The "Science" Of Meditation?

PJ2001

Hello all,

I've been hearing lately from holistic practitioners that science has (allegedly) confirmed meditation is healthy. While relaxing might be, what supposedly goes on in meditation doesn't seem realistic.

What I'm talking about is, swamis and bhuddists talk about how they are conscious while their brainwaves are at about 7,6,5 or even 4hz per second. How would it be possible for someone to be conscious while their brainwaves are that low and be fully cogniscent of what they're doing?

Sorry, some people here might believe in meditation doing all of those things, but I have my reservations. I tell you what, if anyone here doesn't like my skeptical argument, then perhaps they might explain to us how this would be done if it can be done... because I just don't see how it's feasible.

Thanks

Greg Bernhardt

I'll add reduced heart beats and body temperature control to the list.

PJ2001

Thank you, Greg. That too.

One more thing, by the way... if anyone asks, "Have you ever even TRIED to meditate and do everything those CDs, tapes, mps, etc. said?" then the answer is yes. Needless to say, there's a reason why I started this thread if you know what I mean.

FredGarvin

I had a teacher that studied in Japan and China for quite a few years. Along with teaching Aikido, he liked to teach separate classes for meditation. I tried it for a while and did bring some very practical aspects from it. Granted, they are nowhere near lowering brain activity or anything like that.

I can tell you that you do not really want any kind of music in the background.

There was a pretty good book written, if you are interested in looking for it, called "In Search of the Warrior Spirit" by Rick Heckler (another Aikido practitioner). It is about him being asked to teach meditation techniques to Green Beret units. It's an interesting read. It helps to understand ome of the practical aspects I was refering to.

Ivan Seeking

http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Cli...is/eegcrs.html

http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Cli...s/eegfreq.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroencephalography

PJ2001

Hello Ivan Seeking, thanks for the data.

Om, I guess I should have been more specific. I wasn't denying that theta and delta waves exist - I know that when you sleep at night that's what the brainwaves are. And I know young children's brainwaves are at that frequency.

What I was getting at was, how is it possible to be AWAKE and enable your brainwaves to go as high or low as you want them to while staying conscious? This is what these zen masters have been reported to be able to do, but I don't see how this is remotely possible.

WarPhalange

I've heard about meditation being shown to do "positive" things such as calm people down and relieve stress. That is reasonable.

But controlling the brain's core functions would be a pretty big stretch.

PJ2001, what is "awake"? If they are meditating at the time, they can't tell you a joke or shake your hand, they are concentrating on their meditation. Maybe that blurs the line between lucid dreaming and consciousness?

f95toli

They are not awake, mediation is -quite literally- a very special state of mind. There is plenty of evidence from EEG and more recently functional MRI that there really is something quite unusual going on in the brain when a trained practitioner is meditating (and zen masters do qualify as well trained in this case), they are not simply "relaxing".
I don't think anyone knows if the there is a good biological "reason" why the brain can do this, I guess it is possible that people who meditate are simply using systems that originally evolved for some other purpose in a creative way.

Some "extraordinary" techniques -e.g.decreasing your heart beat- are quite easy to learn as long as we are talking about moderate effects (not stopping your heart on anything like that). I was taught the basics of it when I was a kid by a physiotherapist in order to be able to better cope with my asthma (you don't want your heart to race when you are having trouble breathing, but that is the bodys natural response so the "trick" is to learn to override it), i.e. there was no "mumbo jumbo" involved.

PJ2001

Ok, this is one of the things I'm referring to. You can meditate and slow down your heart? I don't understand how that's possible... but, if I'm wrong, I'm wrong of course.

I guess an obvious question would be this: How exactly do you do such a thing?

Another way of putting it, what were the steps involved in getting yourself to have that ability? I'm just offering healthy skepticism simply because so many (if not practically all) of these meditation audios that I have heard over the years tell you to "relax even more", "visualize...", "go deeper..." - and what they sometimes do is refer to the zen bhuddists and all of the amazing things these guys can allegedly do from meditation. You know which people I'm talking about when it comes to the "we are one" clan.

WarPhalange

I think I know a bit about what f95toli is talking about. Whenever I try to measure my heartbeat I get slight anxiety because even the thought of blood in my veins makes me queezy. So my heart-rate increases. If I want it to go slower, I have to relax myself and control my breathing very precisely.

I assume that if you are having an asthma attack, you are freaking out and your heart is racing like mad. But it would be safer to have a lower heart-rate, so you have to force yourself to calm down.

If you do any kind of grappling you'll learn something similar. When you have someone on top of you and can't breathe very well, the natural instinct is to freak out and push as hard as you can. But that won't help. You need to learn to relax and focus on whatever moves you are doing so you don't waste any energy.

Beyond that, though, I don't know.

dlgoff

I have had experiences using bio-feedback and it is indeed possible to control your heart rate, temperature of your fingers, and EEG waves.

And it wasn't really that hard.

Evo

It's very easy, all you need to do is think about it, you don't need to meditate. I do this all of the time at work. I deal with clients and my frustration level can go through the roof if I don't keep it in check. I just slow down my breathing and relax, and this decreases my heart rate. It's not instantaneous, if that is what you are thinking.

Meditation is just a way of saying that you can control certain body functions, within limitations, if you focus on it. Of course the more you practice, the better you get, there is nothing mysterious about it. I notice no one has furnished any links to anything scientific and I don't have the time to look anything up. I'm sure that you could find anything I could simply by googling it.

Proton Soup

speaking of controlling body temperature, there is Wim Hof, the Ice Man.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...zing-bath.html

Hof practices Tummo, a type of yoga where you visualize a serpent coiled at the base of the spine ascending to the head.

or maybe he's just a freak with a bunch of brown fat. either way, it's kind of interesting.

franznietzsche

Quick google turns up:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/conten.../167/3926/1751
http://www.neuroreport.com/pt/re/neu...195629!8091!-1


More than a few studies have been done on the physiological effects of transcendental meditation. Its pretty well documented stuff. There were a few studies done with tibetan monks that were much more astounding, particularly the ability to increase basal metabolic rate.

PJ2001

I certainly do thank everyone for their quick responses and valuable data. But this still isn't making sense - we just think about it and it happens?? I certainly can't control my heartbeat and brainwave frequencies by doing just that! Is there some scientific explanation for how this is possible to do? If there is, I've never heard of it.

Evo

Franz posted two links that discuss the subject. I will try to find some studies this weekend.

franznietzsche

Actually you can. Biofeedback mechanisms are a method of training yourself to do so (using an EEG to detect what works and what doesn't). It's all just neurons, that are all ultimately interconnected. How do you move your hands? Learning to intentionally activate other neural pathways is possible.

As always, google is your friend:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...0e0217b3226f19

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...35ee3fbfee4f49