Yesterday, I blogged about how Mindfulness Meditation causes brain rot. However, when you consider how in balance mindfulness is the right therapy for everything else that that troubles us, its a pretty good trade off to have a procedure that can at least cause us to be healthy way into our senile old age. In his book Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift foresaw this intimation of immortality, as Gulliver was shown a pile of dust by the wise academics of the Academy of Lagado. Although they cured mortality, they couldn't cure decay, so immortality was proof against all perils, exempting of course a wayward vacuum cleaner.
Your author 300 years in the future at the keyboard
So when I read recently about how Mindfulness Meditation fights HIV, I knew that we were one step closer to dust pile immortality. Until of course, I read the fine print. It seems that mindfulness worked because it reduces stress, which in turn helps the body in its fight against HIV. Would this not mean that any therapy that reduces stress fights aids? I kinda think so. The argument is reminiscent of those Bayer Aspirin commercials touting the effectiveness of taking Bayer as a therapy for heart disease. Sure enough, but was it Bayer or was it the aspirin? In other words, was it the 'brand' that made it work or was it the generic medicine that it labeled?
So the con is on! (Was it ever off?) To say relaxation therapies fight disease is too generic in this new age of brand management. I would gather it's much easier getting an audience, grants, and tenure when you change the topic by changing the label. Thank goodness the BS label has continued to serve us well in times like these!
Your author 300 years in the future at the keyboardSo when I read recently about how Mindfulness Meditation fights HIV, I knew that we were one step closer to dust pile immortality. Until of course, I read the fine print. It seems that mindfulness worked because it reduces stress, which in turn helps the body in its fight against HIV. Would this not mean that any therapy that reduces stress fights aids? I kinda think so. The argument is reminiscent of those Bayer Aspirin commercials touting the effectiveness of taking Bayer as a therapy for heart disease. Sure enough, but was it Bayer or was it the aspirin? In other words, was it the 'brand' that made it work or was it the generic medicine that it labeled?
So the con is on! (Was it ever off?) To say relaxation therapies fight disease is too generic in this new age of brand management. I would gather it's much easier getting an audience, grants, and tenure when you change the topic by changing the label. Thank goodness the BS label has continued to serve us well in times like these!
1 comment:
Don't you think that whatever stimulates the release of endorphins is the cure to what ails you? Norman Cousins did research on this kind of biochemistry, and he fought off heart disease with comedy for 26 years after being told that he was going to die in a few months. The power of the mind... It seems like we have an entire pharmacy in our brain.
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