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Meditation Research
A great
deal of research has been
generated in the 20th Century
regarding many aspects of
meditation. Like most areas of
social and life science,
conclusions are not absolute or
solid. For every trend in the
literature, there stands at least
one study showing the opposite.
Scientific research would not have
proceeded this far, however, were
it generally not producing
provocative and even startling
insights. Results also vary with
the method. The most productive
source of research since 1970 has
been the Transcendental Meditation
Program. A link to its research
(500 studies) is given below. We
believe much of the effects
visible by researchers in TM are
enjoyed by practitioners of any of
the many non-striving, restful,
open methods, including Natural
Meditation.
The best
research, we suggest, is done
quite informally in one's own
home, in one's own chair. The
reality of meditation's natural
healing benefits is not all that
hard to demonstrate for oneself.
Research on Transcendental
Meditation Program
In order
to show some of the large scope of
the formal research, we present
some brief excerpts from recent
books on this topic.
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Excerpt from Chapter 3, page 69
According to most contemplative
teachings, the turbulence and
distress of ordinary life can be
reduced through quiet meditation.
The subtle turnings of the mind's
substance, the citta-vritti
as they are described in
Patanjali's Yoga Sutras,
can be quieted so that a clearer
and deeper apprehension of inner
and outer worlds might ensue.
This quieting also results in a
growing efficiency of mind and
body and a concomitant reduction
in the organism's consumption of
energy. This picture of
contemplative transformation,
embedded in Hindu, Buddhist,
Taoist, and other teachings,
corresponds to the one we find in
contemporary studies of
meditation's effects on
breathing. Some forty studies
have shown that oxygen consumption
is reduced during meditation, that
carbon dioxide elimination and
respiration rate are reduced, and
that minute volume is lowered.
Other studies, moreover, have
shown that oxygen consumption was
decreased in subjects working at a
fixed intensity, and that
meditators sometimes suspend
breathing longer than control
subjects without apparent ill
effects. These studies strongly
suggest that meditation lowers the
body's need for energy and the
oxygen to help metabolize it.
Such quieting of the organism,
however, happens for the most part
in quiet meditation of the TM or
zazen type, not in active,
high-arousal practices such as
Ananda Marga Yoga.
Excerpts from
Meditation as Medicine
Activate the Power of Your
Natural Healing Force
Dharma Singh Khalsa, M.D. and
Cameron Stauth
Pocket Books, 2001
Page 8:
Until very recently, most of the
interest in meditation has been
focused on the most basic,
fundamental forms of meditation:
Transcendental Meditation…and the
relaxation response, popularized
by Harvard’s Dr. Herbert
Benson…[who] was chiefly concerned
with isolating the most obvious
healing aspect of meditation, and
therefore focused his research
almost solely upon simple,
worry-free relaxation. In so
doing, he made meditation
palatable to the medical
community. Due to Dr. Benson’s
work over the past twenty-five or
thirty years, a large body of
studies has indicated clearly that
basic meditation, including the
relaxation response, is an
extremely viable treatment
approach. Hundreds of studies have
been performed, and they indicate
the following:
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Meditation creates a unique
hypometabolic state, in which
the metabolism is in an even
deeper state of rest than during
sleep. During sleep, oxygen
consumption drops by 8 percent,
but during meditation, it drops
by 10 to 20 percent.
-
Meditation is the only activity
that reduces blood lactate, a
marker of stress and anxiety.
-
The calming hormones melatonin
and serotonin are increased by
meditation, and the stress
hormone cortisol is decreased.
-
Meditators secrete more of the
youth-related hormone DHEA as
they age than nonmeditators.
Meditating fory-five-year-old
males have an average of 23
percent more DHEA than
nonmeditators, and meditating
females have an average of 47
percent more. This helps
decrease stress, heighten
memory, preserve sexual
function, and control weight.
-
Meditation has a profound effect
upon three key indicators of
aging: hearing ability, blood
pressure, and vision of close
objects.
-
Long-term meditators experience
80 percent less heart disease
and 50 percent less cancer than
nonmeditators.
-
75 percent of insomniacs were
able to sleep normally when they
meditated.
-
34 percent of people with
chronic pain significantly
reduced medication when they
began meditating.
Page 30:
It has long been recognized that a
person’s cognitive and emotional
processes have a profound impact
upon health. For the most part,
this impact is mediated via the
endocrine system. When you
meditate, your rational thought
processes, housed in your cortex,
begin a quiet dialogue with your
brain’s emotional centers, the
hippocampus and amygdala, both of
which are in your limbic system.
When your cortex and limbic system
agree that it is appropriate to
relax, they relay the message to
the hypothalamus, which connects
the brain to the endocrine system.
This releases a flood of calming
neurotransmitters and hormones,
which soothe the entire body. The
immune system then secretes its
own molecules of information, some
of which return to the brain,
helping to complete this circuitry
of healing. You shift into a
relaxed alpha brain wave pattern,
and your nervous system is
dominated by the inhibitory
parasympathetic branch. When the
parasympathetic nervous system is
favored, you send relatively more
nerve signals to your organs and
glands of immunity, such as your
thymus. As this occurs, you reach
the ideal condition for
healing—what mystics call the
sacred space.
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