Mindfulness isn't over-hyped. Mindfulness takes effort. There's crazy videos of buddhist monks walking on their thumbs. People can raise their body temperature several degrees at will (and it's how a lot of open ocean swimmers survive, say, crossing the english channel). But it takes practice, every day, for years and you can't fake it - you're body knows you're cheating and can't be bribed.
Given that - how do you do a statistical analysis across the population of mindfulness meditation vs. pill popping? Pills always work, often with horrible debilitating side effects (yay Opioids!). Meanwhile the monk I met who learned to walk again after being confined to a wheelchair (gymnastics injury) had to sit under a tree for several years doing muscle exercises and willing the pain away.
So of course science can't rationalize it. How do you measure the strength of will of people? It's not so easy to put these sorts of things into a study. So I guess we'll keep eating the poison pill. Shrug.
Given that - how do you do a statistical analysis across the population of mindfulness meditation vs. pill popping? Pills always work, often with horrible debilitating side effects (yay Opioids!). Meanwhile the monk I met who learned to walk again after being confined to a wheelchair (gymnastics injury) had to sit under a tree for several years doing muscle exercises and willing the pain away.
So of course science can't rationalize it. How do you measure the strength of will of people? It's not so easy to put these sorts of things into a study. So I guess we'll keep eating the poison pill. Shrug.