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The neuroscience of meditation: classification, phenomenology, correlates, and mechanisms
Abstract
Rising from its contemplative and spiritual traditions, the science of meditation has seen huge growth over the last 30 years. This chapter reviews the classifications, phenomenology, neural correlates, and mechanisms of meditation. Meditation classification types are still varied and largely subjective. Broader models to describe meditation practice along multidimensional parameters may improve classification in the future. Phenomenological studies are few but growing, highlighting the subjective experience and correlations to neurophysiology. Oscillatory EEG studies are not conclusive likely due to the heterogeneous nature of the meditation styles and practitioners being assessed. Neuroimaging studies find common patterns during meditation and in long-term meditators reflecting the basic similarities of meditation in general; however, mostly the patterns differ across unique meditation traditions. Research on the mechanisms of meditation, specifically attention and emotion regulation is also discussed. There is a growing body of evidence demonstrating positive benefits from meditation in some clinical populations especially for stress reduction, anxiety, depression, and pain improvement, although future research would benefit by addressing the remaining methodological and conceptual issues. Meditation research continues to grow allowing us to understand greater nuances of how meditation works and its effects.
... Different meditation practices exist, with similarities: a quiet location with few distractions, a specific and comfortable posture (sitting or lying down), a focus on attention, and an open attitude of letting thoughts come and go without judgment (Ospina et al., 2008). Phenomenological characteristics of meditation vary according to the type of practice, but alteration of sense of time, space and body representation, along with modifications of emotions and physical sensations are commonly reported (Brandmeyer et al., 2019). The neurophysiological correlates of mediation also depend on the type of meditation and thus are not yet clear (De Benedittis, 2015;Lomas, 2015;Brandmeyer et al., 2019). ...
... Phenomenological characteristics of meditation vary according to the type of practice, but alteration of sense of time, space and body representation, along with modifications of emotions and physical sensations are commonly reported (Brandmeyer et al., 2019). The neurophysiological correlates of mediation also depend on the type of meditation and thus are not yet clear (De Benedittis, 2015;Lomas, 2015;Brandmeyer et al., 2019). However, a systematic review showed that mindfulness-based meditation is associated with increased alpha and theta power, while no consistent patterns were observed in beta, delta, and gamma bandwidths. ...
... However, a systematic review showed that mindfulness-based meditation is associated with increased alpha and theta power, while no consistent patterns were observed in beta, delta, and gamma bandwidths. This configuration is indicative of a state of relaxed alertness favoring mental health (Lomas, 2015;Brandmeyer et al., 2019). Meditation has also been shown to positively influence emotional distress, pain, fatigue, and sleep difficulties in patients with cancer (Kim et al., 2013;Carlson et al., 2017;Arring et al., 2019;Ngamkham et al., 2019;Suh et al., 2021). ...
Introduction
A symptom cluster is very common among oncological patients: cancer-related fatigue (CRF), emotional distress, sleep difficulties, pain, and cognitive difficulties. Clinical applications of interventions based on non-ordinary states of consciousness, mostly hypnosis and meditation, are starting to be investigated in oncology settings. They revealed encouraging results in terms of improvements of these symptoms. However, these studies often focused on breast cancer patients, with methodological limitations (e.g., small sample size, no control group, and no follow-up). Another non-ordinary state of consciousness may also have therapeutic applications in oncology: self-induced cognitive trance (SICT). It seems to differ from hypnosis and meditation, as it involves the body more directly. Thus, investigating its clinical applications, along with hypnosis and meditation interventions, could improve available therapeutic options in oncology. This article details the study protocol of a preference-based longitudinal controlled superiority trial aiming to assess the effectiveness of 3 group interventions (hypnosis, meditation, and SICT) to improve oncological patients’ quality of life, and more specifically CRF, emotional distress, sleep, pain, and cognitive difficulties (primary outcomes).
Methods and analysis
A power analysis required a total sample of 160 patients. Main inclusion criteria are: cancer diagnosis, active treatments completed for less than a year, no practice of hypnosis, meditation, or SICT, and presence of at least one of these four symptoms: fatigue, sleep difficulties, depression, or anxiety. Each participant will choose the intervention in which they want to participate (hypnosis, mindful self-compassion meditation, SICT, or no intervention—control group). To test the effectiveness of the interventions, data will be collected by questionnaires and neurobiological measures and directly from the medical record at four time points: before inclusion in the study (baseline); immediately after the intervention; and at 3- and 12-month follow-up. The longitudinal data in each group will then be measured.
Discussion
In addition to standard cancer therapies, there is a growing interest from patients in complementary approaches, such as hypnosis, meditation, and SICT. The results of this study will be useful to increase knowledge about short- and long-term effectiveness of 3 group interventions for CRF, emotional distress, sleep, pain, and cognitive difficulties in patients with different cancers.
Clinical Trial Registration
ClinicalTrials.gov/ (NCT04873661). Retrospectively registered on the 29th of April 2021. url: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04873661
... Using the domain and taxonomic key system of classification, HEM can be categorized on the basis of its method as a Null Domain Meditation (NDM) resulting in a state of emptiness, with no phenomenological content [25]. It is a guided meditation with the specific cognitive strategy of directing the awareness to various body parts in easy succession. ...
... It points to the efficacy of HEM as a restorative meditation practice. Comparative analyses of the neurobiology of various kinds of meditation reveal that the techniques are marked by unique characteristics that affect practitioners in different ways [25,31,32]. FAM "show activations in brain areas for cognitive control that require monitoring performance, voluntary regulation of attention and behavior, consistent with largely effortful, sustained attention with a range of regulation demands and deactivations in mind-wandering, episodic memory retrieval, simulation of future events, and conceptual semantic processing," while OMM "has activations in brain areas for voluntary regulation of thought and action, interoceptive processing (insula), cognitive control (coordinating, monitoring attention to both internal and external channels of information) and deactivations in sensory gating (right thalamus) and no blocking of sensory information" [25]. ...
... Comparative analyses of the neurobiology of various kinds of meditation reveal that the techniques are marked by unique characteristics that affect practitioners in different ways [25,31,32]. FAM "show activations in brain areas for cognitive control that require monitoring performance, voluntary regulation of attention and behavior, consistent with largely effortful, sustained attention with a range of regulation demands and deactivations in mind-wandering, episodic memory retrieval, simulation of future events, and conceptual semantic processing," while OMM "has activations in brain areas for voluntary regulation of thought and action, interoceptive processing (insula), cognitive control (coordinating, monitoring attention to both internal and external channels of information) and deactivations in sensory gating (right thalamus) and no blocking of sensory information" [25]. Since these two types of meditation coalesce in the practice of HEM, and particularly because the global PSQI decreases with practice of HEM, a more intensive study of the HEM technique of meditation is merited. ...
Purpose
Disturbed sleep and other sleep-related problems have a negative impact on the human mind and body. Meditation practices are reported to improve physiological functions and might also have a positive impact on regulating sleep. This research investigates the efficacy of an advanced mind–body medicine intervention, called Hollow and Empty Meditation (HEM), on improving sleep quality.
Methods
The study was a single-arm open-trial pilot study which assessed 413 adults who underwent a 4-day meditation retreat offered by the Art of Living, called the Advanced Meditation Program (AMP), and experienced a novel meditation—HEM. Results were measured using a self-report questionnaire, the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), which was administered to the participants thrice: on the first day of the program (pre-intervention), immediately after program (post-intervention/Day 4), and on Day 40 (D40) after the program.
Results
There was a significant difference in pre–post and pre–D40 scores in the population. Both sleep quality and sleep duration showed an improvement immediately after the AMP (post), and the residual impact was still experienced at D40, especially with the group with age > 36 years.
Conclusions
The use of HEM resulted in improvement in sleep quality not just immediately after the program, but had longer-term effects that extended over several weeks, helping remediate sleep problems among younger adults as well as older ones. It resulted in improvement in sleep quality as well as reduction in sleep-related daytime impairment, which have substantial constructive implications for well-being, everyday functioning and quality of life.
... Other forms of meditation techniques (Box 2) appear to be permutations and combinations of these three prototypes, with known differences and commonalities in their methodology and benefits (Brandmeyer 2019). ...
... The use of randomised longitudinal study designs with active control groups would allow for control of the potentially confounding effects of non-meditation-specific qualities of the lifestyle associated with contemplative practices (Brandmeyer 2019). It is especially important to remain cautious regarding the degree to which research findings are translational and generalisable to clinical practice (Van Dam 2018). ...
Meditation, a component of ashtanga yoga, is an act of inward contemplation in which the mind fluctuates between a state of attention to a stimulus and complete absorption in it. Some forms of meditation have been found to be useful for people with psychiatric conditions such as anxiety, depression and substance use disorder. Evidence for usefulness of meditation for people with psychotic disorders is mixed, with reported improvements in negative symptoms but the emergence/precipitation of psychotic symptoms. This article narrates the benefits of meditation in psychiatric disorders, understanding meditation from the yoga perspective, biological aspects of meditation and practical tips for the practice of meditation. We also explain possible ways of modifying meditative practices to make them safe and useful for the patient population and useful overall as a society-level intervention.
... Keywords: meditation, depression, anxiety, biomarkers, Isha, Samyama, triglycerides, mindfulness BACKGROUND Meditation is gaining credibility as a simple and effective tool to impact health and well-being. Researchers from a variety of disciplines have begun to investigate meditationrelated cognitive, psychological, and physiological changes (Brandmeyer et al., 2019). As meditation-related research has grown exponentially since the 1990's, there are now over 5,000 peer-reviewed publications from the National Library of Medicine (pubmed.com). ...
... For practitioners, meditation is typically a spiritual practice aiming for selfactualization, enlightenment, or transcendence. From a scientific perspective, meditation is a method for distinct attentional training to improve insight into one's own mental activity (Brandmeyer et al., 2019). Meditation, as defined from a Western perspective for studies, may broadly include mantra meditation, mindfulness training, yoga, transcendental meditation, qigong, tai chi, and guided imagery (Chen et al., 2012). ...
Background: Meditation is gaining recognition as a tool to impact health and well-being. Samyama is an 8-day intensive residential meditation experience conducted by Isha Foundation requiring several months of extensive preparation and vegan diet. The health effects of Samyama have not been previously studied. The objective was to assess physical and emotional well-being before and after Samyama participation by evaluating psychological surveys and objective health biomarkers.
Methods: This was an observational study of 632 adults before and after the Isha Samyama retreat. All participants were invited to complete surveys. Controls included household significant others. Surveys were completed at baseline (T1), just before Samyama (T2), immediately after Samyama (T3), and 3 months later (T4) to assess anxiety, depression, mindfulness, joy, vitality, and resilience through validated psychometric scales. Voluntary blood sampling for biomarker analysis was done to assess hemoglobin (Hb), HbA1c, lipid profile, and C-reactive protein (CRP). Primary outcomes were changes in psychometric scores, body weight, and blood biomarkers.
Results: Depression and anxiety scores decreased from T1 to T3, with the effect most pronounced in participants with baseline depression or anxiety. Scores at T4 remained below baseline for those with pre-existing depression or anxiety. Vitality, resilience, joy, and mindfulness increased from T1 to T3 (sustained at T4). Body weight decreased by 3% from T1 to T3. Triglycerides (TG) were lower from T2 to T3. Participants had lower HbA1c and HDL at T2, and lower CRP at all timepoints compared with controls.
Conclusions: Participation in the Isha Samyama program led to multiple benefits. The 2-month preparation reduced anxiety, and participants maintained lower anxiety levels at 3 months post-retreat. Physical health improved over the course of the program as evidenced by weight loss and improved HbA1C and lipid profile. Practices associated with the Samyama preparation phase and the retreat may serve as an effective way to improve physical and mental health. Future studies may examine their use as an alternative therapy in patients with depression and/or anxiety.
Clinical Trial Registration: www.ClinicalTrials.gov , Identifier: 1801728792. Registered retrospectively on 4/17/2020.
... In addition, slow fluctuations in the position of the eyes during visual fixation influence the intrinsic DMN activity (Fransson et al., 2014). This indicates that both gaze position and body posture likely influence the DMM activity, as illustrated by "zazen" meditation practice (Brandmeyer et al., 2019), during which postural control is required. As wellness behavioral methods emphasize attention on the breathing movements to enhance body consciousness, the related EEG oscillations linked to respiration and cardiac activity should be integrated into protocols. ...
... [20][21][22] Similar to the Interprofessional Model of SC, 23 our conception of SC is intended to apply to all healthcare professionals, from nurses to medical clinicians, and is not restricted to the professional interventions of chaplains. 24 Beyond the difficulty of having narrow definitions, spirituality and SC have been shown to be beneficial to health outcomes during the past few decades of research across several disciplines and fields, from epidemiology, 25,26 to neuroscience 27 and mental health. 28 The World Health Organisation (WHO) includes the evaluation of and care for the spiritual needs of the patients with life-threatening illness. ...
Background:
Spirituality is beneficial to health. Evidence around the benefits of Spiritual care (SC) is advancing, and training is becoming part of healthcare professional development. As the COVID-19 crisis showed, during major health disasters (MHDs), the demand for SC grows exponentially, while the burden of care and focus on preserving life often hamper its provision. Nonetheless, existing health emergency strategic frameworks lack preparedness for the provision of SC.
Aim:
The aim of this study was to identify the components for a National Strategy (NS) for the provision of SC during MHDs.
Methods:
Descriptive, cross-sectional, qualitative phenomenological design based on individual, semi-structured e-interviews with nursing managers and National Health Service/volunteer chaplains based in England. Thematic analysis of 25 e-interview data was performed based on a dialogic collaborative process.
Results and discussion:
Eleven themes were identified as components of the proposed NS. From these components, specific recommendations for practical actions are provided. An integrated framework approach and smart investments in resources, staff training and technologies should be led by the paradigm of culturally competent and compassionate care.
Conclusion:
The need to have strategic frameworks, both national and local, that better equip a country healthcare sector to prevent, face, and recover from MHDs is paramount. Catering for the spiritual needs of the affected population should be a key aspect of any health emergency strategy to ensure the preservation of quality care.
... Another open research question is to determine to what degree different types of meditation practice influence the awareness, duration, and frequency of mind-wandering episodes. Although meditation research is a relatively established scientific domain within both academic and clinical contexts, as mentioned, much debate regarding incompatible definitions and conceptions of mindfulness and meditation remain within both academic and traditional Buddhist contexts (Brandmeyer, Delorme, & Wahbeh, 2019;Dunne, 2015;Sharf, 2015;Van Dam et al., 2018). Likewise, the manner in which mind wandering is defined directly influences the corresponding neuroimaging data; thus, future research should aim to differentiate the distinctive forms of spontaneous cognition at a behavioral, phenomenological, and neural level . ...
During the practice of meditation, the occurrence of self-generated and spontaneous thought and the tendency of the mind to wander away from the intended goal of meditation is ubiquitous, and comprises one of the fundamental teachings of meditation: a heightened awareness of where our attention is placed, and an awareness of the contents of our mind. Mind-wandering in the context of meditation provides individuals a unique and intimate opportunity to closely examine the nature of the wandering mind, cultivating an awareness of ongoing thought patterns while simultaneously cultivating equanimity (evenness of temper or disposition) and compassion towards the content of thoughts, interpretations, and bodily sensations. In this review we provide a theoretical framework highlighting the neurocognitive mechanisms by which contemplative practices influence the neural and phenomenological processes underlying spontaneous thought. Our theoretical model focuses on several converging mechanisms: the role of meta-awareness in facilitating an increased moment to moment awareness of spontaneous thought processes, the effects of meditation practice on key structures underlying both the top-down cognitive processes and bottom-up sensory processes implicated in attention and emotion regulation, and the influence of contemplative practice on the neural substrates underlying perception and perceptual decoupling.
... Theta originating in the ACC often increases in power during a variety of cognitive processes that require attention, focus, or emotional processing [21][22][23][24]. Several studies have found a correlation between increased FM Theta and focused attention meditation practices [25,26]. Results showed that the experimental group was not only able to significantly increase FM Theta, but also improved performance on a working memory task [27]. ...
Beginning meditators often complain that they do not know if they are "doing it right" or give up before realizing significant benefits. Advanced meditators often reach a plateau and struggle to reach "the next level" of their practice. Modern researchers and practitioners are finding a possible new solution to these challenges by using EEG biofeedback to increase awareness of subtle states of consciousness and speed the learning process. By tracking brainwave activity in specific regions of the brain, we can tell if someone is focused or relaxed. We can tell if the mind is wandering, if they are engaged in body-based emotions, or if they have entered a space of internal quiet. By monitoring this activity and connecting it directly to the intent of the meditation, it is possible to help meditators learn to quickly enter a desired state of consciousness and maintain this state for increasing periods of time. This chapter will describe the early research conducted in this area along with an original case study conducted by the author. In addition, the author will describe the way this technology is being used as a treatment intervention for ADHD, anxiety, depression, and PTSD.
... In more experienced practitioners, an emphasis on effortless and increasingly subtle repetition of the mantra, leading into silence of the mind, may have additional effects on outcomes related to well-being. 20 Finally, a spiritual background of meditation could be inherent to appreciating the full value of meditation practice 21 and can lead to stronger effects. 22 The Healthy Lifestyle domain of MBLM mainly physical yoga postures, breath control and selected lifestyle recommendations according to Ayurvedic medicine. ...
Background: Integrative mental health care can be applied to treat depression with a person-centered, lifestyle- modifying, and more salutogenic approach to mental health and human flourishing. In this article, we report on the feasibility and acceptability of a new mind-body program, Meditation Based Lifestyle Modification (MBLM), in outpatients with mild or moderate depression. Methods: This is a single-arm mixed-methods feasibility study of n = 25 outpatients in psychiatric care. Depressive symptoms, scores for mindfulness, aspects of spirituality, and eudaemonic well-being based on yoga philosophy were assessed at baseline and at the end of the intervention. Adherence was monitored and face-to- face interviews were held after the program to explore the acceptability and feasibility of MBLM. Results: Twenty patients (75 %) completed at least six sessions of the course. Adherence was 87.5 % of allocated sessions. In qualitative analysis, more than half of the participants experienced novelty and inspiration through practicing the ethical aspects of yoga (e.g., nonviolence, truthfulness, etc.). Almost all participants experienced a decrease in emotional distress. Virtually all participants reported more self-confidence and self-acceptance. In quantitative analysis, participants reported a clinically important decrease in depressive symptoms of 39.23 % (p = .002), eudaemonic well-being increased significantly in a range of related scales and scores for mindfulness increased (p < .001). Conclusion: MBLM is a highly acceptable and feasible program for outpatients with mild to moderate depression. This comprehensive, lifestyle-modifying approach is highly relevant to preventing and treating mental illness, and treating psychic comorbidities in patients with chronic somatic illness.
1.
... As research grew, it became clear WHAT DO MEDITATORS DO WHEN THEY MEDITATE 4 that reducing meditation to these few styles represented an oversimplification of its inherent diversity. Consequently, new collections and classification systems encompassing a greater variety of meditation techniques have been proposed (Brandmeyer et al., 2019;Dahl et al., 2015;Fox et al., 2016;Lutz et al., 2015;Nash & Newberg, 2013). Nonetheless, these collections and classification systems have still been derived mostly from the top down and they omit several important meditation techniques, especially from the Hindu context (Matko & Sedlmeier, 2019). ...
Meditation is an umbrella term for a vast range of contemplative practices. Former proposals have struggled to do justice to this diversity. To our knowledge, there is to date no comprehensive overview of meditation techniques spanning all major traditions. The present studies aimed at filling this gap. In a qualitative study, we compiled a collection of 309 meditation techniques through a literature search and interviews with 20 expert meditators. Then, we reduced this collection to 50 basic meditation techniques. In a second, quantitative study, 635 experienced meditators from a wide range of meditative backgrounds indicated how much experience they had with each of these 50 meditation techniques. Meditators' responses indicated that our choice of techniques had been adequate and two techniques had to be added. Our additional statistical and cluster analyses illustrated preferences for specific techniques across and within diverse traditions as well as sets of techniques commonly practiced together. Body-centered techniques stood out in being of exceptional importance to all meditators. In conclusion, we found an amazing variety of meditation techniques, which considerably surpasses previous collections. Our selection of basic meditation techniques might be of value for future scientific investigations and we encourage researchers to rely on this set.
... Gamma EEG is most often reported during Zen Buddhism and Qigong practice [79]. This is understandable since these practices require focus and control of mental processes. ...
Three broad organizing strategies have been used to study meditation practices: (1) consider meditation practices as using similar processes and so combine neural images across a wide range of practices to identify the common underlying brain patterns of meditation practice, (2) consider meditation practices as unique and so investigate individual practices, or (3) consider meditation practices as fitting into larger categories and explore brain patterns within and between categories. The first organizing strategy combines meditation practices defined as deep concentration, attention to external and internal stimuli, and letting go of thoughts. Brain patterns of different procedures would all contribute to the final averages, which may not be representative of any practice. The second organizing strategy generates a multitude of brain patterns as each practice is studied individually. The rich detail of individual differences within each practice makes it difficult to identify reliable patterns between practices. The third organizing principle has been applied in three ways: (1) grouping meditations by their origin—Indian or Buddhist practices, (2) grouping meditations by the procedures of each practice, or (3) grouping meditations by brain wave frequencies reported during each practice. Grouping meditations by their origin mixes practices whose procedures include concentration, mindfulness, or effortless awareness, again resulting in a confounded pattern. Grouping meditations by their described procedures yields defining neural imaging patterns within each category, and clear differences between categories. Grouping meditations by the EEG frequencies associated with their procedures yields an objective system to group meditations and allows practices to “move” into different categories as subjects’ meditation experiences change over time, which would be associated with different brain patterns. Exploring meditations within theoretically meaningful categories appears to yield the most reliable picture of meditation practices.
... VAM is a type of open monitoring meditation [19,20]. Open monitoring meditation requires a broad scope of attention while focusing on a particular object. ...
Background
Medical science is increasingly recognizing the role of gut health in achieving optimal wellbeing. A healthy gut improves digestion. Additionally, it has a positive impact on multiple physiological networks such as immune system, central nervous system and hepato-endocrine system, thus contributing to the overall quality of life. Functional gastrointestinal disorders: also known as disorders of gut-brain interaction, such as irritable bowel syndrome are increasing worldwide. Conditions like stress, anxiety and mental disorders are correlated with these disorders. Mind-body interventions have been shown to ameliorate stress, anxiety and related conditions that may aggravate functional gastrointestinal disorders.
Objective
The present study aims to investigate the benefits of a novel meditation technique called the Vaishvanara Agni meditation (VAM) on the gastrointestinal quality of life.
Materials and Methods
54 subjects participated in the study and practiced VAM for 50 days. During the Vaishvanara Agni meditation (VAM), attention is directed to the navel region and the digestive system. The effect of the meditation was evaluated using the gastrointestinal quality of life (GI-QoL) questionnaire, which was administered to subjects at three different time points i.e. day 0, day 24 and day 50.
Results
GI-QoL was significantly improved with the practice of VAM. Additionally, significant improvements were noticed in all sub domains especially core symptoms, physical strength and the psychological domain.
Conclusion
Meditation practices that focus on improving digestion can be an effective tool for improving gut health.
... Nowadays, religion/spirituality in health is still an active area of research across several disciplines and fields. Neurosciences have been interested, for example, in the neurophysiologic effects of meditation onto the brain structure, and how this connects with health improvement in some clinical populations, due to enhanced stress-reduction, emotion regulation, self-awareness, and healthier mind (Brandmeyer et al., 2019;Tang et al., 2015). Mental health/care is indeed another important field where the role of spirituality/religion has been increasingly investigated. ...
Spirituality is a broad concept, revolving around the notions of connection, meaning, transcendence and values. Spirituality can encompass religion, or not, yet both appear to increase human wellbeing and health. For this, Spiritual Support is key to holistic, compassionate care (Papadopoulos, 2018), and its benefits for patients have been demonstrated. This paper discusses the radical changes in the provision of spiritual support to hospitalized patients, and their relatives, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The discussion stems from a scoping review of online sources (mass and social media, and websites of NHS and organizations concerned with spirituality) in relation to spiritual support to hospitalized patients in England during the initial pandemic peak, between March and May 2020. In the current outbreak, spiritual support has drastically diminished, due to the emergency burden of care of frontline healthcare workers, and the infection control precautions hampering the services of pastoral and spiritual care units in hospitals. However, spiritual support has also been transforming in quality, and, from religious collective rituals to non-religious spiritual practices, three fundamental changes have occurred: elimination of body language and contact during in-person spiritual support, including rituals; spiritual support and self-spiritual support, via symbolic and creative actions, often domestic, to establish closeness-in-distance; and the
virtualization of spiritual support using digital technologies, both in real time (e.g., live streamed masses and video calls) and deferred (e.g., recorded guided meditations and uploaded prayers). All these modifications are critically tackled in this paper, against the backdrop of the importance of spiritual support in end-of-life, pivoting around the inter-personal encounter between the sick and the spiritual support provider. Dying alone is usually constructed as a form of ‘bad death’ (Seale, 1998), to the point that cultures and societies have established collective rituals to ensure the smooth passage from the world of the living to that of the dead (Gennep, 2019). The use of digital technology may ultimately innovate our sense of ‘being there’, including with our avatar bodies, in spiritual support. However, a reflection is needed around the effectiveness of rituals, which traditionally entail the physical presence of a collective (Durkheim, 2008), and of the ‘new normal’ forms of spiritual support brought about by what is also an existential pandemic.
... Its roots derive from Hindu, Taoist, Buddhist and other contemplative traditions. Recently, researchers in the field have categorized meditation practices into attentional, constructive and deconstructive families (Dahl, Lutz, & Davidson, 2015) or to focused attention/concentration, open monitoring/mindfulness, loving-kindness/heartfulness, mantra repetition, and others (Brandmeyer, Delorme, & Wahbeh, 2019). While recent studies are attributing putative benefits to specific types of meditation (Singer & Engert, 2018), it is clear that regardless of the type, meditation is associated with many benefits. ...
Despite numerous benefits of practicing meditation, a growing body of evidence posits possible detrimental effects on one’s mental health and well-being. As meditation’s popularity is steadily increasing in the general population, it is critical to assess, discuss and educate the public of any possible risks associated with available practices. Here, we review existing literature on the adverse effects (AEs) of meditation in non-clinical samples. Relevant original research articles were found through various academic search engines. The bibliographies of the selected studies were reviewed to identify additional articles of interest. A total of 39 studies were retained. These articles were divided into one of three categories: Observational (n = 19), Experimental (n = 9), or Case Studies (n = 11). AEs varied substantially across the studies, yet trends were identified. Common AEs included affective difficulties, distorted senses of self, derealization, hallucinations, delusions, interpersonal challenges, and susceptibility to false memory. Other AEs that were less commonly reported are also summarized. Meditation-related AEs in non-clinical samples are apparent in the literature. We discuss how the perceived valence of a meditative experience can vary, particularly if the experience is considered beyond the secular framework. We conclude that the general public should be aware of any potential effects derived from meditation in order to assert the meditation community’s safety and well-being.
... [20] and this may direct to utilize the state of the art deep learning techniques [18]. With three decades of contemplative research, meditation has been an effective tool to increase attentional engagement, well-being, and states of flow [6]. ...
Recent developments in neurotechnology effectively utilize the decades of neuroscientific findings of multiple meditation techniques. Meditation is linked to higher-order cognitive processes, which may function as a scaffold for cognitive control. In line with these developments, we analyze oscillatory brain activities of expert and non-expert meditators from the Himalayan Yoga tradition. We exploit four dimensions (Temporal, Spectral, Spatial and Pattern) of EEG data and present an analysis pipeline employing machine learning techniques. We discuss the significance of different frequency bands in relation with distinct primary 5 scalp brain regions. Functional connectivity networks (PLV) are utilized to generate features for classification between expert and non-expert meditators. We find (a) higher frequency β and γ oscillations generate maximum discrimination over the parietal region whereas lower frequency θ and α oscillations dominant over the frontal region; (b) maximum accuracy of over 90% utilizing features from all regions; (c) Quadratic Discriminant Analysis surpasses other classifiers by learning distribution for classification. Overall, this paper contributes a pipeline to analyze EEG data utilizing various properties and suggests potential neural markers for an expert meditative state. We discuss the implications of our research for the advancement of personalized headset design that rely on feedback on depth of meditation by learning from expert meditators.
... In these realms, spirituality has been shown to be beneficial to health due to the promotion of beneficial health behaviours, positive psychological states, better coping with stressful events, and the strengthening of social networks and support (Oman and Thoresen, 2005). Since the 1980s, the positive relation between religion/spirituality and health outcomes has been an active area of research across several disciplines and fields, from epidemiology (Levin and Schiller, 1987;Levin and Vanderpool, 1989), to neuroscience (Brandmeyer et al., 2019) and mental health (AbdAleati et al., 2016). Palliative care/EoL is arguably the field of study and practice where the care for the spiritual needs is of chief relevance (Amoah, 2011). ...
Abstract
Background
Spirituality is an integral part of being human, and should therefore be part of all fields of healthcare such as prevention, treatment, coping, recovery or death. During Major Health Disasters (MHDs), the demand for Spiritual Care and Support (SCS) grows exponentially, while the emergency burden of care and focus on preserving life often hamper its provision. The COVID-19 pandemic was an extreme global crisis, during which SCS drastically diminished, suggesting that healthcare providers and governments were unprepared in terms of a national strategy for the provision of SCS in health emergencies.
Aim
The aim of this study is to identify the components for a national strategy for the provision of SCS to patients, their families and staff during MHDs and emergencies.
Methods
A descriptive, cross-sectional, qualitative phenomenological design based on individual, semi-structured e-interviews with nursing managers and NHS/volunteer chaplains based in England was adopted. Thematic analysis of 25 e-interviews was performed based on a dialogic collaborative process. The documents shared by interviewees were analysed using a standardised form.
Results and Discussion
Results are divided into two parts. In Part I, five themes encapsulate the experiences of SCS narrated by participants, such as unpreparedness and the sense of being overwhelmed. Part II contains 11 themes which are translated into the 11 components of the proposed national strategy. The themes/components, accompanied by practical recommendations for action, are: Awareness of the past, Terminology, Community, Collaborations, Communication, Care and Spiritual Support, Training, Technology, Trust, Equality / Diversity / Inclusion, and Resources. An integrated framework approach illustrates who is responsible for: the planning and preparation of each component; the delivery and implementation of the action/resources needed; and the evaluation of the actions.
Conclusion
The need to have strategic frameworks, both national and local, that better equip a country to prevent, face, and recover from MHDs is paramount. Catering for the spiritual needs of the affected population should be a key aspect of any emergency strategy, given the centrality of SCS in healthcare, which becomes both exceptionally important and challenging in circumstances of mass fear and death.
Keywords: Spiritual care and support, major health disasters, COVID-19, England, NHS, senior nurses, chaplains, national strategy, preparedness, culturally competent and compassionate care.
Available also from: https://cultureandcompassion.com/Spirituality-2/#page=1
... This system plays an important role in the executive control of attention, mediating internally and externally oriented cognition, and is responsible for top-down regulation of mental states (Corbetta et al., 2008;Andrews-Hanna et al., 2014;Spreng et al., 2013). The regular practice of MM has been shown to affect all the abovementioned neural networks, to improve different cognitive and affective processes, such as attention and emotion regulation, and to be beneficial for some clinical populations affected by chronic pain, stress, anxiety and depression (for reviews on the effects and mechanisms of meditation, see Brandmeyer et al., 2019 andTang et al., 2015). For what concerns the specific influence of MM on MW, there is much less evidence available and, despite the central role of MW during the practice of MM, the relationship between the two remains an open matter. ...
Through the practice of Mindfulness Meditation (MM), meditators become familiar with the observation of ongoing spontaneous thoughts, while maintaining an attitude of openness and equanimity. The aim of this systematic review is to present a synthesis of available findings of the short and long-term effects of MM on mind wandering (MW). We included studies that considered both first-person and behavioral/physiological measures of MW. The search resulted in 2035 papers, 24 of which were eligible. Reviewed studies revealed a high heterogeneity in designs, outcome measures and interventions. Most of the pre-post intervention studies showed that a protracted practice of MM (at least 2 weeks) reduced MW, limiting its negative effects on different cognitive tasks. Cross-sectional studies highlighted differences between expert meditators and naïve individuals: meditators self-reported less MW and showed decreased Default Mode Network activity, during meditation and resting-state. Further studies are needed to replicate available findings and to more deeply explore how MW is influenced by meditation, also considering its qualitative characteristics that remain largely unexplored.
... Transcendental experience may be an engine that fuels human development and creates potential for the evolution of higher forms of human "intelligence, " to be understood here in terms of mental capability. Insights from the neuroscience of meditation and its effects on human wellbeing and the development of higher forms of consciousness (Muehsam et al., 2017;Mahone et al., 2018;Vieten et al., 2018;Brandmeyer et al., 2019;Vivot et al., 2020) points toward states of enhanced consciousness in deep meditation as a crucial driver of human psychological development . Deep meditation also has proven therapeutic effects, as in chronic pain management (Hilton et al., 2017) in individuals where consciousness is often reduced to little else than overwhelming sensations of pain, limiting the full, health expression of conscious capability in their everyday lives. ...
In the field theories in physics, any particular region of the presumed space-time continuum and all interactions between elementary objects therein can be objectively measured and/or accounted for mathematically. Since this does not apply to any of the field theories, or any other neural theory, of consciousness, their explanatory power is limited. As discussed in detail herein, the matter is complicated further by the facts than any scientifically operational definition of consciousness is inevitably partial, and that the phenomenon has no spatial dimensionality. Under the light of insights from research on meditation and expanded consciousness, chronic pain syndrome, healthy aging, and eudaimonic well-being, we may conceive consciousness as a source of potential energy that has no clearly defined spatial dimensionality, but can produce significant changes in others and in the world, observable in terms of changes in time. It is argued that consciousness may have evolved to enable the human species to generate such changes in order to cope with unprecedented and/or unpredictable adversity. Such coping could, ultimately, include the conscious planning of our own extinction when survival on the planet is no longer an acceptable option.
... According to Husserl's and Varela's philosophy, the first-person phenomenology of consciousness requires a disciplined methodology, such as the epoché or phenomenological reduction. One of the ideas behind this, was that accurately observing and reporting on internal experiences would require training, in particular of one's attention (Brandmeyer, Delorme, and Wahbeh 2019). The idea that meditators may be able to report on their experiences with greater accuracy than non-meditators (Fox et al. 2012), together with the canon of literature describing the experiences within meditation, made meditation as a task a logical starting point for this study. ...
A recurring problem for the study of the neural correlates of conscious experience states is the lack of continuous measures for first-person reports. In this thesis, I introduce Temporal Experience Tracing as a method for capturing continuous subjective experiences. This method requires participants to retrospectively graph the intensity of an experience along several phenomenological dimensions over time. I present the results from two groups practising three styles of mindfulness meditation in either a 3-day Retreat setting, or over several months in their own homes. The traces revealed common experience states with transition dynamics shared between the participant groups. We found both meditation style-specific experience states, as well as a cluster of difficulties experienced with the practice. From low-density portable EEG recordings, 98 neural features were computed, including spectral features, connectivity measures and information theoretic measures. These features enabled classification of the data-driven experience clusters in unseen meditation sessions from known participants in both meditation groups, while the meditation style could only be classified in the more experienced participant group, the Home meditation group. Finally, using univariate classifications, the neural features enabling correct binary classifications of experience states are studied. Supporting the idea of inter-individual phenomenological similarity, neural markers associated with high classification accuracies strongly overlapped between the two groups. Furthermore, we did not find an effect of mindfulness training on the classification accuracy of subjective experience states, suggesting that this method can capture aspects of the true underlying experiences even in untrained participants. This study is the first of its kind, combining a quantitative analysis of phenomenological structures in time with a data-driven approach to the study of neural correlates of mental states. Future applications of temporal experience tracing are discussed, including the study of temporal dynamics of continuous states of consciousness and the integration of the experience dynamics with neural dynamics.
... Meditation is a mental practice aiming to improve the psychological capacity of selfregulation regarding attention, awareness, and emotion [1]. Its implementation has been described not only in religious and cultural beliefs but also in health promotion as itself or as a component of mind-body practices such as yoga, qigong, tai chi, and mindfulnessbased interventions (MBIs) [2]. ...
Background:
Meditation has been increasingly adapted for healthy populations and participants with diseases. Its beneficial effects are still challenging to determine due to the heterogeneity and methodological obstacles regarding medical applications. This study aimed to integrate the features of therapeutic meditation in randomized controlled trials (RCTs).
Methods:
We conducted a systematic review of RCTs with meditation for populations with diseases using the PubMed database through June 2021. We analyzed the characteristics of the diseases/disorders, participants, measurements, and their overall benefits.
Results:
Among a total of 4855 references, 104 RCTs were determined and mainly applied mindfulness-based (51 RCTs), yoga-based (32 RCTs), and transcendental meditation (14 RCTs) to 10,139 patient-participants. These RCTs were conducted for participants with a total of 45 kinds of disorders; the most frequent being cancer, followed by musculoskeletal and connective tissue diseases and affective mood disorder. Seven symptoms or signs were frequently assessed: depressive mood, feeling anxious, quality of life, stress, sleep, pain, and fatigue. The RCTs showed a higher ratio of positive outcomes for sleep (73.9%) and fatigue (68.4%).
Conclusions:
This systematic review produced the comprehensive features of RCTs for therapeutic meditation. These results will help physicians and researchers further study clinical adaptations in the future as reference data.
Although psychiatric drug withdrawal syndromes have been recognized since the 1950s – recent studies confirm antidepressant withdrawal syndrome incidence upwards of 40% – medical information about how to safely go off the drugs has been lacking. To fill this gap, over the last 25 years, patients have developed a robust Internet-based subculture of peer support for tapering off psychiatric drugs and recovering from withdrawal syndrome. This account from the founder of such an online community covers lessons learned from thousands of patients regarding common experiences with medical providers, identification of adverse drug reactions, risk factors for withdrawal, tapering techniques, withdrawal symptoms, protracted withdrawal syndrome, and strategies to cope with symptoms, in the context of the existing scientific literature.
Several Convolutional Deep Learning models have been proposed to classify the cognitive states utilizing several neuro-imaging domains. These models have achieved significant results, but they are heavily designed with millions of parameters, which increases train and test time, making the model complex and less suitable for real-time analysis. This paper proposes a simple, lightweight CNN model to classify cognitive states from Electroencephalograph (EEG) recordings. We develop a novel pipeline to learn distinct cognitive representation consisting of two stages. The first stage is to generate the 2D spectral images from neural time series signals in a particular frequency band. Images are generated to preserve the relationship between the neighboring electrodes and the spectral property of the cognitive events. The second is to develop a time-efficient, computationally less loaded, and high-performing model. We design a network containing 4 blocks and major components include standard and depth-wise convolution for increasing the performance and followed by separable convolution to decrease the number of parameters which maintains the tradeoff between time and performance. We experiment on open access EEG meditation dataset comprising expert, nonexpert meditative, and control states. We compare performance with six commonly used machine learning classifiers and four state of the art deep learning models. We attain comparable performance utilizing less than 4% of the parameters of other models. This model can be employed in a real-time computation environment such as neurofeedback.
The flow state is defined by intense involvement in an activity with high degrees of concentration and focused attention accompanied by a sense of pleasure. Video games are effective tools for inducing flow, and keeping players in this state is considered to be one of the central goals of game design. Many studies have focused on the underlying physiological and neural mechanisms of flow. Results are inconsistent when describing a unified mechanism underlying this mental state. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the physiological and neural correlates of flow and explains the relationship between the reported physiological and neural markers of the flow experience. Despite the heterogeneous results, it seems possible to establish associations between reported markers and the cognitive and experiential aspects of flow, particularly regarding arousal, attention control, reward processing, automaticity, and self-referential processing.
Contemporary psychiatry has become increasingly focused on biological treatments. Many critics claim that the current paradigm of psychiatry has failed to address the escalating mental health-care needs of our communities and may even be contributing to psychopathology and the burden of mental illness. This article describes the foundations of Integral Theory and proposes that this model offers a framework for developing integral psychiatry and a more effective and compassionate mental health-care system. An integral model of psychiatry extends biopsychosocial approaches and provides the scaffolding for more effective approaches to integrative mental health care. Furthermore, rather than focusing on psychopathology, the Integral theory model describes the emergence of human consciousness and supports a mental health-care system that addresses mental illness but also promotes human flourishing.
Meditation is a complex mental process-practiced widely for stress management and promotion of health- exerts beneficial effects on physical and mental health, and cognitive performance. However, until now, few theoretical neural mechanisms of meditation had been proposed, still not completely elucidated. We have previously evaluated the brain activity during Preksha meditation using an innovative 18FDG-PET methodological approach. Based on our previous study observations, we proposed here the neurophysiological framework of long-term and regular practice of preksha meditation. This mechanism will provide the scientific evidence to understand the attention control mechanisms resulting from the advanced state of preksha meditation. This might have multiple clinical applications as well as effective in a healthy population for attention-related tasks. Also, it is expected that the present neural model will provide a scientific platform for future clinical studies of meditation.
Cortical oscillations serve as an index of both sensory and cognitive processes and represent one of the most promising candidates for training and targeting the top-down mechanisms underlying executive functions. Research findings suggest that theta (θ) oscillations (3-7 Hz) recorded over frontal-midline (FMθ) electrodes are broadly associated with a number of higher-order cognitive processes and may serve as the mechanistic backbone for cognitive control. Frontal-midline theta (FMθ) has also been shown to inversely correlate with activity in the default mode network, a network in the brain linked to spontaneous thought processes such as mind-wandering and rumination. Our previous research found the presence of increased FMθ oscillations in expert meditation practitioners during reported periods of focused-attention meditation practice, when compared to periods of mind-wandering. In an effort to narrow the explanatory gap by connecting these neurophysiological features to the phenomenological nature of experience, we designed a methodologically novel and adaptive neurofeedback protocol with the aim of modulating FMθ while having meditation novice participants implement breath-focus strategies derived from focused-attention mediation practices. Participants who received the adaptive FMθ-meditation neurofeedback protocol were able to significantly modulate FMθ over frontal electrodes across eight sessions relative to their performance in session one. Neurofeedback recipients also showed significantly faster reaction times on the n-back working memory task assessed before and after the FMθ-meditation neurofeedback protocol. No significant differences in frontal theta activity or behavior were observed in the active control participants who received age and gender matched sham neurofeedback.
We address the hypothesis that the entropy of neural dynamics indexes the intensity and quality of conscious content. Previous work established that serotonergic psychedelics can have a dysregulating effect on brain activity, leading to subjective effects that present a considerable overlap with the phenomenology of certain meditative states. Here we propose that the prolonged practice of meditation results in endogenous increased entropy of brain oscillatory activity. We estimated the entropy of band-specific oscillations during the meditative state of traditions classified as 'focused attention' (Himalayan Yoga), 'open monitoring' (Vipassana), and 'open awareness' (Isha Shoonya Yoga). Among all traditions, Vipassana resulted in the highest entropy increases, predominantly in the alpha and low/high gamma bands. In agreement with previous studies, all meditation traditions increased the global coherence in the gamma band, but also stabilized gamma-range dynamics by lowering the metastability. Finally, machine learning classifiers could successfully generalize between certain pairs of meditation traditions based on the scalp distribution of gamma band entropies. Our results extend previous findings on the spectral changes observed during meditation, showing how long-term practice can lead to the capacity for achieving brain states of high entropy. This constitutes an example of an endogenous, self-induced high entropy state.
Meditation training can improve mood and emotion regulation, yet the neural mechanisms of these affective changes have yet to be fully elucidated. We evaluated the impact of long- and short-term mindfulness meditation training on the amygdala response to emotional pictures in a healthy, non-clinical population of adults using blood-oxygen level dependent functional magnetic resonance imaging. Long-term meditators (N = 30, 16 female) had 9081 h of lifetime practice on average, primarily in mindfulness meditation. Short-term training consisted of an 8-week Mindfulness- Based Stress Reduction course (N = 32, 22 female), which was compared to an active control condition (N = 35, 19 female) in a randomized controlled trial. Meditation training was associated with less amygdala reactivity to positive pictures relative to controls, but there were no group differences in response to negative pictures. Reductions in reactivity to negative stimuli may require more practice experience or concentrated practice, as hours of retreat practice in long-term meditators was associated with lower amygdala reactivity to negative pictures - yet we did not see this relationship for practice time with MBSR. Short-term training, compared to the control intervention, also led to increased functional connectivity between the amygdala and a region implicated in emotion regulation - ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) - during affective pictures. Thus, meditation training may improve affective responding through reduced amygdala reactivity, and heightened amygdala-VMPFC connectivity during affective stimuli may reflect a potential mechanism by which MBSR exerts salutary effects on emotion regulation ability.
Background:
Several studies have reported that mindfulness meditation has a potential effect in controlling headaches, such as migraine and tension-type headache; however, its role remains controversial. This review assessed the evidence regarding the effects of mindfulness meditation for primary headache pain.
Methods:
Only English databases (PubMed, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials [the Cochrane Library], PsycINFO, Psychology and behavioral science collection, PsyArticles, Web of Science, and Scopus) were searched from their inception to November 2016 with the keywords ("meditation" or "mindfulness" or "vipassana" or "dzogchen" or "zen" or "integrative body-mind training" or "IBMT" or "mindfulness-based stress reduction" or "MBSR" or "mindfulness-based cognitive therapy" or "MBCT" and "Headache" or "Head pain" or "Cephalodynia" or "Cephalalgia" or "Hemicrania" or "Migraine"). Titles, abstracts, and full-text articles were screened against study inclusion criteria: controlled trials of structured meditation programs for adult patients with primary headache pain. The quality of studies included in the meta-analysis was assessed with the Yates Quality Rating Scale. The meta-analysis was conducted with Revman 5.3.
Results:
Ten randomized controlled trials and one controlled clinical trial with a combined study population of 315 patients were included in the study. When compared to control group data, mindfulness meditation induced significant improvement in pain intensity (standardized mean difference, -0.89; 95% confidence interval, -1.63 to -0.15; P = 0.02) and headache frequency (-0.67; -1.24 to -0.10; P = 0.02). In a subgroup analysis of different meditation forms, mindfulness-based stress reduction displayed a significant positive influence on pain intensity (P < 0.000). Moreover, 8-week intervention had a significant positive effect (P < 0.000).
Conclusions:
Mindfulness meditation may reduce pain intensity and is a promising treatment option for patients. Clinicians may consider mindfulness meditation as a viable complementary and alternative medical option for primary headache.
Background:
Despite an exponential growth in research on mindfulness-based interventions, the body of scientific evidence supporting these treatments has been criticized for being of poor methodological quality.
Objectives:
The current systematic review examined the extent to which mindfulness research demonstrated increased rigor over the past 16 years regarding six methodological features that have been highlighted as areas for improvement. These feature included using active control conditions, larger sample sizes, longer follow-up assessment, treatment fidelity assessment, and reporting of instructor training and intent-to-treat (ITT) analyses.
Data sources:
We searched PubMed, PsychInfo, Scopus, and Web of Science in addition to a publically available repository of mindfulness studies.
Study eligibility criteria:
Randomized clinical trials of mindfulness-based interventions for samples with a clinical disorder or elevated symptoms of a clinical disorder listed on the American Psychological Association's list of disorders with recognized evidence-based treatment.
Study appraisal and synthesis methods:
Independent raters screened 9,067 titles and abstracts, with 303 full text reviews. Of these, 171 were included, representing 142 non-overlapping samples.
Results:
Across the 142 studies published between 2000 and 2016, there was no evidence for increases in any study quality indicator, although changes were generally in the direction of improved quality. When restricting the sample to those conducted in Europe and North America (continents with the longest history of scientific research in this area), an increase in reporting of ITT analyses was found. When excluding an early, high-quality study, improvements were seen in sample size, treatment fidelity assessment, and reporting of ITT analyses.
Conclusions and implications of key findings:
Taken together, the findings suggest modest adoption of the recommendations for methodological improvement voiced repeatedly in the literature. Possible explanations for this and implications for interpreting this body of research and conducting future studies are discussed.
During the past two decades, mindfulness meditation has gone from being a fringe topic of scientific investigation to being an occasional replacement for psychotherapy, tool of corporate well-being, widely implemented educational practice, and “key to building more resilient soldiers.” Yet the mindfulness movement and empirical evidence supporting it have not gone without criticism. Misinformation and poor methodology associated with past studies of mindfulness may lead public consumers to be harmed, misled, and disappointed. Addressing such concerns, the present article discusses the difficulties of defining mindfulness, delineates the proper scope of research into mindfulness practices, and explicates crucial methodological issues for interpreting results from investigations of mindfulness. For doing so, the authors draw on their diverse areas of expertise to review the present state of mindfulness research, comprehensively summarizing what we do and do not know, while providing a prescriptive agenda for contemplative science, with a particular focus on assessment, mindfulness training, possible adverse effects, and intersection with brain imaging. Our goals are to inform interested scientists, the news media, and the public, to minimize harm, curb poor research practices, and staunch the flow of misinformation about the benefits, costs, and future prospects of mindfulness meditation.
In this paper, we examined whether meditation practice influences the epigenetic clock, a strong and reproducible biomarker of biological aging, which is accelerated by cumulative lifetime stress and with age-related chronic diseases. Using the Illumina 450K array platform, we analyzed the DNA methylome from blood cells of long-term meditators and meditation-naïve controls to estimate their Intrinsic Epigenetic Age Acceleration (IEAA), using Horvath's calculator. IEAA was similar in both groups. However, controls showed a different IEAA trajectory with aging than meditators: older controls (age≥52) had significantly higher IEAAs compared with younger controls (age <52), while meditators were protected from this epigenetic aging effect. Notably, in the meditation group, we found a significant negative correlation between IEAA and the number of years of regular meditation practice. From our results, we hypothesize that the cumulative effects of a regular meditation practice may, in the long-term, help to slow the epigenetic clock and could represent a useful preventive strategy for age-related chronic diseases. Longitudinal randomized controlled trials in larger cohorts are warranted to confirm and further characterize these findings.
Meditation is a popular form of stress management, argued to mediate stress reactivity. However, many studies in this field commonly fail to include an active control group. Given the frequency with which people are selecting meditation as a form of self-management, it is important to validate if the practice is effective in mediating stress-reactivity using well-controlled studies. Thus, we aimed to conduct a meta-analysis investigating the neurobiological effects of meditation, including focused attention, open monitoring and automatic self-transcending subtypes, compared to an active control, on markers of stress. In the current meta-analysis and systematic review, we included randomised controlled trials comparing meditation interventions compared to an active control on physiological markers of stress. Studied outcomes include cortisol, blood pressure, heart-rate, lipids and peripheral cytokine expression. Forty-five studies were included. All meditation subtypes reduced systolic blood pressure. Focused attention meditations also reduced cortisol and open monitoring meditations also reduced heart rate. When all meditation forms were analysed together, meditation reduced cortisol, C - reactive protein, blood pressure, heart rate, triglycerides and tumour necrosis factor-alpha. Overall, meditation practice leads to decreased physiological markers of stress in a range of populations.
Buddhist-derived meditation practices are currently being employed as a popular form of health promotion. While meditation programs draw inspiration from Buddhist textual sources for the benefits of meditation, these sources also acknowledge a wide range of other effects beyond health-related outcomes. The Varieties of Contemplative Experience study investigates meditation-related experiences that are typically underreported, particularly experiences that are described as challenging, difficult, distressing, functionally impairing, and/or requiring additional support. A mixed-methods approach featured qualitative interviews with Western Buddhist meditation practitioners and experts in Theravāda, Zen, and Tibetan traditions. Interview questions probed meditation experiences and influencing factors, including interpretations and management strategies. A follow-up survey provided quantitative assessments of causality, impairment and other demographic and practice-related variables. The content-driven thematic analysis of interviews yielded a taxonomy of 59 meditation-related experiences across 7 domains: cognitive, perceptual, affective, somatic, conative, sense of self, and social. Even in cases where the phenomenology was similar across participants, interpretations of and responses to the experiences differed considerably. The associated valence ranged from very positive to very negative, and the associated level of distress and functional impairment ranged from minimal and transient to severe and enduring. In order to determine what factors may influence the valence, impact, and response to any given experience, the study also identified 26 categories of influencing factors across 4 domains: practitioner-level factors, practice-level factors, relationships, and health behaviors. By identifying a broader range of experiences associated with meditation, along with the factors that contribute to the presence and management of experiences reported as challenging, difficult, distressing or functionally impairing, this study aims to increase our understanding of the effects of contemplative practices and to provide resources for mediators, clinicians, meditation researchers, and meditation teachers.
Recent evidence suggests that the effects of meditation practice on affective processing and resilience have the potential to induce neuroplastic changes within the amygdala. Notably, literature speculates that meditation training may reduce amygdala activity during negative affective processing. Nonetheless, studies have thus far not verified this speculation. In this longitudinal study, participants (N = 21, 9 men) were trained in awareness-based compassion meditation (ABCM) or matched relaxation training. The effects of meditation training on amygdala activity were examined during passive viewing of affective and neutral stimuli in a non-meditative state. We found that the ABCM group exhibited significantly reduced anxiety and right amygdala activity during negative emotion processing than the relaxation group. Furthermore, ABCM participants who performed more compassion practice had stronger right amygdala activity reduction during negative emotion processing. The lower right amygdala activity after ABCM training may be associated with a general reduction in reactivity and distress. As all participants performed the emotion processing task in a non-meditative state, it appears likely that the changes in right amygdala activity are carried over from the meditation practice into the non-meditative state. These findings suggest that the distress-reducing effects of meditation practice on affective processing may transfer to ordinary states, which have important implications on stress management.
Despite decades of research, effects of different types of meditation on electroencephalographic (EEG) activity are still being defined. We compared practitioners of three different meditation traditions (Vipassana, Himalayan Yoga and Isha Shoonya) with a control group during a meditative and instructed mind-wandering (IMW) block. All meditators showed higher parieto-occipital 60–110 Hz gamma amplitude than control subjects as a trait effect observed during meditation and when considering meditation and IMW periods together. Moreover, this gamma power was positively correlated with participants meditation experience. Independent component analysis was used to show that gamma activity did not originate in eye or muscle artifacts. In addition, we observed higher 7–11 Hz alpha activity in the Vipassana group compared to all the other groups during both meditation and instructed mind wandering and lower 10–11 Hz activity in the Himalayan yoga group during meditation only. We showed that meditation practice is correlated to changes in the EEG gamma frequency range that are common to a variety of meditation practices.
This qualitative study explored and compared the subjective experiences of 102 veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) who were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 arms: (a) body scan, (b) mindful breathing, (c) slow breathing, or (d) sitting quietly. Qualitative data were obtained via semistructured interviews following the intervention and analyzed using conventional content analysis. The percentage of participants within each intervention who endorsed a specific theme was calculated. Two-proportion z tests were then calculated to determine if the differences among themes endorsed in specific groups were statistically significant.
Six core themes emerged from analysis of participant responses across the 4 groups: (a) enhanced present moment awareness, (b) increased nonreactivity, (c) increased nonjudgmental acceptance, (d) decreased physiological arousal and stress reactivity, (e) increased active coping skills, and (f) greater relaxation. More participants in the mindfulness intervention groups reported improvement in PTSD symptoms when compared to participants in non-mindfulness groups. Different types of intervention targeted different symptoms and aspects of well-being. Furthermore, type of intervention may have also differentially targeted
potential mechanisms of action. This article highlights the importance of employing both quantitative and qualitative research methods when investigating the dynamic process of mindfulness and may inform how practices can be tailored to the needs of the veteran with PTSD.
One outstanding question in the contemplative science literature relates to the direct impact of meditation experience on the monitoring of internal states and its respective correspondence with neural activity. In particular, to what extent does meditation influence the awareness, duration and frequency of the tendency of the mind to wander. To assess the relation between mind wandering and meditation, we tested 2 groups of meditators, one with a moderate level of experience (non-expert) and those who are well advanced in their practice (expert). We designed a novel paradigm using self-reports of internal mental states based on an experiential sampling probe paradigm presented during ~1 h of seated concentration meditation to gain insight into the dynamic measures of electroencephalography (EEG) during absorption in meditation as compared to reported mind wandering episodes. Our results show that expert meditation practitioners report a greater depth and frequency of sustained meditation, whereas non-expert practitioners report a greater depth and frequency of mind wandering episodes. This is one of the first direct behavioral indices of meditation expertise and its associated impact on the reduced frequency of mind wandering, with corresponding EEG activations showing increased frontal midline theta and somatosensory alpha rhythms during meditation as compared to mind wandering in expert practitioners. Frontal midline theta and somatosensory alpha rhythms are often observed during executive functioning, cognitive control and the active monitoring of sensory information. Our study thus provides additional new evidence to support the hypothesis that the maintenance of both internal and external orientations of attention may be maintained by similar neural mechanisms and that these mechanisms may be modulated by meditation training.
The colors identifying “Breathing meditation” and “Body Scan” were unfortunately switched in the figure relative to the legend. The correct Figure 2 is below.
Background
Chronic pain patients increasingly seek treatment through mindfulness meditation. PurposeThis study aims to synthesize evidence on efficacy and safety of mindfulness meditation interventions for the treatment of chronic pain in adults. Method
We conducted a systematic review on randomized controlled trials (RCTs) with meta-analyses using the Hartung-Knapp-Sidik-Jonkman method for random-effects models. Quality of evidence was assessed using the GRADE approach. Outcomes included pain, depression, quality of life, and analgesic use. ResultsThirty-eight RCTs met inclusion criteria; seven reported on safety. We found low-quality evidence that mindfulness meditation is associated with a small decrease in pain compared with all types of controls in 30 RCTs. Statistically significant effects were also found for depression symptoms and quality of life. Conclusions
While mindfulness meditation improves pain and depression symptoms and quality of life, additional well-designed, rigorous, and large-scale RCTs are needed to decisively provide estimates of the efficacy of mindfulness meditation for chronic pain.
Despite increasing interest in the effects of mental training practices such as meditation, there is much ambiguity regarding whether and to what extent the various types of mental practice have differential effects on psychological change. To address this gap, we compare the effects of four common meditation practices on measures of state change in affect, mind-wandering, meta-cognition, and interoception. In the context of a 9-month mental training program called the ReSource Project, 229 mid-life adults (mean age 41) provided daily reports before and after meditation practice. Participants received training in the following three successive modules: the first module (presence) included breathing meditation and body scan, the second (affect) included loving-kindness meditation, and the third (perspective) included observing-thought meditation. Using multilevel modeling, we found that body scan led to the greatest state increase in interoceptive awareness and the greatest decrease in thought content, loving-kindness meditation led to the greatest increase in feelings of warmth and positive thoughts about others, and observing-thought meditation led to the greatest increase in meta-cognitive awareness. All practices, including breathing meditation, increased positivity of affect, energy, and present focus and decreased thought distraction. Complementary network analysis of intervariate relationships revealed distinct phenomenological clusters of psychological change congruent with the content of each practice. These findings together suggest that although different meditation practices may have common beneficial effects, each practice can also be characterized by a distinct short-term psychological fingerprint, the latter having important implications for the use of meditative practices in different intervention contexts and with different populations.
This paper discusses meditation from the unique perspective of the nondual approach and explores the possible relevance of this approach to applications of love and compassion meditation in clinical settings. It contrasts the nondual approach with the better known gradual or goal-oriented, dualistic view of meditation. This paper also introduces one of the central ideas of the nondual approach-that love and compassion, like other positive qualities that are ordinarily considered as goals of meditation practice, can be found to be already present within oneself as innate dimensions of one's authentic being.
This paper describes the research process – from planning to presentation, with the emphasis on credibility throughout the whole process – when the methodology of qualitative content analysis is chosen in a qualitative study. The groundwork for the credibility initiates when the planning of the study begins. External and internal resources have to be identified, and the researcher must consider his or her experience of the phenomenon to be studied in order to minimize any bias of his/her own influence. The purpose of content analysis is to organize and elicit meaning from the data collected and to draw realistic conclusions from it. The researcher must choose whether the analysis should be of a broad surface structure (a manifest analysis) or of a deep structure (a latent analysis). Four distinct main stages are described in this paper: the decontextualisation, the recontextualisation, the categorization, and the compilation. This description of qualitative content analysis offers one approach that shows how the general principles of the method can be used.
Objective:
This cross-sectional study evaluated event-related potentials (ERPs) across three groups: naïve, novice, and experienced meditators as potential physiological markers of mindfulness meditation competence.
Methods:
Electroencephalographic (EEG) data was collected during a target tone detection task and a Breath Counting task. The Breath Counting task served as the mindfulness meditation condition for the novice and experienced meditator groups. Participants were instructed to respond to target tones with a button press in the first task (Tones), and then ignore the primed tones while breath counting. The primary outcomes were ERP responses to target tones, namely the N2 and P3, as markers of stimulus discrimination and attention, respectively.
Results:
As expected, P3 amplitudes elicited by target tones were attenuated within groups during the Breath Counting task in comparison to the Tones task (p < .001). There was a task by group interaction for P3 (p = .039). Both meditator groups displayed greater change in peak-to-trough P3 amplitudes, with higher amplitudes during the Tones condition and more pronounced reductions in P3 amplitudes during the Breath Counting meditation task in comparison to the naïve group.
Conclusions:
Meditators had stronger P3 amplitude responses to target tones when instructed to attend to the tones, and a greater attenuation of P3 amplitudes when instructed to ignore the same tones during the Breath Counting task. This study introduces the idea of identifying ERP markers as a means of measuring mindfulness meditation competence, and results suggest this may be a valid approach. This information has the potential to improve mindfulness meditation interventions by allowing objective assessment of mindfulness meditation quality.
Objective:
This study's objective was to evaluate the effect of two common components of meditation (mindfulness and slow breathing) on potential mechanistic pathways.
Methods:
A total of 102 combat veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were randomized to (a) the body scan mindfulness meditation (MM), (b) slow breathing (SB) with a biofeedback device, (c) mindful awareness of the breath with an intention to slow the breath (MM+SB), or (d) sitting quietly (SQ). Participants had 6 weekly one-on-one sessions with 20 minutes of daily home practice. The mechanistic pathways and measures were as follows: (a) autonomic nervous system (hyperarousal symptoms, heart rate [HR], and heart rate variability [HRV]); (b) frontal cortex activity (attentional network task [ANT] conflict effect and event-related negativity and intrusive thoughts); and (c) hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (awakening cortisol). PTSD measures were also evaluated.
Results:
Meditation participants had significant but modest within-group improvement in PTSD and related symptoms, although there were no effects between groups. Perceived impression of PTSD symptom improvement was greater in the meditation arms compared with controls. Resting respiration decreased in the meditation arms compared with SQ. For the mechanistic pathways, (a) subjective hyperarousal symptoms improved within-group (but not between groups) for MM, MM+SB, and SQ, while HR and HRV did not; (b) intrusive thoughts decreased in MM compared with MM+SB and SB, while the ANT measures did not change; and (c) MM had lower awakening cortisol within-group (but not between groups).
Conclusion:
Treatment effects were mostly specific to self-report rather than physiological measures. Continued research is needed to further evaluate mindfulness meditation's mechanism in people with PTSD.
In this paper, we relate meditation practice to participant trait absorption, affect, and transcendent experience. The motivation for this analysis stems from a new neurophenomenological model of consciousness which we recently published, named the consciousness state space. Here, we compare two distinct forms of meditation: mindfulness and transcendental meditation, as well as two different levels of expertise within the mindfulness group. Participants comprised 64 mindfulness practitioners, 18 transcendental meditation practitioners, and 59 healthy controls, who had no prior meditation experience. We further split our mindfulness participants into two groups, using a cutoff point of 2000 h of accumulated experience. We tested three predictions. The first prediction was that contemplative practices should result in increased first-order awareness as a trait, or trait absorption. Our findings revealed that meditators (in general) scored higher on trait absorption than comparable controls, with no difference between meditators from the two traditions. A second prediction was that contemplative practices should result in a reduced sense of regular (narrative) self; hence, transcendent experience should be enhanced for long-term practitioners of meditation. Our findings show that meditators (in general) score higher on the Mystical Scale than comparable controls, with no difference between meditators from the two traditions. We further predicted that contemplative practices should result in lower positive and negative valence, measured by Positive Affect and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) scores on both positive and negative affect scales, as a trait, but this hypothesis was only partly supported by the data.
Ability in cognitive domains is usually assessed by measuring task performance, such as decision accuracy. A similar analysis can be applied to metacognitive reports about a task to quantify the degree to which an individual is aware of his or her success or failure. Here, we review the psychological and neural underpinnings of metacognitive accuracy, drawing primarily on research in memory and decision-making. These data show that metacognitive accuracy is dissociable from task performance and varies across individuals. Convergent evidence indicates that the function of rostral and dorsal aspects of lateral prefrontal cortex is important for the accuracy of retrospective judgements of performance. In contrast, prospective judgements of performance may depend upon medial prefrontal cortex. We close by considering how metacognitive processes relate to concepts of cognitive control, and propose a neural synthesis in which dorsolateral and anterior prefrontal cortical subregions interact with interoceptive cortices (cingulate and insula) to promote accurate judgements of performance.
Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) is a promising intervention for veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression; however, a more detailed examination of the different elements of MBSR and various facets of mindfulness to determine what works best for whom is warranted. One hundred and two veterans with PTSD were randomly assigned to one of four arms: (a) body scan (BS; n = 27), (b) mindful breathing (MB; n = 25), (c) slow breathing (SB; n = 25), or (d) sitting quietly (SQ; n = 25). The purpose of this study was to (a) examine two separate components of MBSR (i.e., body scan and mindful breathing) among veterans with PTSD when compared to a nonmindfulness intervention (SB) and a control group (SQ), (b) assess if changes in specific mindfulness facets were predictive of post-treatment PTSD and depression for individuals who participated in a mindfulness intervention (BS vs. MB), and (c) investigate if type of mindfulness intervention received would moderate the relationship between pre- to post-treatment changes in mindfulness facets and post-treatment outcomes in PTSD and depression. Participants in the mindfulness groups experienced significant decreases in PTSD and depression symptom severity and increases in mindfulness, whereas the nonmindfulness groups did not. Among veterans who participated in a mindfulness group, change in the five facets of mindfulness accounted for 23 % of unique variance in the prediction of post-treatment depression scores. Simple slope analyses revealed that type of mindfulness intervention moderated the relationship among changes in facets of mindfulness and post-treatment depression.
This study presents two case reports of altered states spontaneously occurring during meditation in two proficient practitioners. These states, known as fruition, are common within the Mahasi School of Theravada Buddhism, and are considered the culmination of contemplation-induced stages of consciousness. Here, electrophysiological measures of these experiences were measured, with the participant’s personal reports used to guide the neural analyzes. The preliminary results demonstrate an increase in global long-range gamma (25–45 Hz) synchronization during the fruition states, compared to the background meditation. The discrepancies and similarities with other neuroscientific studies of meditation-induced altered states are discussed. Albeit preliminary, the results presented here provide support for the possibility - previously raised by various authors - that long-range global gamma synchronization may offer an underlying mechanism for un-learning of habitual conditioning and mental patterns, possibly underpinning the neural correlate of the Buddhist concept of liberation. Finally, this pilot study highlights the utility of employing neuro-phenomenology, namely using first-person reports to guide neural analyzes, in the study of subtle human consciousness states.
Whether seeing a movie, listening to a song, or feeling a breeze on the skin, we coherently experience these stimuli as continuous, seamless percepts. However, there are rare perceptual phenomena that argue against continuous perception but, instead, suggest discrete processing of sensory input. Empirical evidence supporting such a discrete mechanism, however, remains scarce and comes entirely from the visual domain. Here, we demonstrate compelling evidence for discrete perceptual sampling in the somatosensory domain. Using magnetoencephalography (MEG) and a tactile temporal discrimination task in humans, we find that oscillatory alpha- and low beta-band (8–20 Hz) cycles in primary somatosensory cortex represent neurophysiological correlates of discrete perceptual cycles. Our results agree with several theoretical concepts of discrete perceptual sampling and empirical evidence of perceptual cycles in the visual domain. Critically, these results show that discrete perceptual cycles are not domain-specific, and thus restricted to the visual domain, but extend to the somatosensory domain.
Study Objectives. To evaluate the effect of mind-body interventions (MBI) on sleep. Methods. We reviewed randomized controlled MBI trials on adults (through 2013) with at least one sleep outcome measure. We searched eleven electronic databases and excluded studies on interventions not considering mind-body medicine. Studies were categorized by type of MBI, whether sleep was primary or secondary outcome measure and outcome type. Results. 1323 abstracts were screened, and 112 papers were included. Overall, 67 (60%) of studies reported a beneficial effect on at least one sleep outcome measure. Of the most common interventions, 13/23 studies using meditation, 21/30 using movement MBI, and 14/25 using relaxation reported at least some improvements in sleep. There were clear risks of bias for many studies reviewed, especially when sleep was not the main focus. Conclusions. MBI should be considered as a treatment option for patients with sleep disturbance. The benefit of MBI needs to be better documented with objective outcomes as well as the mechanism of benefit elucidated. There is some evidence that MBI have a positive benefit on sleep quality. Since sleep has a direct impact on many other health outcomes, future MBI trials should consider including sleep outcome measurements.
This chapter discusses the inclusion of phenomenological analysis in the cognitive psychological research of meditation. Different meditation styles involve the specific changes of the mind, such as a long-lasting, vivid, and stable mental imagery in some types of Tibetan meditation. Comparative phenomenological analysis of the Deity Yoga, mandala, Vipashyana, and Rig-pa types of Tibetan meditation was included in designing a cognitive experiment. Results indicate the increase of visual working memory due to the practice of Deity Yoga, suggesting access to the heightened visual processing resources (Kozhevnikov, Louchakova, Josipovic, & Motes. Psychological Science 20(5):645–653, 2009). The phenomenological part of the design, reported here for the first time, included a new methodology termed phenomenological-cognitive mapping (PCM). PCM linked the comparative phenomenological analysis of meditation to the psychological parameters of cognitive testing. PCM proved to be crucial in designing a successful experiment that led to novel findings. In the absence of PCM, isolating the meditation style that causes the optimization of visual-spatial processing and finding at what stage of meditation this happens would not be possible. This chapter argues in favor of including a detailed phenomenological analysis of experience in the cognitive research of meditation, as opposed to using only general classifications such as meditation styles.
Over the past decade mind and body practices, such as yoga and meditation, have raised interest in different scientific fields; in particular, the physiological mechanisms underlying the beneficial effects observed in meditators have been investigated. Neuroimaging studies have studied the effects of meditation on brain structure and function and findings have helped clarify the biological underpinnings of the positive effects of meditation practice and the possible integration of this technique in standard therapy. The large amount of data collected thus far allows drawing some conclusions about the neural effects of meditation practice. In the present study we used activation likelihood estimation (ALE) analysis to make a coordinate-based meta-analysis of neuroimaging data on the effects of meditation on brain structure and function. Results indicate that meditation leads to activation in brain areas involved in processing self-relevant information, self-regulation, focused problem-solving, adaptive behavior, and interoception. Results also show that meditation practice induces functional and structural brain modifications in expert meditators, especially in areas involved in self-referential processes such as self-awareness and self-regulation. These results demonstrate that a biological substrate underlies the positive pervasive effect of meditation practice and suggest that meditation techniques could be adopted in clinical populations and to prevent disease.
Chronic pain and its associated distress and disability are common reasons for seeking medical help. Patients with chronic pain use primary healthcare services five times more than the rest of the population. Mindfulness has become an increasingly popular self-management technique.
To assess the effectiveness of mindfulness-based interventions for patients with chronic pain.
Systematic review and meta-analysis including randomised controlled trials of mindfulness-based interventions for chronic pain. There was no restriction to study site or setting.
The databases MEDLINE(®), Embase, AMED, CINAHL, PsycINFO, and Index to Theses were searched. Titles, abstracts, and full texts were screened iteratively against inclusion criteria of: randomised controlled trials of mindfulness-based intervention; patients with non-malignant chronic pain; and economic, clinical, or humanistic outcome reported. Included studies were assessed with the Yates Quality Rating Scale. Meta-analysis was conducted.
Eleven studies were included. Chronic pain conditions included: fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, chronic musculoskeletal pain, failed back surgery syndrome, and mixed aetiology. Papers were of mixed methodological quality. Main outcomes reported were pain intensity, depression, physical functioning, quality of life, pain acceptance, and mindfulness. Economic outcomes were rarely reported. Meta-analysis effect sizes for clinical outcomes ranged from 0.12 (95% confidence interval [CI] = -0.05 to 0.30) (depression) to 1.32 (95% CI = -1.19 to 3.82) (sleep quality), and for humanistic outcomes 0.03 (95% CI = -0.66 to 0.72) (mindfulness) to 1.58 (95% CI = -0.57 to 3.74) (pain acceptance). Studies with active, compared with inactive, control groups showed smaller effects.
There is limited evidence for effectiveness of mindfulness-based interventions for patients with chronic pain. Better-quality studies are required.
© British Journal of General Practice 2015.
Meditation has been associated with relatively reduced activity in the default mode network, a brain network implicated in self-related thinking and mind wandering. However, previous imaging studies have typically compared meditation to rest, despite other studies having reported differences in brain activation patterns between meditators and controls at rest. Moreover, rest is associated with a range of brain activation patterns across individuals that has only recently begun to be better characterized. Therefore, in this study we compared meditation to another active cognitive task, both to replicate the findings that meditation is associated with relatively reduced default mode network activity and to extend these findings by testing whether default mode activity was reduced during meditation, beyond the typical reductions observed during effortful tasks. In addition, prior studies had used small groups, whereas in the present study we tested these hypotheses in a larger group. The results indicated that meditation is associated with reduced activations in the default mode network, relative to an active task, for meditators as compared to controls. Regions of the default mode network showing a Group × Task interaction included the posterior cingulate/precuneus and anterior cingulate cortex. These findings replicate and extend prior work indicating that the suppression of default mode processing may represent a central neural process in long-term meditation, and they suggest that meditation leads to relatively reduced default mode processing beyond that observed during another active cognitive task.
Cognitive neuroscience tends to conceptualize mindfulness meditation as inner observation of a private mental realm of thoughts, feelings, and body sensations, and tries to model mindfulness as instantiated in neural networks visible through brain imaging tools such as EEG and fMRI. This approach confuses the biological conditions for mindfulness with mindfulness itself, which, as classically described, consists in the integrated exercise of a whole host of cognitive and bodily skills in situated and ethically directed action. From an enactive perspective, mindfulness depends on internalized social cognition and is a mode of skillful, embodied cognition that depends directly not only on the brain, but also on the rest of the body and the physical, social, and cultural environment.
Despite increasing interest in effects of meditation, systematic in-depth research on how it qualitatively feels to engage in different kinds of contemplative practices is still missing. To fill this gap, we explore the validity of Micro-phenomenological Interviews (MpI) to assess experiences during breathing meditation (BM), observing-thought meditation (OTM), and loving-kindness meditation (LKM). We performed psycholinguistic analyses, quantitative ratings and qualitative explorations of 104 MpI (N = 57). All results reveal differential affective, bodily and sensorial fingerprints: BM-transcripts contain the most body-related vocabulary, specifically sensations in nose and abdomen. OTM-transcripts contain the most cognition-related vocabulary. OTM is experienced in head and face. LKM-transcripts contain the most vocabulary related to socio-affective processes. LKM is associated to love, sensations around the heart, and warmth. The LKM-outcomes were replicated with another independent set of MpI. These findings verify the merit of MpI as a scientific tool to gain reliable first-person data beyond questionnaires or rating scales.
Although many neurologic conditions are common, cures are rare and conventional treatments are often limited. Many patients, therefore, turn to complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). The use of selected, evidence-based CAM therapies for the prevention and treatment of migraine, carpal tunnel syndrome, and dementia are presented. Evidence is growing for a number of modalities, including nutrition, exercise, mind-body medicine, supplements, and acupuncture.
A broad range of mind-body therapies (MBTs) are used by the public today, and a growing body of clinical and basic sciences research has resulted in evidence-based integration of many MBTs into clinical practice. Basic sciences research has identified some of the physiological correlates of MBT practices, leading to a better understanding of the processes by which emotional, cognitive and psychosocial factors can influence health outcomes and well-being. In particular, results from functional genomics and neuroimaging describe some of the processes involved in the mind-body connection and how these can influence health outcomes. Functional genomic and neurophysiological correlates of MBTs are reviewed, detailing studies showing changes in sympathetic nervous system activation of gene transcription factors involved in immune function and inflammation, electroencephalographic and neuroimaging studies on MBT practices, and persistent changes in neural function and morphology associated with these practices. While the broad diversity of study designs and MBTs studied presents a patchwork of results requiring further validation through replication and longitudinal studies, clear themes emerge for MBTs as immunomodulatory, with effects on leukocyte transcription and function related to inflammatory and innate immune responses, and neuromodulatory, with effects on brain function and morphology relevant for attention, learning, and emotion regulation. By detailing the potential mechanisms of action by which MBTs may influence health outcomes, the data generated by these studies have contributed significantly towards a better understanding of the biological mechanisms underlying MBTs.
To make progress on the problem of consciousness, we have to confront it directly. In this paper, I first isolate the truly hard part of the problem, separating it from more tractable parts and giving an account of why it is so difficult to explain. I critique some recent work that uses reductive methods to address consciousness, and argue that these methods inevitably fail to come to grips with the hardest part of the problem. Once this failure is recognized, the door to further progress is opened. In the second half of the paper, I argue that if we move to a new kind of nonreductive explanation, a naturalistic account of consciousness can be given. I put forward my own candidate for such an account: a nonreductive theory based on principles of structural coherence and organizational invariance and a double-aspect view of information.
This study used subjective reports and eLORETA analysis to assess to what extent Transcendental Meditation (TM) might involve focused attention-voluntary control of mental content. Eighty-seven TM subjects with one month to five years TM experience participated in this study. Regression analysis of years TM practice and self-reported transcendental experiences (lack of time, space and body sense) during meditation practice was flat (r=.07). Those practicing Transcendental Meditation for 1month reported as much transcending as those with 5years of practice. The eLORETA comparison of eyes-closed rest/task and TM practice/task identified similar areas of activation: theta and alpha activation during rest and TM in the posterior cingulate and precuneus, part of the default mode network, and beta2 and beta3 activation during the task in anterior cingulate, ventral lateral and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices, part of the central executive network. In addition, eLORETA comparison of rest and TM identified higher beta temporal activation during rest and higher theta orbitofrontal activation during TM. Thus, it does not seem accurate to include TM practice with meditations in the catgory of Focused Attention, which are characterized by gamma EEG and DMN deactivation. Mixing meditations with different procedures into a single study confounds exploration of meditation effects and confounds application of meditation practices to different subject populations.
Brain function involves oscillations at various frequencies. This could imply that perception and cognition operate periodically, as a succession of cycles mirroring the underlying oscillations. This age-old notion of discrete perception has resurfaced in recent years, fueled by advances in neuroscientific techniques. Contrary to earlier views of discrete perception as a unitary sampling rhythm, contemporary evidence points not to one but several rhythms of perception that may depend on sensory modality, task, stimulus properties, or brain region. In vision, for example, a sensory alpha rhythm (∼10 Hz) may coexist with at least one more rhythm performing attentional sampling at around 7 Hz. How these multiple periodic functions are orchestrated, and how internal sampling rhythms coordinate with overt sampling behavior, remain open questions.
Background:
Insomnia is a widespread and debilitating condition that affects sleep quality and daily productivity. Although mindfulness meditation (MM) has been suggested as a potentially effective supplement to medical treatment for insomnia, no comprehensively quantitative research has been conducted in this field. Therefore, we performed a meta-analysis on the findings of related randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to evaluate the effects of MM on insomnia.
Methods:
Related publications in PubMed, EMBASE, the Cochrane Library and PsycINFO were searched up to July 2015. To calculate the standardized mean differences (SMDs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs), we used a fixed effect model when heterogeneity was negligible and a random effect model when heterogeneity was significant.
Results:
A total of 330 participants in 6 RCTs that met the selection criteria were included in this meta-analysis. Analysis of overall effect revealed that MM significantly improved total wake time and sleep quality, but had no significant effects on sleep onset latency, total sleep time, wake after sleep onset, sleep efficiency, total wake time, ISI, PSQI and DBAS. Subgroup analyses showed that although there were no significant differences between MM and control groups in terms of total sleep time, significant effects were found in total wake time, sleep onset latency, sleep quality, sleep efficiency, and PSQI global score (absolute value of SMD range: 0.44-1.09, all p<0.05).
Conclusions:
The results suggest that MM may mildly improve some sleep parameters in patients with insomnia. MM can serve as an auxiliary treatment to medication for sleep complaints.
Over the last several years, various authors have examined contemporary conceptions of mindfulness in relation to Buddhist notions. Some authors maintain that contemporary approaches to mindfulness deviate significantly from the authentic Buddhist approach, while others see more alignment between contemporary approaches and some t\ styles of practice. The differing opinions in this regard can be confusing, and the aim of this chapter is to lessen that confusion by offering an overview of key Buddhist approaches to mindfulness in a manner that enables researchers to make appropriate use of Buddhist sources. In particular, this chapter presents heuristic categories that sort Buddhist theories and practices into two distinct styles, the “Classical” and the “Nondual,” and compares them to contemporary approaches to mindfulness, especially in relation to three crucial aspects of formal practice: ethics, judgment, and present-centered awareness.
More than a decade has passed since initial reports of striking physiological changes during meditation stirred widespread interest in the scientific and public communities. Particularly influential were a series of articles by Wallace and his collaborators (Wallace, 1970a; Wallace, Benson, & Wilson, 1971; Wallace & Benson, 1972) on Transcendental Meditation (TM). Based on experimental results from measurement of oxygen consumption, electroencephalogram (EEG) and a variety of other variables, Wallace et al. (1971) made the following impressive claim: “The physiologic changes during meditation differ from those during sleep, hyponosis, auto-suggestion, and characterize a wakeful, hypo-metabolic physiologic state” (p. 795). Their report indicated that this state existed for most of the meditation period and was characteristic of meditators in general, even those having limited practice.
There has been a great increase in literature concerned with the effects of a variety of mental training regimes that generally fall within what might be called contemplative practices, and a majority of these studies have focused on mindfulness. Mindfulness meditation practices can be conceptualized as a set of attention-based, regulatory, and self-inquiry training regimes cultivated for various ends, including wellbeing and psychological health. This article examines the construct of mindfulness in psychological research and reviews recent, nonclinical work in this area. Instead of proposing a single definition of mindfulness, we interpret it as a continuum of practices involving states and processes that can be mapped into a multidimensional phenomenological matrix which itself can be expressed in a neurocognitive framework. This phenomenological matrix of mindfulness is presented as a heuristic to guide formulation of next-generation research hypotheses from both cognitive/behavioral and neuroscientific perspectives. In relation to this framework, we review selected findings on mindfulness cultivated through practices in traditional and research settings, and we conclude by identifying significant gaps in the literature and outline new directions for research. (PsycINFO Database Record
Various pieces of experimental evidence using both psychophysical and physiological (EEG) measurements have lead us (and others) to conclude that at least certain aspects of visual perception and attention are intrinsically rhythmic. For example, in a variety of perceptual and attentional tasks, the trial-by-trial outcome was found to depend on the precise phase of pre-stimulus EEG oscillations in specific frequency bands (between 7 and 15Hz). This suggests that there are "good" and "bad" phases for perception and attention; in other words, perception and attention proceed as a succession of cycles. These cycles are normally invisible, but in specific situations they can be directly experienced as an illusory flicker superimposed on the static scene. The brain oscillations that drive these perceptual cycles are not strictly spontaneous, but can also be modulated by visual stimulation. Therefore, by manipulating the structure of the stimulation sequence (e.g. white noise), it is possible to control the instantaneous phase of the relevant perceptual rhythm, and thereby ensure that a given target will be perceived (if presented at the proper phase) or will go unnoticed (at the opposite phase). Better, by taking into account individual differences in oscillatory responses, we can even tailor specific stimulus sequences with an embedded target that can only be perceived by one observer, but not another -a form of "neuro-encryption".
Some scholars of Chinese Chan Buddhism maintain that the innovations associated with early (eighth-century) Chan were largely in the area of doctrine and mythology. In other words, early Chan meditation and ritual practices would have been indistinguishable from non-Chan forms until the emergence, in the Song, of distinctive new methods such as kanhua meditation. This article argues that at least some of the early Chan patriarchs did indeed experiment with a new method (or methods), and that this method foreshadowed, at least superficially, techniques developed in twentieth-century Burmese Theravāda that we now associate with the satipaṭṭhāna movement (i.e., “mindfulness,” understood as “bare attention”); similar innovations, possibly influenced by early Chan, can be found in Tibetan Dzogchen. There is evidence that in eighth-century China, as in twentieth-century Burma, these new techniques emerged in order to make Buddhist practice more accessible to the laity, who were not in a position to engage in more traditional forms of meditation. And in China, as in Burma, the innovations sparked controversy: opponents held that the cultivation of a non-judgmental, non-discursive meditative state was ethically dubious and at odds with orthodox Buddhist teachings.
Scientific research highlights the central role of specific psychological processes, in particular those related to the self, in various forms of human suffering and flourishing. This view is shared by Buddhism and other contemplative and humanistic traditions, which have developed meditation practices to regulate these processes. Building on a previous paper in this journal, we propose a novel classification system that categorizes specific styles of meditation into attentional, constructive, and deconstructive families based on their primary cognitive mechanisms. We suggest that meta-awareness, perspective taking and cognitive reappraisal, and self-inquiry may be important mechanisms in specific families of meditation and that alterations in these processes may be used to target states of experiential fusion, maladaptive self-schema, and cognitive reification.
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