MEDITATION RESEARCH
The most convincing study I have come across was by Dr. Herbert Benson,
a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical school, he tested 36 trancendental meditators and measured their heart rate, blood pressure and skin temperature.
He found that when they meditated, they used 17% less oxygen, lowered their heart rates by three beats a minute and increased their theta brain waves - which exist prior to sleep - without slipping into the brain wave patterns of actual sleep.
Dr Benson stated that his research gives a viable biological explanation on techniques that people have been utilizing for millennia.
Scientific research with the use of brain-scans shows that meditation boosts the immune system,
and also suggests reduced depression, anxiety and stress due to re-wiring of the brain.
Dr Dean Ornish, found that meditation, along with yoga and proper nourishment, reversed the build up of plaque in coronary arteries. During a meeting of the American Urological Association, Dr Ornish announced his most recent findings that meditation may even slow prostate cancer.
Evidence from meditation researchers continues to mount. One study, for example, shows that females who meditate regularly and use guided imagery (visualization) have higher levels of the immune cells known to reduce tumors in the breast.
Meditation is being recommended by more and more physicians as a way to prevent, slow or at least control the pain of chronic diseases such as, heart conditions, AIDS, cancer, and infertility. Meditation is also being used to restore balance to psychiatric disturbances as depression, hyperactivity and the symptoms of attention deficit disorder (ADD & ADHD).
CANADIAN UNIVERSITY STUDY
This is what researchers at a Canadian university asked subjects to do in a study into the effects of meditation on pain. They wanted to investigate the perception of pain and the potential analgesic effects of mindful states in experienced meditators, and whether they perceived pain differently to non-meditators.
MEDITATION IS DEPRESSION MEDICINE
Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) is an increasingly popular approach in treating stress reduction, pain management, and now self-management of depression symptoms. MBCT uses mindfulness based meditation and teaches awareness of emotions so people can recognise the early signs of relapse into depression. It also goes the extra step and offers ways to make lifestyle changes that will restore a balance in mood. Drugs are not used in MBCT.
A new study has enlisted people who were in remission from depression at the beginning of the study but who had previously been diagnosed with a major depressive disorder having had at least two past episodes and using antidepressant drugs. These people were then split into three groups.
One group stopped their medication and was put on MBCT, the second group maintained their medication for 18 months, and the third group also maintained their medication except it was a placebo.
The MBCT treatment involved group sessions once a week for eight weeks. In these sessions the people learned how to observe their thoughts and emotions and how to change their thought patterns from rumination to being able to reflect without judgement. They consolidated this at home by doing “mindfulness” practice: they noticed their minute-to minute thoughts, were compassionate to themselves, accepted difficulties, and made plans for responding to warning signs of a relapse.
All three groups were followed for the eighteen month period and were monitored for signs of a relapse.
The results showed that the mindfulness meditative practises of MBCT were as effective as the pharmaceutical drugs. Both of these groups showed a 30 per cent relapse rate compared to a 70 per cent relapse in the placebo group.
The researchers concluded that the mindfulness approach was as effective at preventing relapse as pharmaceutical drugs.
Given the reduction in side-effects and the increased personal control and power that mindfulness meditative practices offer, they must be an option in future management of depressive conditions. |
