Dr. David Alter

Well, I hear a few different facets or points in your comment that I'll try to respond to.

The first is that there's a kind of deja vu quality to today's focus on meditation, mindfulness meditation, and health.

And what I mean by that is

Meditation and even mindfulness meditation, which is a particular style or type of meditation, ain't a new thing.

We're going back to literally thousands of years ago, depending on which part of the globe we're talking about.

that meditative practices have been part of it.

So whether it's Eastern faiths or Western faiths, Middle Eastern faiths, there's a long, long standing awareness that being in the world can be tough.

Being in the world is challenging.

And that there are ways that those challenges put us in a space or a place that has a negative impact on our day-to-day function.

Therefore, there were different styles often linked to religious or spiritual traditions to basically say, let's put ourselves back in a place where we can thrive, not just survive, but thrive.

So you see early, early Hindu practices.

You see Judaic and Christian practices.

I'm not as familiar with Hindu practices, but I know

that all of them generated meditative schools, meditative styles, because there's this sense that we can follow, we can get derailed, we can follow detours in how we function day to day, and meditative practices are a way back.

You also mentioned the point that what about doing it every day?

Does that yield benefits?

Well, yes, of course.

I mean, anytime we do something that is healthful, it's beneficial, right?

But it's also an acknowledgement that

what we're really trying to do is not simply have a practice that's good for the length of the practice, like going to the gym Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.