Perceived well-being is a thing that is pretty hard to quantify. If someone would ask “how much better do you feel” compared to before I started working with different well-being stuff (meditation, Tai chi, Trauma releasing exercises) it’s hard to put a number on it. It’s like night and day. I just feel better.

Sometimes complexity can’t be quantified, but felt. You just have to go with trusting that stuff become better and let it take time and learn to listen to yourself 🙂

I love all the critical thinking you put into this post. I was looking into developing a meditation habit and wanted to find out how I would measure results to help me stay motivated. Knowing in advance that most of the benefits are to be had with 15 minutes and with a month of practice really helps.

Also, I’m glad to know that most of the benefits of gratitude practice come in the first three minutes.

We must always keep in mind the law of diminishing returns. Thanks for this reminder.

Keep up the good work.

(First time commenting here). This was a very interesting write-up. I really appreciate how empirically-supported your site is and how thorough you are in citing research. I think your site is an excellent resource and impressively captures a wide variety of happiness research (something very interesting to me).

I want to argue with you about one point in this article, though. I could certainly be wrong on this, but I would bet that meditation leading to sustained or frequent periods of true “no-self” is euphoric, potentially life-altering, and a frequent trigger of “peak experiences.” I haven’t seen a ton of notes about peak experiences on your site, but I think they can help transform a modestly happy (or even modestly unhappy) person into an exorbitantly fulfilled person.

I know there are several studies that show expert meditators have significantly increased control over autonomic nervous system abilities (changing heart rate, changing mood, removing stress, etc.), which are not present in beginning meditators, but my bigger issue as to why I think the research study you cited is unlikely to fully answer the question of whether expert meditators are more fulfilled is because of the very small number of meditators who are able to achieve significant periods of “no-self.” So, the study would need to: a) search for and find these Buddhist/Hindu preachers, many of whom live in near isolation away from large cities; b) eliminate a lot of language barriers (since most of the practitioners are Eastern and probably don’t speak English); c) ask the right question in a way that is understood (since the various ways of asking for subjective well-being or enjoyment or happiness will make a big difference). I just doubt this ever happened. (I would suspect your reasonable counter-argument may be, “If consistent no-self is so difficult to achieve, then is it worth pursuing for most people?”)

Relevant second-order sources that have pushed me to this viewpoint: Waking Up! by Sam Harris, WaitButWhy post on A Religion for the Nonreligious, and The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt. My current view (subject to change) is that there are basically 3-5 “levels” that work together to affect happiness (you can argue which to combine). 1st is maybe hedonistic pleasures/pains. 2nd is subjective well-being (e.g., just plain being happy due to social interaction). 3rd would be the extent to which you can re-frame things and adjust your mood (e.g., gratitude journals, beginner meditation). 4th would be presence of “peak experiences,” “living now” and ability to obtain states of “no-self” to directly experience reality without an interpreter (what the WaitButWhy article refers to as “higher levels of consciousness” and “Whoa moments). 5th would be living a transformative, purpose-driven, cohesive life. My view is that most people focus on #1 and #2. Some do #3. Almost nobody does #4 or #5, but they lead to the greatest levels of fulfillment by far. The upsetting part is that there is just starting to be academic interest in this, so the jury is a bit out. (I have a significant personal interest in this topic and have read a decent amount on it, so would be happy to discuss further).

Please excuse the sloppiness of this comment. And sincerely, thanks again for providing an excellent site.

Justin

Fake edit: I just read your reply below. Like Sam Harris, I’m not religious and still think there is a significant non-religious benefit for achieving no-self. The goal does not need to have anything to do with ending cycles of rebirth. I would strongly doubt that achieving no-self would result in a personal identity crises leading to negative subjective well-being (but am open to research showing otherwise). It leads to savoring every moment, living “now,” and directly experiencing your true reality in a deep and fulfilling way every moment. I am open-minded about the concept and again admit I could be wrong, but I really doubt I am overstating the benefit (granted, I haven’t achieved the state myself).

There’s just something i don’t quite understand in your article:

“So if you want to get 60% of the benefits of those who’ve been meditating for 10 years, you’ve got to meditate as much as those in the average meditation study – 2 to 3 hours a week.

If you think you can do it, great.

But the lesson is, if you can find a good meditation class, you’ll be better off.

I haven’t had luck – all classes I’ve gone to so far have involved the instructor wasting 30 minutes of my life preaching about the evils of attachment. But I’m sure I just haven’t looked hard enough.

Meditation is not immune to the laws of the universe.
Please don’t tell me that meditation is the path to happiness. For us folks with jobs and lives and hobbies and dreams, that’s a false claim.

Past an hour a week, the correlation between hours of meditation practice and benefits is small.”

What seems contradictory to me is when you claim that one should meditate 2-3 hrs a week to get 60% of the benefits of those who have been doing it for ten years, but then you go and say that past one hour a week, the returns diminish…how exactly does this fit together?

The idea of a faster route depends on what your goal is. I agree, if you’re trying to follow Buddhist teaching then meditation is essential.

But from a positive psychology perspective, weakening one’s sense of self is likely to be more harmful than beneficial. And so one’s not missing out by not solving that problem. Specifically, I believe that people benefit from having a strong personal identity, not from being self-absorbed (that’s different).

Personally, I don’t understand the alternative. The self is an illusion. Yes. But what’s the alternative to accepting the illusion?

Back to your comment, there may be more subtle benefits which aren’t captured by current research. In fact, I think it’s quiet likely that there are. Meditation research is still in its infancy.

I didn’t know that Anthony, thank you for sharing!

The distinction isn’t meaningless though. In the West, the two mean very different things. Likewise, in research studies the things being studied are quiet different.