Mind-Body Practices and the Self: Yoga and Meditation Do Not Quiet the Ego but Instead Boost Self-Enhancement

So what? There are massive numbers of research articles showing how meditation helps stroke recovery. If you are going to recover from your stroke you need as much self-enhancement as possible.  You need to say to yourself that YOU know more about stroke recovery than your doctor, that knowledge takes very little effort.
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797618764621?journalCode=pssa

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Jochen E. Gebauer, Andreas D. Nehrlich, Dagmar Stahlberg, ...

First Published June 22, 2018 Research Article

https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797618764621

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Abstract

Mind-body practices enjoy immense public and scientific interest. Yoga and meditation are highly popular. Purportedly, they foster well-being by curtailing self-enhancement bias. However, this “ego-quieting” effect contradicts an apparent psychological universal, the self-centrality principle. According to this principle, practicing any skill renders that skill self-central, and self-centrality breeds self-enhancement bias. We examined those opposing predictions in the first tests of mind-body practices’ self-enhancement effects. In Experiment 1, we followed 93 yoga students over 15 weeks, assessing self-centrality and self-enhancement bias after yoga practice (yoga condition, n = 246) and without practice (control condition, n = 231). In Experiment 2, we followed 162 meditators over 4 weeks (meditation condition: n = 246; control condition: n = 245). Self-enhancement bias was higher in the yoga (Experiment 1) and meditation (Experiment 2) conditions, and those effects were mediated by greater self-centrality. Additionally, greater self-enhancement bias mediated mind-body practices’ well-being benefits. Evidently, neither yoga nor meditation fully quiet the ego; to the contrary, they boost self-enhancement.