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In the recent years
there has been a growing interest within the medical community to study
the physiological effects of meditation (Venkatesh et al., 1997; Peng et
al., 1999; Lazar et al., 2000; Carlson et.al, 2001). Many concepts of
meditation have been applied to clinical settings in order to measure its
effect on somatic motor function as well as cardiovascular and respiratory
function. Also the hermeneutic and phenomenological aspects of meditation
are areas of growing interest. Meditation has entered the mainstream of
health care as a method of stress and pain reduction. For example, in an
early study in 1972, transcendental meditation was shown to affect the
human metabolism by lowering the biochemical byproducts of stress, such as
lactate, decreasing heart rate and blood pressure and inducing favorable
brain waves. (Scientific American 226: 84-90 (1972)). In 1976, the
Australian psychiatrist Ainslie Meares, reported in the Medical Journal of
Australia, the regression of cancer following intensive meditation. Meares
would go on to write a number of books, including his best-seller Relief
without Drugs.
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As a method of stress
reduction, meditation is often used in hospitals in cases of chronic or
terminal illness to reduce complications associated with increased stress
including a depressed immune system. There is a growing consensus in the
medical community that mental factors such as stress significantly
contribute to a lack of physical health, and there is a growing movement
in mainstream science to fund research in this area (e.g. the
establishment by the NIH in the U.S. of 5 research centers to research the
mind-body aspects of disease.) Dr. James Austin, a neurophysiologist at
the University of Colorado, reported that Zen meditation rewires the
circuitry of the brain in his landmark book Zen and the Brain (Austin,
1999). This has been confirmed using functional MRI imaging which examine
the electrical activity of the brain.
Dr. Herbert Benson of
the Mind-Body Medical Institute, which is affiliated with Harvard and
several Boston hospitals, reports that meditation induces a host of
biochemical and physical changes in the body collectively referred to as
the "relaxation response" (Lazar et.al, 2003). The relaxation response
includes changes in metabolism, heart rate, respiration, blood pressure
and brain chemistry. Benson and his team have also done clinical studies
at Buddhist monasteries in the Himalayan Mountains.
Other studies within
this field include the research of Jon Kabat-Zinn and his colleagues at
the University of Massachusetts who have studied the effects of
mindfulness meditation on stress (Kabat-Zinn et.al, 1985; Davidson et.al,
2003).
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Editor's Choice of Books on Meditation
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