Meditation Task

A Meditation Task is a introspection task that requires the person to attain a mediation state (with diminished mental content).

• Context:
  • It can (typically) be instantiated in a Meditation Session (containing meditation states).
  • It can be associated with a Psychological Effect.
  • It can be associated with a Physiological Effect.
  • It can be associated with a Meditation Study.
  • It can range from being a Individual Meditation Task to being a Group Meditation Task.
  • …
• Example(s):
  • My meditation routine typically involves: ...
  • A Group Meditation Training Task.
  • Next week, I plan to meditate two hours per day.
  • Ket-itation (while on ketamine).
  • …
• Counter-Example(s):
  • Journaling.
  • Exercising.
  • Sleeping.
• See: Mind, Meditative Postures.

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References

2023

• https://theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/aug/01/psychedelic-corporate-retreat-drug-trip-silicon-valley
  • QUOTE: ... three-hour “ket-itation” – that’s ketamine and meditation ...
  • QUOTE: ... Researchers have found that psychedelic drugs such as LSD, ibogaine and MDMA can reopen “critical periods” in the brain that can influence brain development. ...

2020

• (Wikipedia, 2020) ⇒ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meditation Retrieved:2020-4-8.
  • Meditation is a practice where an individual uses a technique – such as mindfulness, or focusing the mind on a particular object, thought, or activity – to train attention and awareness, and achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state. Scholars have found meditation difficult to define, as practices vary both between traditions and within them.

    Meditation has been practiced since antiquity in numerous religious traditions, often as part of the path towards enlightenment and self realization. The earliest records of meditation (Dhyana), come from the Hindu traditions of Vedantism. Since the 19th century, Asian meditative techniques have spread to other cultures where they have also found application in non-spiritual contexts, such as business and health.

    Meditation may be used with the aim of reducing stress, anxiety, depression, and pain, and increasing peace, perception, self-concept, and well-being. Meditation is under research to define its possible health (psychological, neurological, and cardiovascular) and other effects.

2020

• (Wikipedia, 2020) ⇒ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_on_meditation Retrieved:2020-4-8.
  • For the purpose of this article, research on meditation concerns research into the psychological and physiological effects of meditation using the scientific method. In recent years, these studies have increasingly involved the use of modern scientific techniques and instruments, such as fMRI and EEG which are able to directly observe brain physiology and neural activity in living subjects, either during the act of meditation itself, or before and after a meditation effort, thus allowing linkages to be established between meditative practice and changes in brain structure or function.

    Since the 1950s hundreds of studies on meditation have been conducted, but many of the early studies were flawed and thus yielded unreliable results. Contemporary studies have attempted to address many of these flaws with the hope of guiding current research into a more fruitful path. In 2013, researchers at Johns Hopkins, publishing in the Journal of the American Medical Association, identified 47 studies that qualify as well-designed and therefore reliable. Based on these studies, they concluded that there is moderate evidence that meditation reduces anxiety, depression, and pain, but no evidence that meditation is more effective than active treatment (drugs, exercise, other behavioral therapies). A 2017 commentary was similarly mixed. The process of meditation, as well as its effects, is a growing subfield of neurological research. Modern scientific techniques and instruments, such as fMRI and EEG, have been used to study how regular meditation affects individuals by measuring brain and bodily changes.

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