The Science Behind Meditation: Separating Fact from Fiction

[PJ2001]

The "Science" Of Meditation?

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 referring to.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

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?

The frequencies of the EEG waves run from 0.5 per second to

hundreds/second. The machines however usually show frequencies

of upto 26/second.

http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Clinical_Neurosciences/louis/eegcrs.html

THETA
Theta activity has a frequency of 3.5 to 7.5 Hz and is classed as "slow" activity. It is abnormal in awake adults but is perfectly normal in children upto 13 years and in sleep. It can be seen as a focal disturbance in focal subcortical lesions; it can be seen in generalized distribution in diffuse in diffuse disorder or metabolic encephalopathy or deep midline disorders or some instances of hydrocephalus

http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Clinical_Neurosciences/louis/eegfreq.html

Theta is the frequency range from 4 Hz to 7 Hz. Theta is seen normally in young children. It may be seen in drowsiness or arousal in older children and adults; it can also be seen in meditation[citation needed]. Excess theta for age represents abnormal activity. It can be seen as a focal disturbance in focal subcortical lesions; it can be seen in generalized distribution in diffuse disorder or metabolic encephalopathy or deep midline disorders or some instances of hydrocephalus.

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]

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.

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]

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).

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]

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.

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/wor...an-aims-to-break-record-in-freezing-bath.html

Hof practices http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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]

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.

Quick google turns up:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/167/3926/1751
http://www.neuroreport.com/pt/re/ne...nyN3yy0rTxYGlGDH!-595418120!181195629!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]

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.

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

 

[franznietzsche]

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.

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?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B7581-4NYJD61-11&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=2b95d89f1bc907e2320e0217b3226f19

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WNP-46K5DVT-6&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=88432bfc5391457e7e35ee3fbfee4f49

 

[pftest]

I don't really doubt that biofeedback is possible or that meditators are conscious while having low frequency brainwaves. The whole reason meditators in such states got their brains scanned was because they reported having very profound experiences. Maybe they could blink their eyes while in that state to prove they are conscious. Thats how it went with lucid dreams.

These tricks are a bit harder for me to imagine:

Some Buddhists’ introspections directly challenge views held by neuroscientists. For instance, trained meditators claim to be able to hold their attention on a single object for hours, or to shift attention rapidly as many as 17 times in the span of a finger-snap. These claims contradict Western reports that attention cannot be held that long or switched that fast. Whether such claims prove to be precisely true or not, MIT neuroscientist Nancy Kanwisher is eager to see whether monks who have spent years training their attention are better on standard attention tests than the average person. “Training the attention has barely been touched by cognitive neuroscience,” says Kanwisher.

...
Hold that image
Whereas some Buddhist practitioners specialize in attention, others devote themselves to the demanding practice of visual imagery, meditating on an image held in the mind as a means to purge the mind of value judgments. It may take decades for a monk to develop prowess in imagery. Some virtuosos claim to be able to hold in their minds a detailed image such as a complex mandala, a symbolic depiction of the universe, for many minutes or even hours.
These claims are also contradicted by Western neuroscience. “Based on my understanding of how the brain works, that should not be possible,” says Harvard’s Kosslyn, who studies mental imagery. Kosslyn has found that mental images are fleeting—necessarily so, he reasons, because mental imagery uses the same brain areas that serve vision, and visual images fade quickly from the brain to prevent the appearance of smearing as our eyes move.

http://www.sciencecafesf.com/wp-content/uploads/2003Science_BuddhismNeuroscience.pdf

I can't focus on an object for hours (havent really tried it), i can't switch my attention 17 times a second and i can't visualise an image for hours. About that visualising: i have 'seen' things with my eyes closed and it almost appeared like normal vision, but that lasts only a few seconds at most. Its always random shapes though, so i do not get to choose what i see.

Its hard to tell from above source if those claims belong in the category of "levitating monks" or if they really are serious about it.

 

[Evo]

Its hard to tell from above source if those claims belong in the category of "levitating monks" or if they really are serious about it.

I believe that the "levitating monks' have been soundly debunked. The ones I've seen were sitting on stands hidden by their robes.

 

[Anticitizen]

I can't focus on an object for hours (havent really tried it), i can't switch my attention 17 times a second and i can't visualise an image for hours. About that visualising: i have 'seen' things with my eyes closed and it almost appeared like normal vision, but that lasts only a few seconds at most. Its always random shapes though, so i do not get to choose what i see.

Its hard to tell from above source if those claims belong in the category of "levitating monks" or if they really are serious about it.

Having grown up with OCD, I've gone hours without being able to get an image out of my head. It has lessened as I've aged, fortunately.

 

[WarPhalange]

I can totally understand the monks being able to focus on something for seventeen hours at a time. If I was a monk who had to stay celibate and was only ever around other guys, yeah, it would be pretty easy to think about *something* for 17 hours. ;)

 

[george77]

Hermits: None of them is ready to come to the lab.

http://www.sciencecafesf.com/wp-content/uploads/2003Science_BuddhismNeuroscience.pdf

 

[Pythagorean]

I'm not sure what all those books and cds say; Meditation was a standard part of the tang soo do class I took. It's a way to clear your mind of clutter and take a step back. It might make it easier to know that most people meditate without knowing it several times in their life (maybe even frequently).

Next time you're mind is racing and you catch a break, stop and "back away" from yourself. Make your thoughts impersonal and analyze them from an outsider's perspective. You'd be surprised how often in a day you're wasting your time on pointless thought or making decisions based on a strange, undefined bias. Of course, the point of meditation isn't to criticize yourself for these thoughts so much as a to be aware of them. If you can stop and take a deep breath and close your eyes every once in a while, you realize that you haven't extracted all the knowledge from your experiences, and the more you meditate on your experience, the more knowledge you can gain from it (like watching a David Lynch movie several times and catching deeper meanings and layers than you noticed the previous time watching it).

 

[george77]

These guys from MIT are strange. One time they say that they are smart guys but an analphabet hermit can concentrate and keep in mind an image better than them.

 

[WarPhalange]

Next time you're mind is racing and you catch a break, stop and "back away" from yourself. Make your thoughts impersonal and analyze them from an outsider's perspective. You'd be surprised how often in a day you're wasting your time on pointless thought or making decisions based on a strange, undefined bias. Of course, the point of meditation isn't to criticize yourself for these thoughts so much as a to be aware of them. If you can stop and take a deep breath and close your eyes every once in a while, you realize that you haven't extracted all the knowledge from your experiences, and the more you meditate on your experience, the more knowledge you can gain from it (like watching a David Lynch movie several times and catching deeper meanings and layers than you noticed the previous time watching it).

"Meditation brings wisdom; lack of meditation leaves ignorance. Know well what leads you forward and what holds you back." -- Buddha

This is a very simple idea that many people do not use, because it's hard to be honest with yourself.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I just had to delete a post that crossed the line and got into religion. Please note that promoting religious ideas or beliefs is not allowed.

 

[moe darklight]

Two new clips about research that suggests meditation does have positive long term effects, and even physically affect the brain:

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/daily/2006/01/23-meditation.html"

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=meditation-enhances-attention-video"

this week I've decided to research it and perhaps get into it (via a recommendation: I have terrible attention span and anxiety spouts... I used to have crazy panic attacks when I was younger), but it's really hard to find good tutorials. There is so much New Age crap out there... as soon as a dude starts talking about your astral energy alpha waves or whatever such nonsense I get nauseous.

I'm glad that there is more research being done, as it seems that there really is something going on in the meditating brain; I hope it dispels all the new age mystical silliness and we can learn something useful about the brain and its potential to self-adjust.

so anyone know of any crap-free video/audio tutorials or websites?