There is widespread agreement in the literature that meditation reduces sympathetic activation and increases parasympathetic activation of the ANS, that is, it reduces physiological arousal thereby triggering a characteristic spectrum of simultaneous physiological changes: reduced respiratory rate (RR), reduced heart rate (HR), reduced blood pressure (BP), reduced electrodermal activity (EDA) and increased skin temperature (ST). [...]
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The graph displays a key difference between mental silence based meditation and other types of meditation.
Previous definitions of meditation have not differentiated between meditation and relaxation. A key feature of relaxation is that skin temperature increases with the reduced physiological arousal.
This graph shows data from a heuristic physiological study where mental silence meditators manifested reductions [...]
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Two cases are described in a report by Xu (1994). The first involved a 22 year-old man who sought treatment for lumbago and experienced the onset of adverse effects while undertaking self-teaching of the Wu Qin Xi form of Qigong. He experienced anxiety, physical pain, psychosis and suicidal thoughts. Some relief was experienced as a [...]
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A reduction of autonomic arousal leads to diversion of blood flow to the viscera and away from the skeletal muscle of the body. Accordingly this leads to increased blood flow to the surface of glabrous skin and thereby an increase in palmar skin temperature. Sahaja Yoga meditation practitioners appear to perform exactly the same overt [...]
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