Researching Meditation » research

Skin temperature changes associated with mental silence.

Dr Ramesh Manocha — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 05:50:58 +0000

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 skin temperature increased which is the opposite of what occured for those using the mental silence approach to meditation.

The outcomes of this study therefore suggest that “thoughtless awareness” may be both experientially and physiologically different to simple relaxation. Interestingly, all other studies of meditation that have studied skin temperature show changes similar to that of relaxation (ie that skin temperature rises) and none show reductions, adding further scientific weight to the idea that the mental silence definition of meditation may well be the best way to differentiate meditation from relaxation, hypnosis, sleep and other forms of behavior therapy!

Manocha R, Black D, Ryan J, Stough C, Spiro D, Changing Definitions of Meditation: Physiological Corollorary, Journal of the International Society of Life Sciences, Vol 28 (1), Mar 2010

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Dr Ramesh Manocha investigates meditation as a stress management invervention

Dr Ramesh Manocha — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 02:03:37 +0000

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.

Using meditation for less stress

and better wellbeing

Mental silence as a taxonomy of meditation

Dr Ramesh Manocha — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 03:47:11 +0000

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 to the growing field of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) since meditation represents an important genre of CAM modalities and the apparent therapeutic effects of mental silence that are apparent in this thesis now position this genre of CAMs in a higher category of practical importance to healthcare.

Dr Ramesh Manocha

Compliance with treatment

Dr Ramesh Manocha — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 02:38:53 +0000

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 rates at supervised treatment sessions, home-practice diaries and subjective experience reports.

Dr Ramesh Manocha

The literature on meditation

Dr Ramesh Manocha — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 05:58:05 +0000

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 more rigorous studies, there is no convincing evidence that meditation has a specific effect. In fact within this set of randomised controlled trials (RCTs), there appeared to be an inverse relationship between methodological rigour and likelihood of an outcome that is favourable to meditation.

Dr Ramesh Manocha

Strategies to assess physiological effects of meditation

Dr Ramesh Manocha — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 05:52:22 +0000

With regard to the physiology of meditation, research designs can be divided into 3 categories:

1) Case studies of meditation featuring small numbers of participants in which there is no attempt to control for confounding variables. While these are useful for generating hypotheses, they do not provide scientifically valid insights into meditation’s purportedly unique effects.

2) Own-control studies use participants in time sequential series (ie ab, aba or similar designs) in which the “a” condition is pre-meditation or non-meditation and the “b” condition is meditation. The “a” and “b” conditions are then compared. These studies have generally demonstrated significant differences (interpreted to be in favour of meditation) but they suffer from substantial limitations because they compare meditation to non-meditation and then assume that any differences are due to meditation, whereas they may in fact be due to methodological factors not specific to meditation at all (such as rest, expectancy, researcher demand and environmental issues). Further, this design is vulnerable to the possibility that one condition might be contaminated by carry-over effects from the preceding condition. A further important consideration applies especially to the case of novices — if the meditator is not sufficiently skilled then they may have difficulty in generating physiological changes and the effects (although potentially real) may not become detectable.

3) Experimental control studies are much more reliable as they involve two independent groups in which one meditates and the other engages in a control activity such as rest. There are however, methodological difficulties associated with this approach as well. First, use of novices (who are introduced to meditation during the trial) may mean that the effects of meditation are not large enough to generate a detectable change. Second, while use of advanced meditators (those who have practiced meditation over many years) may ensure that the necessary magnitude of effect is achieved, the question of selection bias becomes a significant consideration.

An ideal strategy would involve an experiment in which participants are randomly assigned from the same sample to either a meditation or a control group. This approach is rarely feasible however, since it would conventionally require many months or even years of practice before the participants achieved competence. With such lengthy time-lines the accumulation of drop-outs may in any case lead to selection bias. Therefore, a reasonable compromise strategy might involve using experienced meditators and comparing them to non-meditators who have either been matched for parameters including interest in meditation, or have been randomly selected from the population. This latter design was selected for the study described in this chapter.

Dr Ramesh Manocha

Meditation vs. psychotherapy to reduce anxiety

Dr Ramesh Manocha — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 05:18:04 +0000

The effects of meditation on anxiety and stress are comparable to effect sizes described in conventional meta-analyses of psychotherapy field studies. For example Mattick’s (1990) review of psychotherapy for neurotic patients reported a mean effect size of 0.74 for verbal psychotherapy and 0.97 for behavioural psychotherapy vis-a-vis a mean effect size of 0.55 for placebo. My review of meditation on the other hand found a mean effect size of 0.90. It should be noted however that the meditation studies focused on participants with non-pathological anxiety states, raising the possibility that the potential impact of meditation may be limited by a “ceiling effect” due the recruited sample’s relatively mild symptomatology and hence minimal scope for clinical improvement.

Dr Ramesh Manocha

Sahaja Yoga meditation as a treatment for hot flushes

Dr Ramesh Manocha — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 06:05:08 +0000

Sahaja Yoga meditation (SYM) may be helpful in mitigating the experience of hot flushes (HFs) in menopause via a number of possible pathways. First, like many other forms of meditation, SYM has been shown to reduce arousal in laboratory experiments. An interesting study on stress-induced HFs however, suggests that simple reduction of arousal may not be the only explanation. Swartzmann (1990) used objective measuring strategies and found that menopausal women exposed to various experimental stressors, experienced not only greater sensitivity to pre-existing symptoms, but also more episodes. Unexpectedly however, the additional HFs neither occurred in acute association with the stressor nor were they directly associated with elevated sympathetic arousal. Rather, the data suggested that the effects were mediated by a mechanism that is considerably slower than the sympathetic adreno-medullary system. This implies that a neuro-endocrine pathway may be involved in reducing central sympathetic activation. SYM may exert its effect by disrupting that part of the HF mechanism which is associated with increased central sympathetic activation.

Dr Ramesh Manocha

The Jadad score

Dr Ramesh Manocha — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 06:03:29 +0000

The Jadad scoring system is a widely used method of rating randomised controlled trials for basic methodological rigour. The Jadad system is inadequately structured to meaningfully discern the methodological standards of meditation trials. This is because the unique issues associated with controlling for non-specific effects and sources of bias are not adequately represented in this system.

Dr Ramesh Manocha

Historical descriptions of mental silence and trans-mind states Part 2

Dr Ramesh Manocha — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 22:00:53 +0000

Gyaneshwara

A famous teenage saint from Maharasthra, Gyaneshawara (1275–1296) described the ascent of the kundalini energy in his commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, called the Gyaneshawari, the awakening of this energy is associated with a unique state of consciousness which includes the experience of mental silence: “…the imagination subsides, activity becomes calm, and the functions of the body and mind become still…” (Noyce, 2006).

Zen

The ancient Japanese Rinzai Zen tradition also encompasses the idea of non-thought — elegantly and famously described in the Koan with the question: “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” (Hoffman, 1975). The answer is, of course, that there is no sound and similarly, the state of meditation involves no mental activity. The aim of this kind of riddle is to challenge the mind into realizing the futility of rational thought, thus triggering a sudden leap of consciousness toward the trans-mind state, described in the Zen tradition as satori (Littleton, 1996).

Buddhism

In the Buddhist tradition, the Mahayana school’s The Awakening of Faith described several stages in the practice of Buddhist faith, the final one being “the stage of preventing vain thoughts.” In meditative posture the aspirant is instructed that “all kinds of ideas, as soon as thought of, must be put away, even the idea of banishing them must also be put away” (Richard, 1907).

Dr Ramesh Manocha

1.1.1 Gyaneshwara

A famous teenage saint from Maharasthra, Gyaneshawara (1275–1296) described the ascent of the kundalini energy in his commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, called the Gyaneshawari, the awakening of this energy is associated with a unique state of consciousness which includes the experience of mental silence: “…the imagination subsides, activity becomes calm, and the functions of the body and mind become still…”²²⁴

1.1.2 Zen

The ancient Japanese Rinzai Zen tradition also encompasses the idea of non-thought — elegantly and famously described in the Koan with the question: “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”²²⁵. The answer is, of course, that there is no sound and similarly, the state of meditation involves no mental activity. The aim of this kind of riddle is to challenge the mind into realizing the futility of rational thought, thus triggering a sudden leap of consciousness toward the trans-mind state, described in the Zen tradition as satori²²⁶.

1.1.3 Buddhism

In the Buddhist tradition, the Mahayana school’s The Awakening of Faith described several stages in the practice of Buddhist faith, the final one being “the stage of preventing vain thoughts.” In meditative posture the aspirant is instructed that “all kinds of ideas, as soon as thought of, must be put away, even the idea of banishing them must also be put away.”²²⁷