Inside Yoga 165 (2/5/2016)
The two worlds of meditation and science are gradually drawing closer to each other, and many scientists now see the benefits of meditation. There are always two sides to a question, Australian ABC reported recently: what does science say about the centuries-old spiritual practice? And equally, what can the ancient Buddhist tradition teach neuroscientists about the brain?
In an effort to find out, a group of meditation practitioners, psychologists and neuroscientists gathered together for a weekend Zen retreat in rural New South Wales, Australia.
“The idea was to bring long-term meditators together and people who are researching certain parts of cognition … and learn from each other’s perspectives. So, the scientific perspective but also the meditative perspective,” explained Dr Britta Biedermann. Biedermann, a cognitive scientist and long-time meditator, initiated the project as part of her research at the ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders at Macquarie University, Australia.
Professor Peter Sedlmeier, a neuroscientist from the University of Chemnitz in Germany, was also invited to the weekend. Nearly 10 years ago, Sedlmeier undertook a large meta-analysis of all the scientific research that’s been done on meditation.
“One of the challenges of meditation research is that there are so many different styles,” he says.
“There are techniques where you simply observe your breath, your body and your mind, which are used in the Buddhist tradition. In yoga, there’s pranayama, where you influence your breath and your body.
“In chakra meditation, you focus on energy centres of your body. Mantra meditation involves repeating a selected word or mantra in your mind and using it to minimise your concentration.”
The group discussed the benefits of meditation for those in therapy.
Research shows that human emotion is the area of cognition that experiences the most pronounced effects of meditation, so it comes as no surprise that the ancient Buddhist technique is common practice amongst many psychotherapists. But Sedlmeier warns it should never replace the need for therapy altogether.
“Meditation was originally not meant as a therapy but as a way to enlarge your consciousness. The Indian schools deal with liberation or enlightenment or a spiritual development, and not about therapy,” he says.
Psychologist Emily White, who also attended the weekend, says meditation and mindfulness are at the core of her clinical practice. She works in a type of therapy called dialectical behaviour therapy, with patients who have difficulty regulating their emotions.
“The core skill underlying that is mindfulness, teaching people to bring themselves back to the present moment in many different ways,” she says.
A growing number of scientific studies of meditation are relying on brain scanning technologies such as FMRI to determine whether there are cognitive effects that occur as a result of the practice, and if so, what these effects are.
“A colleague of mine … re-analysed brains using a certain machine learning technique, and with this technique this algorithm learns the age of brains … and they found that the brains of meditators were younger than the brains of the normal people. And there are some other indications that the brains of meditators age less quickly than the brains of normal people, explained Sedlmeier.
The group concluded that: ancient, modern, religious or secular, the neuroscientist says there is convincing evidence to show that meditation—broadly speaking—is an effective practice.
To read the full report, go to http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/allinthemind/what-can-neuroscience-learn-from-buddhist-practice-of-meditation/7369634
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