palliate symptoms, but do little to uproot the underlying mistaken belief in self/ego which will continue spin up endless impotent attempts to control, acquire or avert.

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    1. Hi Glenn. Always great to hear from you. Appreciate your comments on the commentary. Wonderful that you found it so useful. Yes, unless the belief in the I/ego/self is carefully examined, questioned and surrendered, folk just frantically run around in a futile attempt to stamp out symptoms and end the suffering. stillness

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  2. I understand what the article is saying but I can't relate to it. I tend to be a ruminator and I've always tended to keep thoughts to myself rather than go punch a bag or something. Does this mean I should stop any mindfulness practice and go to the local yoga/Tai Chi center even if I don't feel drawn to doing that? I don't know, I feel sceptical about some of this. There should be room for individuality rather than a "if you're a man you should do yoga and if you're a woman you should go sit on a cushion" approach.

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    1. Hi Unknown. No, it doesn't mean you should stop your mindfulness practice.

      IME, it was critical to add yoga to my self-inquiry sitting practice described in the post as without it, so many of the fears, anxieties, attachments and deeply-held stories are not released so they could be inquired into and let go of.

      It is also critical if you are sitting longer than the 30 minutes described in this study, which to me is exactly the wrong length of time, to be able to sit comfortably for 40 or 45 minutes which is the standard length of time in traditional Zen.

      i found in my > 35,000 of hours of self-inquiry, letting go practice and yoga that sitting longer than 35 minutes was critical if you were going to get any "pleasure" out of the sit, as that is when the "runner's high" of dopamine kicks in. Then the brain became basically "addicted" to sitting, so it is/was an ongoing pleasure to practice.

      If you stop at 20 or 30 minutes you do all the work w/o any of the good stuff which is why so many folk stop their meditation practice.

      Continue with your sitting, but couple it with some meditative movement activity to keep the body flexible and strong and release its stored traumas and memories, not because it is something "guys" have to do.

      Trust this is useful.

      stillness

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    2. Thanks for elaborating Gary.

      One thing specifically which I did not understand from the study was whether these differences in reaction to mindfulness were biological in nature as in does mindfulness not work for guys because of their brain structure etc. but that didn't make any sense because I'm sure R. Maharshi or 20 other people from non-dual history were not bad meditators because of their gender. I take studies like these with a pinch of salt.

      Thanks again.

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    3. H Unknown,

      i'll add what perhaps is obvious, but since mindfulness doesn't work for men, as mentioned in the post, self-inquiry worked for me so i would recommend you try self-inquiry. It is described in detail in the post "What is the 'Direct Path' to nondual awakening? What is self-inquiry?" @ http://happinessbeyondthought.blogspot.com/2012/08/what-is-direct-path-to-nondual.html.

      you can also read the blogposts "Dialogues with Dominic" (now a book), "Dialogues with Oskar", "Dialogues with Rikki", and "Dialogues with John", to see how these men used self-inquiry successfully in a variety of life situations and real jobs in the "real world".

      stillness

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    4. Hi Anonymous,

      Ramana Maharshi was the contemporary master, and expounder of self-inquiry, so he didn't do mindfulness meditation either. Many folk mistake "mindfulness" for "meditation" as if that is the only form of meditation there is because it is currently so popular. However, there are many other forms of meditation that work for men, and for women.

      stillness

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    5. I've read a few of your other blogposts and it would seem like mindfulness is not very useful at all for long term transformation, the type that a non-dual awakening facilitates. I'm still not sure if I should drop the practice altogether and focus exclusively on non-dual inquiry but I do find it useful to center back to my breath when the mind gets hectic and it does work as a short term calming technique.

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    6. Hi Anonymous. It is only useful in the way you mentioned, ie. "as a short term calming technique"...it does not produce lasting change as it has a "doer" to be mindful. The video "Does Mindfulness Lead to Persistent Nonduality?" @ https://youtu.be/6UI0Tpfz_8g may also be useful.

      As for what practices to do, the "Guided Meditation" playlist @ https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuH37Fyz9VEMrD8dcreiCNKGROGlOENhL gives five different approaches to a nondual meditation practice that you may find useful as well. Also, my first book, "Happiness Beyond Thought: A Practical Guide to Awakening" (free download @ http://preview.tinyurl.com/bslfll8 gives many, many practices and how to do them.

      If you look under "Show More" in any of my youTube videos, you'll see links to all of my work, all free in some format.

      stillness

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  3. Hi Gary,
    Great article. Early on in inquiry practice it was sometimes confusing as the mind made it out to be much more complicated than the reality of the situation.
    Once there was acceptance and surrender to the simplicity of the practice coupled with persistence, then suffering was greatly reduced.
    IME, this is not a practice of making someone a "better" person, but rather simply removing suffering at its deepest core, and allowing what's left to shine through. You just may appear to be a "better" person after or you may not appear to be "better", yet there is greatly reduced self referential narrative. Truly not much of an "I" thought to experience suffering so it is almost non existent at times. Self inquiry appears to be the one and only way to remove i thoughts permanently.


    Dom

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    1. Hi Dom,
      Thanks for the insights.

      For those of you who don't know "Dominic", he is Dominic of the "Dialogues with Dominic" series, the latest/last of which is "Dialogues with Dominic - I Am That, Wow, Going All In" @ http://happinessbeyondthought.blogspot.com/2015/04/dialogues-with-dominic-i-am-that-wow.html.

      Dominic, and Jake, which whom i also worked a lot, have put together a great book called "Dialogues with Dominic: A Chronicle of Inquiry and Awakening" summarizing those dialogues and some that Dom did with Jake, available @ https://www.amazon.com/Dialogues-Dominic-Chronicle-Inquiry-Awakening/dp/1518886531/.

      Strongly recommended.

      stillness

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  4. Hi Gary.

    I've read a lot of your blogposts and two books on inquiry but I'm running to a few hangups, I hope you'll be able to clarify what's going on.

    First, I'm not sure which thoughts I should be inquiring into. I can have thousands of thoughts within a span of an hour and most of them aren't really threatening. It's stuff like "I gotta go to the bank", "I should do this, etc etc.". If I inquired into every thought I would go crazy because I would not be able to focus on life. Should I make it so that I only inquire into thoughts that bother me?

    Second, sometimes I don't have a clear idea of the thought I'm supposed to inquire into. I get an unpleasant bodily reaction to something (anxiety, anger, etc.) but I can't immediately identify the source of this emotion. What should I do in this scenario?

    Thank you

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    1. Hi Mikeler,

      That is exactly the problem, there are just too many thoughts rushing by to analyze each one that arises and then decide what to do about this particular thought before it disappears and is replaced by dozens of others.

      The problem is focusing on the "objects", the thoughts, and not on the "subject", the ego/I, that is at the root of the problem as every problematic thought has an I/me/my in it, every one.

      Amazingly, virtually no western philosophers, except perhaps Spinoza, recognized the problem, and focused on the subject as the source of the problem. Only the eastern disciplines and philosophers recognized the opportunity with working on the subject to get rid of the thoughts.

      If you look @ the videos "Where do our thoughts come from?" @ https://youtu.be/TcxvR3Smijw, and "What 'no thoughts' means...3 different kinds of thoughts" @ https://youtu.be/WnWxCgiZfrc, and the blogpost "what are 'planning thoughts'? what are 'narrative' thoughts'?" @ http://happinessbeyondthought.blogspot.com/2011/10/what-are-planning-thoughts-what-are.html you'll get a better idea of the approach to be taken.

      Fortunately, the two different types of thoughts have a distinctly different feel and they emerge from/through two different neural networks. The brain can quickly learn to separate these out and let the "planning" thoughts like "How do I get to the coffee house?" go, and focus on eliminating the "self-referential internal narrative"/SRIN thoughts like from "How the #$%$#^ can i EVER get to the coffee house in time for our meeting?!!!" by deconstructing the "I".

      Trust this is useful.

      stillness
      gary

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    2. Thank you for explaining.

      What do you think about the topic of change? Is any long term transformation of our psyche and minds possible? I've heard the argument go around that most of our behaviour and thinking is survival based and can be explained by evolution. If we are just by-products of natural selection, can we really do anything to change our destiny as humans and overcome painful attachments like jealousy, anger, anxiety, etc. if we assume those behaviours are evolutionarily "hard wired" into our psyche?

      I've read a lot of biological determinism type arguments which say that we can never really move past our painful attachments because evolution made us that way.

      I've very curious what your thoughts are on this.

      Thank you.

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    3. Hi Mikeler,

      The famous physicist Stephen Hawking had been predicting that our species had 1000 years more to exist, which isn't much. However, recently he has lowered that to 100 years. It is clear to many folk that our species' evolutionary clock is running out rapidly.

      While our species' hardware is "good but not great", we do have much evolutionarily-installed software that "seemed like a good idea at the time" when we were coming out of the caves, but is now just not able to deal with contemporary life as you point out.

      Either we change that software dramatically and very soon, or our species won't survive for more than a few more generations. This is discussed in the blogpost "Can we survive w/our current OS and buggy programs" @ http://happinessbeyondthought.blogspot.com/2017/04/can-we-survive-wour-current-os-and.html and the videos "Are 'we' just outdated buggy programs? @ https://youtu.be/dnfNn4I6Zbg and "Upgrading your mental operating system" @ https://youtu.be/EK8pcUt4gio.

      The earth will certainly benefit from our disappearance, and the rest of the species will survive or not as they adapt to the changing environment. We will just go into that list of extinct species. The average mammal lifespan has been about 1 million years, but homo sapiens' has existed for only about 200,000 years so we'll be anomalously short.

      It is a crisis, IMHO, but we're in denial.

      stillness

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  5. The ego is made up of:
    (1) (Self-Referential) Linguistic thoughts
    (2) (SR) Visual thoughts
    (3) (SR) Bodily feelings

    If (1) is constantly “nipped in the bud” whensoever it arises using “self-inquiry”, (2) and (3) cannot survive for long (the entire house of cards eventually falls). If the flow of (1) is restricted constantly, the entire egoic system will eventually go through a cathartic release. The cathartic release is a sign of the ego dissolving itself. But the “linguistic-thought-system” is what prevents the natural cathartic release to happen.

    So an effective way to dismantle the ego quickly is by constantly “stop linguistic thinking”, the moment one notices that it’s going on in the mind. Whenever not “tasking” (actively doing something), keep on trying to stop the “word-formations” happening in your mind at any given moment. You can think using images; you can feel whatever you are feeling right now; you don’t have to manipulate your feelings, perceptions or sensations. ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS TO CONSTANTLY TRY TO STOP OR DISRUPT THE PROCESS “THINKING IN WORDS” (whenever you are not in “tasking mode”).

    When you notice a “linguistic thought formation” in your mind, you can ask the self-inquiry question “to whom does this thought arise?” and it will release. Once you get some traction with this practice, it’s even better if you can engage in (what I call) “non-linguistic inquiry”. Even self-inquiry questions like “who am I?” or “where am I?” are linguistically-formed thoughts which will help you to escape the realm of linguistic-thinking. A few days ago, I’ve noticed that it’s much more effective and efficient to do the inquiry without even asking the inquiry question. Just try to stop all “word-formations”, even the “word-formations” that makes up the inquiry-question. Previously I was trying to tweak my perceptions, mindset, feelings etc. in order to arrive at a nondual state. I was trying to manufacture a nondual experience. Now I realize I was focusing on the wrong things. I don’t have to focus on changing my feelings, perceptions, sensations or mindset – all I have to do is to repeatedly try to stop “mental word-formations” whenever its occurrence is noticed and this I now realize, might be most direct portal into the nondual experience.

    BTW, concurring with Gary that mindfulness doesn’t seem to work as far as complete ego-deconstruction work is concerned. Self-inquiry is a linguistically formulated device designed to uninstall the self-referential linguistic thinking mechanism. At best, mindfulness could only slow down or “temporarily” stop linguistic thinking, but it won’t “uninstall” the ego. In fact, if you want to uninstall the ego, you might have to uninstall the “mindfulness program” first, if that has been installed in your system, because unlike the “linguistic self-inquiry” program, the former doesn’t have a “self-uninstallation-at-the-end” mechanism and the ego will survive as the ‘doer’ of mindfulness.

    Also, just read the “Dialogues with Dominic: A Chronicle of Inquiry and Awakening” (although I have read all the blogposts previously). Dominic’s suggestions to Jake were very useful for me. His advices lead me to the conclusion that this work is just all about persisting on with the inquiry (without expectations). As things seem to be opening up more and more for me these days experientially by doing persistent inquiry, I can’t help but wonder at the astounding simplicity of this practice in contrast to its life-changing consequences, once one gets the hang of it.

    P.S. This got a bit too lengthy. Sorry for that.

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    1. Hi Navaneet.

      As always "a bit too lengthy"...no need to be "sorry", you had no choice in whether it was long or not, or whether you are typically long. Saying you're "sorry" carries with it the belief that you could have done otherwise, which isn't the case. It is all out of our control...all of it...even the slightest thing, as we never know when something we might believe is "not important", turns out to be enormously important in "our life" or somebody else's.

      Good stuff.

      stillness
      gary

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    2. Hi Gary,

      Who/What is in control?

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    3. Hi Anonymous,

      "Something" is in control.

      my path was a secular, scientific, empirical one, as i had turned away totally from religion, so i was just seeing if i could stop this self-referential internal narrative. When the page turned, like a leaf falling, and the "I" fell away, it was apparent that "my life" was running better w/o me in it.

      It was obvious that not only was i not in control, but i had never been, despite my strong feeling that everything that had happened had been my "doing".

      As i surrendered during the awakening process, it certainly "felt" like i was being held, somehow, by something and "protected"...the more i surrendered, the more it seems that i was being held and helped. When i totally surrendered, i was totally held. As it felt more like "feminine" caring, than the Old Testament "masculine" energy, i have named it "She".

      The best model for "Her" that is credible with today's physics is the Higgs field, the discoverer of which got the Nobel prize, which is all-pervasive, and can create matter as described in the blogpost "How 'consciousness' creates matter...the God particle? @ http://happinessbeyondthought.blogspot.com/2013/02/how-consciousness-creates-matterthe-god.html and in "Consciousness over matter?" @ http://happinessbeyondthought.blogspot.com/2014/04/consciousness-over-matter-what.html.

      This "all pervasive field" would logically have at least the properties of all elements in the field, so it must be "self-conscious" and intelligent, and IME, is able to create all sorts of amazing, useful, serendipities that defy belief on a daily basis.

      It seems like She is that field, and She is continuously evolving and we are Her evolutionary sensing pods as every different possibility is explored through each of us. This also fits perfectly with all of the nondual/Advaitic texts for Brahman/atman, including the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads, etc.

      That's what's in control.

      stillness

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  6. Really useful, Gary. Thanks. This note about how men tend to be more active and externalizing is helpful. This also dovetails with what you say about the importance of a physical practice as an adjunct to sitting. Cedric.

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    1. Hi Cedric,

      Great that you found it useful. Yes, it is really important to have some physical practice to go along with the sitting meditation practice.

      There is some recent excellent research on running and brain health, "Adaptive Capacity: An Evolutionary Neuroscience Model Linking Exercise, Cognition, and Brain Health" in Trends in Neuroscience by Raichlen and Alexander.

      When our species began "hunting and gathering", about 60,000 years ago on the African veldt, it required the development of a lot of problem solving, planning, and memory capability as well as running around. The brain was evolved to tie physical activity with brain skills and health, so it isn't surprising that meditation works better when we do some physical exercise.

      This is a big weakness in many meditation traditions and leads to all sorts of problems, including not even accessing much fear, trauma and many stories that are stored in the physical body and motor cortex.

      stillness

      gary

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