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pjeby comments on Crowley on Religious Experience - Less Wrong
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It might be useful to think about the simple fact that if you're a hunter of small game, you're probably going to spend an awful lot of time sitting around staring at things, and that maybe evolution has a good reason for wanting it to feel good... not to mention developing your ability to concentrate, if your hunting pattern requires such concentration. What's more, it's a kind of exercise that humans haven't gotten much of since we switched to agriculture.
Note, too, that it's only since we've had agriculture that we started having religions offering salvation and release from suffering... maybe there's a connection there.
Hrm, that's a point, though I suspect even in our hunter gatherer days, we didn't push ourselves to the extent these practices do.
But still, you do have a point.
Interesting observation. It is hard to find an in-depth article in Google Scholar on the idea that meditation or similar practices evolved to help us deal with stress and hone concentration. A recent study showed that nuns and monks who prayed or meditate showed increased activity in the parts of the brain implicated in analytical thinking and stress management.
My question is are these simply tricks we learned to deal with stress, or were they are part of human evolution to help cope with stress?
http://intro2psych.wordpress.com/2008/03/11/and-this-is-your-brain-on-prayers/