Meditation found to decrease depression and anxiety and increase compassion

Participants of a University of California, San Francisco-led study that blended ancient meditation practices with the most current scientific methods for regulating emotions showed less depression, anxiety, and stress, and increased feelings of compassion and awareness of others’ feelings.

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More evidence that meditation strengthens the brain

UCLA researchers point to new evidence that shows people who meditate for years experience positive changes to the brain, specifically more folding of the cortex, which may allow the brain to process information faster. It is believed the more folding that occurs, the better the brain is at processing information, making decisions, forming memories and so forth.

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Iraq and Afghanistan veterans show vast improvement in PTSD symptoms using Transcendental Meditation

Veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars who suffered from post traumatic stress disorder, brought about by moderate to heavy moderate combat, experienced up to 50 percent reduction of their symptoms after just eight weeks of participating in a transcendental meditation program.

The five soldiers in the study, aged 25 to 40 years, experienced marked relief from stress and depression, and saw improvement in their relationships and quality of life.

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Medical providers referring patients to mind-body therapies

Approximately one-third of Americans use mind-body therapies, such as yoga, meditation, and tai chi, to complement their healthcare. Now, a recent survey by Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and Harvard Medical School shows that 1 in 30 Americans are referred to those therapies by their medical provider.

“There’s good evidence to support using mind-body therapies clinically,” said lead author Aditi Nerurkar, MD, Integrative Medicine Fellow, Harvard Medical School and BIDMC. “Still, we didn’t expect to see provider referral rates that were quite so high.”

The study shows that attitudes about healing are changing and that the use of complementary medicine is on the rise. This is especially true for patients who are sicker and are seeking alternatives to their failed traditional treatments.

“What we learned suggests that providers are referring their patients for mind-body therapies as a last resort once conventional therapeutic options have failed. It makes us wonder whether referring patients for these therapies earlier in the treatment process could lead to less use of the health care system, and possibly, better outcomes for these patients,” said Nerurkar.

Meditation is an antidote for an over-stimulating world

Mindfulness meditation not only helps improve cognitive functions such as memory, it helps regulate the flow of sensory information from our external world.

Catherine Kerr, PhD, of the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Osher Research Center at Harvard Medical School, co-lead author of a recent report on mindfulness meditation, says: “Our discovery that mindfulness meditators more quickly adjusted the brain wave that screens out distraction could explain their superior ability to rapidly remember and incorporate new facts.”

The key is how regular meditation practice eventually adjusts and regulates the brain’s alpha rhythms, a crucial brain wave that is thought to “turn down the volume” on distracting information. The alpha rhythm is particularly active in brain cells that process touch, sight and sound in the brain’s outmost layer, called the cortex, where it helps to suppress irrelevant or distracting sensations and regulate the flow of sensory information between brain regions.

“This result may explain reports that mindfulness meditation decreases pain perception,” says Kerr. “Enhanced ability to turn the alpha rhythm up or down could give practitioners’ greater ability to regulate pain sensation.”

Meditation’s dramatic pain-relieving effects documented

A recent study that measured meditation’s influence on pain demonstrated that only a little over an hour of training provided dramatic pain-relieving effects.

Using a type of mindfulness meditation known as focused attention, non-meditators who were trained to use the technique experienced a 40 percent reduction in pain intensity and a 57 percent reduction in pain unpleasantness. Other pain-relieving drugs, such as morphine, tend to alleviate the pain intensity by about 25 percent, according to Fadel Zeidan, Ph.D., lead author of the study and post-doctoral research fellow at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center.

Before and after meditation training, brain scans were performed using arterial spin labeling magnetic resonance imaging (ASL MRI), which more effectively captures brain activity specific to meditation. During the scans, a pain-inducing heat device was applied to the participants’ legs. Comparisons of the two sets of scans demonstrated the difference in the level of activity in the pain-processing region.

Zeidan and colleagues believe that meditation has great potential for clinical use because so little training was required to produce such dramatic pain-relieving effects. “This study shows that meditation produces real effects in the brain and can provide an effective way for people to substantially reduce their pain without medications,” Zeidan said.

Focused attention is a form of mindfulness meditation where people are taught to attend to the breath to reduce mental distractions and be in the present moment.

Meditation practice in Alabama prison helps lower violence

William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility, Alabama’s toughest prison, has implemented a model program based on the meditation practice Called Vipassana (which is pronounced vuh-’POSH-uh-nuh), one that dates back 2500 years to Buddha,  to help instill self-control and social skills never before learned in life before prison.

So far, 10 percent of the inmates have completed the program. “The inmates are less angry, they are better able to conduct themselves, they are more mindful of themselves and others, and overall there has been a 20 percent reduction in disciplinary action for those who have actually completed the course,” said Dr. Ronald Cavanaugh from Alabama Department of Corrections.

“I had a lot of anger issues, and this has given me a way to deal with it,” said Ronald McKeithen, who is serving life without parole for robbery.