i don't feel well. my neck and upper shoulders still hurt after my fall. i did already used the bike this morning and my legs didn't hurt. i was severely depressed yesterday but remembered to listen to a lecture on leonard cohen. after two minutes i was fine. i learned that it could take him 5 years to finish a song. somebody asked bob dylan how much time it took him to write a certain song. he said 15 minutes,
cecilia's death now keeps me thinking of my own mortality

The study

Twenty years after Cohen’s recovery, a remarkable study came out of Mumbai, the same Indian city where Cohen broke free from his depression.4 It was a controlled trial of Buddhist meditation for bipolar II depression. By psychotherapy standards, the study was huge, with 622 patients. Half were randomized to cognitive behavioral therapy, and the other half underwent training in meditation. The study lasted 2 years, during which the meditation group was advised to follow a simple 30-minute practice once a week (see Sidebar). That is correct-only 30 minutes per week. The teaching was also low intensity: 5 to 10 two-hour sessions interspersed throughout the 2-year study.

At the end of the study, the meditation group improved over the cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) group with a large effect size (0.7). How did this mild intervention outperform cognitive behavioral therapy with such a large effect?

The secret may lie in the 2-year duration. That is how long it took Leonard Cohen’s mood to lift “by imperceptible degrees” while he studied meditation in Mumbai. Other behavior changes, like exercise and social rhythm therapy, also show more robust effects when allowed to build for 6 to 12 months. The challenge is to help patients stay motivated through those imperceptible degrees of progress.