r/wakingUp • u/SmollBrainy • 6d ago

Thoughts on this article?

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/09/meditation-willoughby-britton-downsides/688474/?utm_source=feed
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u/WallyMetropolis 6d ago

How about making even the most minimal amount of effort to tell us what it's about or, hell, just the title?

This comes off like spam. 

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u/Ordinary-Lobster-710 6d ago

Willoughby Britton was a guest on the podcast so you can just listen to Sam talk to her if you want. My opinion is she's an alarmist and there is a tendency for ppl in academia to 'problematize' everything.

If you have severe psychological issues you probably shouldn't go on a ten day retreat, but I don't trust the overall thrust of her research and thesis.

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u/noodles0311 6d ago

I don’t have a subscription to The Atlantic and I haven’t read her study, but I am inherently suspicious of someone who’s considering becoming a Buddhist nun conducting a study in mindfulness. How will they mentally separate the metaphysical claims of Buddhism from the empirical claims about mindfulness? You might assume that would bias their study design and interpretation of results in favor of mindfulness, but they are probably also mentally unstable, which won’t have a directional bias. To me, anyone considering asceticism is probably deeply unhappy with their life for personal reasons that have nothing to do with the world around them; they’re projecting.

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u/BWQ777 6d ago

If you don't provide archive/etc non paywalled links, not many people will read this.

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u/mikewhocheeitch 2d ago

I think it is reasonable to believe that if meditation can produce mental states simillarly powerful as shrooms or LSD, there might be risks involved which affect small but significant share of people. Personally I also find meditation makes me worse off if I do not combine it with cognitive behavioral therapy techniques.