Daniel Batten

The science of habit forming: #5 of a series of 9

Ever had a habit you started to form but then didn't maintain?

One of the biggest reasons that us humans don't form new habits is that there is a seed of conflict in the genesis of the habit we just tried to form. Understanding how to avoid sewing that seed is key to creating habits that you can maintain.

Benefit #5 of meditation: It makes you non-reactive to volatility

I cannot think of a Bitcoiner to whom this is not relevant and important! Neuroscience research comparing long-term meditators with non-meditators found that meditators displayed greater emotional stability and significantly less emotional volatility across all affect types.

The mechanism: meditation trains what researchers call "equanimity" - the ability to observe an experience without reacting to it. MRI studies show that experienced meditators achieve a decoupling of sensory and affective processing.

They still perceive the stimulus (a price pullback, some uninformed FUD, a new regulatory threat) but the emotional charge doesn't hijack the response.

Source: PMC - Mindfulness, Cognition, and Long-Term Meditators

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12330868/

People often ask me how I had such patience, replying to the same FUD 1000x over - now I know the answer, nothing unique about me...

but I’d been unknowingly training my mind over time through meditation to treat negative Bitcoin comments as datapoints, not reasons to lose my calm.