Tag: research

Chronic fatigue syndrome & the pandemic

moe Leave a comment

There are several connections between Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) and the current Covid 19 pandemic, and I have written about it in previous posts. Here is a brief summary.

Long covid was predicted and predictable

CFS is also called a post-viral syndrome since it often follows a viral infection.

Those of us familiar with post-viral syndromes and CFS predicted that we would see many post-viral syndrome cases following the covid 19 infections.

There would be a pandemic within the pandemic. First, those who got acute covid 19 infections. And then, those with the post-viral syndrome and CFS following these infections.

I wrote about this a year ago, at the very beginning of the global pandemic.

Research into CFS & post-viral syndromes

The slight silver lining in this situation is that long-covid may lead to the medical field and governments taking post-viral syndromes and CFS, in general, more seriously. We may see the beginnings of this.

The main symptoms of long covid and CFS are the same: fatigue, PEM, and brain fog. Although there may also be some unique symptoms of long covid, including visible damage to the lungs and other organs.

A missed opportunity

The medical world has largely ignored CFS. It’s often not been taken seriously as a biological disease, and there has been minimal research into it.

That’s doubly unfortunate.

It’s unfortunate for those of us who have CFS and know it’s a real and serious disease.

And they missed a golden opportunity to be prepared for long covid.

We knew a pandemic would come and that we were on schedule for a new one.

And we knew that viral infections lead to a significant number of post-viral syndromes.

So why didn’t they take the opportunity to prepare by learning about CFS and possible causes and cures? Why didn’t they take the opportunity to nip the predictable current upsurge in post-viral cases in the bud?

In the coming decades, ignoring CFS will go down in medical history as an injustice to those with CFS. And also a missed golden opportunity to learn more about CFS before the predictable pandemic upsurge in people with post-viral syndromes AKA long covid.

This pandemic may be a triple pandemic. The first is the viral and medical pandemic. The second is the social cost. And the third is the large numbers of those with long covid.

If researchers and governments had the foresight, they could have prevented the third. Now, they are instead playing catch-up.

tagged: cfs, health, medicine for a condition, politics, research, society  

What happens after death: A question for faith or science?

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What happens after death? Many see this as a question for religions and spirituality. Although since it’s a question about reality, and the job of science is to investigate reality, it’s clearly a question (also) for science. It’s something that can be studied, at least to some extent. And it is something that is currently being studied at a few universities.

It is clearly an essential question. The answer has a huge impact on how we see ourselves and understand the world. So why is it not one of the main areas of studies at universities around the world?

I assume it may be for a couple of different reasons. It has traditionally – long before modern science existed – been a question for religion. Modern science operates from a mainly materialistic worldview. And it is generally a taboo topic in academic circles, at least outside of the religion and philosophy departments.

If or when a scientist takes it seriously and as a topic of research, they break a lot of traditions and taboos. And not everyone are willing or able to do that.

I suspect this will change. I imagine a world in the future where this – and other “parapsychological” topics – are standard subjects for research at universities across the world.

Why? Because these are central questions. Because they can be studied by science. And because existing and future research may accumulate enough data to bring about an eventual paradigm shift.

Image: The Passing of the Soul at Death by Evelyn De Morgan

tagged: religion, research, science  

Demystifying awakening

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Many see awakening as something mystical or even mythical, and some ideas about it are not well-grounded in reality: It doesn’t exist. It’s for a few special people. There is no way to understand what it’s about. It’s a state of endless bliss. It will solve all your problems. You need to “renounce the world”. We can’t do research on it because it doesn’t exist, it’s too nebulous, or it has no practical value.

Fortunately, we live in a period of history where awakening is demystified. Why do we see this demystifying?

Many Asian spiritual teachers ended up in California and other densely populated areas of the US in the mid-1900s. It means that some practitioners there have a lifetime of experience, some have become teachers themselves, and the teachings are adapting to the culture. And since the US culture is famously pragmatic, it’s often explored, understood, and spoken about in a pragmatic way.

Since the 90s, there is new ease of global communication. Although awakening happens relatively rarely, large numbers of people around the world are on an awakening path, and these are now able to connect, communicate, and share experiences. In the past, people would have to be in the same place or write letters to communicate, and write or read books in order to share information and thoughts. Now, we just need to go on a forum online, participate in an online conference, class, or sharing group, or connect with friends we have found around the world.

There is also more research on spiritual practices and I imagine this will only continue but grow and become more mainstream. There is even research on awakening, and I imagine this will continue and grow as well.

Secularized forms of traditional spiritual practices are becoming more widespread and used in medical and business settings. It’s not uncommon to have mindfulness classes in hospitals and workplaces. This is not about awakening, but it contributes to normalize the practices and develop a pragmatic language in talking about some of the effects.

As mentioned above, more people are using a pragmatic language to describe and explore awakening. A language stripped of traditional terminology, and one that is more easily accessible and understandable to the western mind. This goes along with what I – in other articles – call a small or psychological interpretation of awakening.

Modern forms of traditional inquiry – like the Big Mind process, Headless experiments, and Living Inquiries – can give just about anyone a taste of what awakening is about within a few minutes. It’s not distant or unapproachable anymore.

A more pragmatic and demystified view on awakening is perhaps not only inevitable but healthy and appropriate for a western culture that’s mainly secular and pragmatic.

I am personally grateful. When the initial awakening happened for me, it was in the pre-internet era and it took a long time for me to find people who understood – first in books (Meister Eckart was the first) and later with people (my friend BH and Jes Bertelsen’s then-wife). And I am grateful for the pragmatic and more secularized language. It helps us see what’s important and perhaps what’s less important (although we need to be open to the possibility that some of what we discard is important and bring it back in again).

If all language around spiritual practice and awakening would go secular and pragmatic, something essential would be lost. But there is little or no danger of that happening anytime soon. Spiritual language and understanding, and secular language and understanding, can very well co-exist and they can feed into and inform each other in a beautiful way. There is a richness in the traditions that can inform the secularized understanding. And there is a pragmatism in the secularized approach that can benefit the traditions.

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tagged: awakening, demystifying, essential topic, practices, pragmatic, research, traditions  

Why isn’t there more research on what happens after this life?

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Why isn’t there more research on what happens after this life?

After all, it’s clearly an important topic. All of us will die. It has a direct bearing on what worldview we adopt as a consensus worldview in our modern society. And it is possible to study. (And some do, as outlined in – among other books – Surviving Death by Leslie Kean.)

So if there are good reasons to do this type of research, and a few already do, why isn’t there more research?

The most obvious answer is that it’s (still) taboo in our modern society. It goes against the consensus atheist view of modern science. (Which I mostly agree with apart from when it creates a taboo.) And it steps into a minefield of opinions from religions and religious people around the world. For both of those reasons, you risk upsetting people if you enter this field through research.

That’s perhaps why it has become a taboo. And why most scientists leave it alone. They see it as a field for personal opinion and not something to explore through research.

Of course, it’s also irrational to maintain this taboo. As mention earlier, it’s an important topic with great ramifications for how we see ourselves and the world and it’s well within what we can do research on. There are no good reasons to not do research in this field, apart from the taboo itself.

And yet, taboos have a way of maintaining themselves. People acculturate and adopt the taboo, sometimes without even knowing what’s happening, and then ridicule and reject those who go outside of it. In this way, scientists are not necessarily more rational than anyone else.

This goes for any research on topics outside of the current mainstream view on the world, including research on ESP and the effects of energy healing.

Will it change? Probably. I can easily imagine a world where this type of research is more widely performed and accepted, and where the findings inform our consensus worldview. After all, it is important. And we can do good research on it.

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tagged: death, research, science, society  

The upside of feeling a bit grumpy: getting things done

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I regularly notice the upside of being a bit grumpy.

It helps me get things done. It helps me overcome inertia so I can do tasks I, on other days, may put off due to some resistance.

This is an example of helpful daily-life strategies. I notice I am a bit grumpy, and I intentionally use that grumpiness and the energy behind it to get things done I have earlier put off.

In the longer run, it’s also good to explore what’s behind the resistance and resolve it. It may be (unexplored) fear and discomfort, and behind that stressful beliefs and identifications, and behind that early life experiences creating wounds, stressful beliefs, and perhaps (mostly low grade) trauma.

Going back to the initial strategy, there is now some research on grumpiness and pushing through resistance. It’s an example of research where – I assume – the researcher had a hunch, followed up on it through research, and had it confirmed. The hunch may have been from noticing something in their own life, or being told about it, or reading about it in fiction literature. And, of course, the research may later be interpreted in different ways, or later research may find something else. That’s always a possibility.

It’s also an example of research that may seem a bit obvious. Since psychology as a scientific discipline is still in its infancy, a lot of the research will seem a bit obvious. It needs to be to create a foundation to build on. And, sometimes, they do find things that initially may seem counterintuitive.

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tagged: psychology, research, strategies  

Awakening and mainstream psychology

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Is awakening and mainstream psychology compatible?

I would say yes. At least if we understand awakening in a pragmatic way, use a simple language, and frame awakening so it makes sense from a psychological view. And if there is some generosity and willingness from the psychological world.

Here is an example of how we can talk about it:

(a) Our perception is always of all as consciousness. We don’t perceive objects, people, or the world. We perceive sensory input and imaginations mimicking sensory input, and all that happens within and as consciousness.

Apart from being logical, we can also explore it in immediate experience and find it for ourselves. If something appears real and solid, it’s because mind tells itself this experience is the real world. In reality, it’s a combination of sense experiences and imaginations of these sense experiences.

(b) So awakening is just a shift of our center of gravity, what we take ourselves to be, from content of experience to that which experience happens within and as. It’s a shift from ideas of being a human to the awakeness or consciousness it all happens within and as. Instead of taking ourselves to be content of experience, we find ourselves as context.

I say “just a shift” because it’s simple in theory. It’s easy to grasp as an idea. But the actual shift can take a good amount of work. We may have glimpses and short periods of experiencing this shift, but a more stable and thorough shift typically takes work (and, mostly, grace).

The idea that awakening and mainstream psychology are incompatible comes partly from weird and “mystical” ideas of awakening, and partly from psychology wanting to stay sober and down to earth. Of course, there is already a good deal of interest and research on mindfulness in psychology. And I suspect one of the next steps will be a genuine interest in, and research on, awakening. Using a simple, pragmatic, and sober language when we talk about awakening will support that step.

What may research on awakening look like? Here are some possibilities:

How people who claim a stable and clear awakening function in life? What are the typical characteristics? How do they perceive and operate? What are the brain and other physical characteristics?

The difference between the awakening itself and how it’s lived and embodied. How much of the person is on board or aligned with the awakening. How to support that embodiment.

What’s the process to awakening? What are the paths? What works for whom? What’s the most effective approaches for people in specific situations (personality, inclinations etc.)?

What are the pitfalls on the path? What can go wrong? When is it more likely to go wrong? When is it less likely? What can we do to prevent it? What can we do when something does go wrong? What are the approaches that work best for the different scenarios?

My guess is that we’ll see this type of academic focus and interest more and more in the coming decades.

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tagged: awakening, psychology, research  

Research ideas for Vortex Healing

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How would we do research on Vortex Healing?

Here are some ideas:

Sensing

(a) Can senior VH practitioners sense specific illnesses? For instance, a group of people with diagnosed illnesses are selected, along with some who are healthy. The VH practitioners tune into each one, one at a time, and report what they sense. A control group of non-VH practitioners is in the same setting, making their own guesses. This obviously should be a double-blind study where the ones selecting the patients are different from the ones interacting with the VH practitioners, and only the first group knows who has which illness.

(b) Can senior VH practitioners sense other things? For instance, can they sense who has energetic structures put into them? (A common feature of a VH session.) Again, this should be a double-blind study. A group of people is selected. Half have energetic structures put into them by VH practitioners. Another set of VH practitioners check in with each one and report what they sense. And the people organizing the first part of the study should be different from the people organizing the second part.

The advantage of these studies is that they are relatively easy to do, require a minimum of resources, and – if done properly and published by reputable researchers – could have some impact in certain parts of the science community (mainly the ones already interested in these things).

Healing

(a) Lab studies of healing. For instance, the classic microbes-in-a-petri dish study. Out of ten petri dishes with equal amounts of microbes, a senior VH healer does healing on five of them. Is there a difference in the levels of microbes in those dishes some days later? The same can be done with cancer cells.

(b) Compare VH with other forms of treatments, in addition to a baseline of standard medical treatment for all patients. People with a specific diagnosed illness are randomly assigned different treatments, including no treatment, and then compared some months later. As mentioned above, all patients would obviously receive standard medical treatment for whatever condition they have.

Healers

(a) How do long-term active VH practitioners compare with other groups when it comes to their own health? Do they live longer? Have different levels of diagnosed illnesses? How is their overall sense of well being? Their psychological health? Brain scans? And what personality types are attracted to VH?

Here, the other groups would include, for instance, yoga practitioners, massage therapists, meditators, etc. who have practiced for about as long and about as much. It would be good to have a baseline group of people from the general population as well.

The problem with this type of study is that people attracted to the different modalities may have different levels of health challenges to begin with. So any differences between groups may be there from before they got involved and not as a result of the practices.

(b) A stronger study would be to test a group of people as they start their respective practices, and then re-test after a few years (longitudinal). That would require a good deal more participants since many would likely drop out.

Methods

If possible, randomized with control group(s), double-blind etc. The strongest methods practically feasible.

This list is organized, more or less, from the most to least feasible. The three first require relatively few resources, while the last three would require quite a bit more to be done well.

Some of these types of studies have been done on energy or faith healers in the past, although by a fringe in the scientific community. At some point in the future, these types of studies may be more common and more widely accepted. I have no idea when. It could be decades but it could also take centuries since it would require a paradigm shift in mainstream science. The scientific methods would be the same, but for the scientific community as a whole to be interested would require quite a shift in worldview.

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tagged: research, vortex healing  

TRE for muscle pain

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In the context of therapeutic trembling, the body releases tension and trauma whether we think it belongs to the mind or the body. The body doesn’t really differentiate between the two.

I was recently reminded of how valuable TRE can be for releasing physical trauma. I pulled some muscles in the lower back a few days ago, and have done TRE daily since.

When done gently and after the acute phase is over, therapeutic tremoring can heal and release the injury more quickly, and it feels very soothing.

It would be interesting to do a research project on using TRE for these types of injuries.

Note: Therapeutic trembling is the natural trembling mechanism in all mammals. In our modern western culture, we are often trained to think that this trembling is a sign of weakness or that we are out of control, or we don’t understand what it does, so we learn to suppress it. At first, we often need something more structured to allow it to operate again. And Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises (TRE) is one way for us to find our way back to this natural trembling mechanism.

tagged: currently, research, tension and trauma release exercises  

GGSC: How Self-Compassion Beats Rumination

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A new study suggests that we were onto something. Natasha Odou and Jay Brinker at the Australian National University found that writing about a negative experience from a self-compassionate stance significantly improved mood by allowing people to process (rather than avoid) negative emotions. [….]

These findings contribute to the growing realization that self-compassion practices generate positive outcomes—more well-being in general, more life satisfaction, personal initiative and social connectedness—and protect us from negative experiences of rumination, self-criticism, shame, anxiety, and depression.

– from How Self-Compassion Beats Rumination, Greater Good Science Center

It’s good to see this entering mainstream science.

It’s what many ordinary people have observed over the millennia: the medicine we so often seek is our own kindness and love.

tagged: heart-centered practice, kindness, love, metta, psychology, research  

Meditation and brain changes

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Participating in an 8-week mindfulness meditation program appears to make measurable changes in brain regions associated with memory, sense of self, empathy and stress.
– From Mindfulness meditation training changes brain structure in 8 weeks, Massachusetts General Hospital

It seems that even brief daily practice over a few weeks can create measurable changes in the brain.

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tagged: meditation, research  

The weirdest people

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“If you’re a Westerner, your intuitions about human psychology are probably wrong or at least there’s good reason to believe they’re wrong,” Dr. Henrich says.

After analyzing reams of data from earlier studies, the UBC team found that WEIRD people reacted differently from others in experiment after experiment involving measures of fairness, anti-social punishment and co-operation, as well as visual illusions and questions of individualism and conformity.

– from Westerners vs. The World: We Are The WEIRD Ones.

This quote is from an article based on The Weirdest People in the World? (PDF) published in Behavioral and Brain Sciences earlier this year.

I haven’t read the paper yet, so but it looks interesting and it is an important topic. When we do behavioral research, we most often study WEIRD people – Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic. It is important to be aware of this, take it into consideration when we analyse the results, and make an effort to include other groups in our studies.

This is nothing new. It is mentioned in just about any research paper: we cannot easily generalize to other populations than the one we studied.

There are practical reasons for using WEIRD people. Most researchers are themselves WEIRD and they work in a WEIRD environment and culture, so WEIRD people are most easily accesible. And resources are limited, so in some cases, there is a choice between using WEIRD people or not do the study at all.

Finally, most behavioral and psychological research is done by and for WEIRD people. We can take just about any study published in psychological journals, ask who benefits from this research?, and find that WEIRD people benefit the most. It’s good to notice and be honest about this, not the least because it may help us question our priorities.

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tagged: psychology, research  

Research: Meaningful conversations make people happier

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Would you be happier if you spent more time discussing the state of the world and the meaning of life — and less time talking about the weather?

It may sound counterintuitive, but people who spend more of their day having deep discussions and less time engaging in small talk seem to be happier, said Matthias Mehl, a psychologist at the University of Arizona who published a study on the subject….

But, he proposed, substantive conversation seemed to hold the key to happiness for two main reasons: both because human beings are driven to find and create meaning in their lives, and because we are social animals who want and need to connect with other people…..

Next, Dr. Mehl wants to see if people can actually make themselves happier by having more substantive conversations.

“It’s not that easy, like taking a pill once a day,” Dr. Mehl said. “But this has always intrigued me. Can we make people happier by asking them, for the next five days, to have one extra substantive conversation every day?”

– NY Times blog, Talk Deeply, Be Happy?

It may be that happiness prompts us to deeper and more meaningful conversations. Or, as the researcher suggests, that deep conversations leads to happiness. They help us find meaning in our life, and connect with others in a more meaningful and intimate way.

And it may well be that this is another tool for happiness: A prescription of one more meaningful conversation in a day.

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tagged: happiness, meaning, psychology, research, science  

Research on The Work

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The Work shares much with cognitive therapy, and has also many similarities with forms of inquiry found in Buddhist and Advaita traditions. In some ways, The Work is a Buddhist flavored form of cognitive therapy, or a cognitive therapy flavored form of Buddhism.

There is a great deal of research on cognitive therapy, of course. And also on Buddhist forms of meditation. There is very little, or perhaps no, research on inquiry as found in Buddhism or Advaita.

And there is nearly or actually no research on The Work. A quick Google Scholar search only turned up a general overview.

Why do research on The Work? There are many reasons. It would make it interesting to more therapists. It would gain sufficient support so it can be included in interventions, including large scale interventions to increase health and well-being and prevent illness. It would give it a foothold in the academic world, opening up for further research into The Work and similar approaches.

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tagged: psychology, research, science, the work of byron katie  

Support of torture among the faithful

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The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey.
– Source: CNN

This is a small study so not much can be said based on the data, but it would be interesting if other studies looked into it further.

I wonder – based on my own prejudices – if not self-righteousness is related to support of torture. The more certain we are that we are right and others are wrong, or even worse, that we are good and others are bad/evil, the easier it is to dehumanize them in our own mind and justify torture. (And ignoring the obvious: Torture gets people to say what they think you want to hear, whatever it may be.)

The question with these things is always: How does this relate to me? How do I find it in myself and my own life?

When do I think I am right and others are wrong? What happens then? What am I afraid of would happen if I didn’t see myself as right and them as wrong?

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tagged: psychology, research, society  

Research

moe Leave a comment

Of the many techniques I am aware of for untying knots, it seems that the Byron Katie inquiries may be among the ones easiest to study. The focus is specific, and the outcome equally specific (the belief in a particular thought falls away, reduced stress, and increased sense of clarity).

It would be interesting to look at…

  • Long and short terms outcomes
    • The longer term general effects of regularly doing inquiry
    • The short-term effects of working on a particular issue
  • In terms of…
    • Self-reported changes
      Standarized tests of stress, addictions, beliefs, empathy, contentment, and so on

    • How others rate the person’s change
    • Changed behavior
      Addictions, relationships

    • Changes in brain activity when attention is brought to a stressful issue, before and after inquiry
    • Energetic changes, for instance measured by pulse changes as in acupuncture (I sometimes notice a significant energetic shift while doing inquiry)
  • Using control groups, maybe…
    • A version of cognitive therapy (surface similarity to this form of inquiry)
    • Empathic conversation and listening
    • Something else?
tagged: research, the work of byron katie