Researching Meditation

Researching Meditation

The scientific study of thoughtless awareness associated with the practice of Sahaja Yoga Meditation.

Welcome to Researching Meditation

Welcome to our Meditation Research site. This site aims to share with you some of the scientifically studied phenomena associated with the state of consciousness called thoughtless awareness, an experiential phenomenon particularly associated with the practice of Sahaja Yoga meditation.

Contents

News & Information

Meditation Research is frequently updated with articles on many topics featuring the most recent research and articles.
General: News relating to the site and events.
Meditation: Articles discussing the history of meditation, proposed mechanisms for meditation, studies exploring the effects of meditation, articles looking at documented adverse effects of meditation, articles discussing the cross cultural aspect of meditation and more.
Sahaja Yoga Meditation: Articles describing Sahaja Yoga meditation (SYM), studies exploring the potential benefits of and mechanisms behind SYM, articles on the mental silence state central to SYM and more.
Research: Here you’ll find summaries of studies, future research projects, articles describing the theories behind the methodology used when researching meditation and more.
Alternative paradigms: Articles discussing the underlying Eastern philosophies of meditation including the kundalini and chakra.

Articles

Meditation Research also hosts a collection of interesting articles and links:
Summary of Research: Here you’ll find a series of articles describing the research that the creators of Meditation Research have carried out. This includes research on the origins of meditation, epilepsy, asthma, hot flushes, how meditation works, brain waves of a meditator, vibrational energy, eastern views of stress and living in the moment.
Bibliography: A number of unsorted studies exploring meditation.
Interesting articles: Interesting articles about meditation.
Meditation Exercises: MP3s featuring guided meditation exercises.

Research Studies

Meditation Research links to a number of interesting studies on a variety of topics:
Asthma: Studies exploring the use of meditation to treat asthma.
ADHD: Studies exploring the use of meditation to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Anxiety: Studies exploring the use of meditation to reduce anxiety.
EEG: Studies discussing the analysis of a meditator’s brain with EEG.
Epilepsy: Studies exploring the use of meditation to treat epilepsy.

About this site

This site was created by Dr Ramesh Manocha, is administered by Tristan Boyd, and features a number of  contributing authors. We hope to bring the outcomes of our research to you as it becomes available, and hope to share with you both our pilot research as well as published and peer-reviewed research. Please contact Dr Manocha if you have further queries.

Latest News & Information

Below is our latest scientific and research news and Information.

Sahaja Yoga Meditation Proven Highly Effective for Treatment of Stress and Depressive Mood

In one of the most thoroughly designed studies of meditation ever published, full-time workers who used Sahaja Yoga meditation became much less stressed and depressed compared to more conventional approaches to relaxation or even placebo, according to a paper published this week in the online journal Evidence Based Complementary Medicine,…

Skin temperature changes associated with mental silence.

This study demonstrates a skin temperature reduction on the palms of the hands during the experience of mental silence, arising as a result of a single 10 minute session of Sahaja yoga meditation. However when people (non-meditators) were asked to do a simple relaxation exercise, under the same conditions, their…

Dr Ramesh Manocha investigates meditation as a stress management invervention

Dr Ramesh Manocha recently had a paper published titled “Using meditation for less stress and better wellbeing; A seminar for GPs”. The paper detailed a study in which 293 doctors were taught meditation in order to reduce stress and increase wellbeing. The abstract and full paper can be found here.

Mental silence as a taxonomy of meditation

Mental silence and its associated yogic philosophy may provide a basis for taxonomy of meditation that is practically useful in the delivery of healthcare. An intervention with a specific effect such as Sahaja Yoga meditation has a wide range of applications in medicine, psychology and neuroscience. It is particularly relevant…

Compliance with treatment

Like any other evaluation of therapeutics, the detectable effect of the intervention will be determined by the degree to which the participant complies with the treatment. This is particularly important in meditation research because meditation requires considerable active involvement and commitment. There are several ways to assess compliance, including attendance…

The literature on meditation

An extensive search of the scientific literature identified 3,500 peer-reviewed publications that featured “meditation” as a key word. Yet, of these, only 135 (approximately 4%) fulfilled the very basic requirements of experimental evaluation, i.e. they were prospective trials using control groups and random allocation. Importantly, even within this subset of…