Not that this will change the fashion for the industry but still, useful to know – excessive concentration upon your mental health makes you mad. This is why every psychiatrist anyone’s ever met appears to be psycho. Their own constant examination of their own psyche drives them nuts.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Meditation retreats bad for your mental health, study suggests[/perfectpullquote]To retreat from levity this isn’t really all that surprising:
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] Going on trendy meditation retreats may be bad for participants’ mental health, a new study suggests. An international survey of people who attended residential meditation programmes found three in ten suffered “unpleasant” episodes, including feelings of anxiety or fear. The study by University College London (UCL) found that, overall, more than a quarter of people who regularly meditate experience such feelings. However, those engaging in currently fashionable “deconstructive” forms such as Vipassana or Koan meditation, which encourage insight through questioning permanence of the self and the reality of sensations, were more likely to be affected. [/perfectpullquote]The very contention of that mindfulness industry is what explains this. The urging to meditate is explained by the idea that the human psyche is a fragile, cowering, beastie and thus needs to be examined, prodded and considered. Which is exactly the problem, the human psyche is a fragile, cowering, beastie and thus needs to be left alone as much as possible. Sure, there are violent breakdowns at times which should be aided. But something operating reasonably enough should be left to do so.
We all do make unconscious arrangements with the unfairnesses of this universe we inhabit. Our all too short time here for example. The gross unfairness of it only being when we’re wise enough to know what to do that there’s not time left to do it and all that. No one ever does quite cope with the existence of Simon Cowell. Digging all that up, those compromises we’ve made to keep our mental health, doesn’t work because we’re, well, we’re digging all that up.
Another way to put this is that forgetting has an important function. Stopping to remind ourselves of all that should be so, raking over all those wounds now decently covered with scar tissue is going to drive us nuts.
An alternative explanation could be the blather that the people being paid £1,500 a day to guide us through all this spout at us. Maybe even the sight of quite so many XXXL pairs of yoga pants. But something, obviously.
Go have a pint, a chat with friends and she’ll be right. As will be shown in the upcoming research paper* proving that the decline in mental health in recent years is intimately linked to the disappearance of the public bar.
*Arriving as soon as vital research funds are made available. We think perhaps some decade of buying significant rounds will be necessary as field studies.
The dieting app my wife uses proudly states that those who buy the premium version are more likely to loose weight. I’d be extremely worried if it didn’t given those people wanting to spend money on dieting are more likely to be serious about dieting.
I’m assuming these ‘deconstructive’ forms of yoga are rarer and so more expensive? And that the people who really feel they need to invest heavily in meditation and sorting themselves out are the ones with issues?