How does meditation affect a person? Research continues, but it is already clear that meditation can radically restructure all body systems and prevent the most serious diseases.
The state of "not mind"
It is not easy to explain the concept of "meditation". There are such characteristics of meditation as relaxation, cleansing the mind, changing consciousness, concentration, knowing oneself, enlightenment.
Everyone puts their idea into this word. “Meditation is the realization that I am not the mind,” Osho wrote. The mystic noted the most important rule of meditation - the achievement of pure consciousness, without any content.
Today there are many types and techniques of meditation, but there is a common link inherent in all meditation practices - an object designed to concentrate attention.
It can be a mantra, breath, sky, or, like the Buddhists, "nothing." The object's role is to allow the unegocentric type of thinking to dominate the person's mind.
According to scientists, the object for concentration provides the possibility of such a shift by monopolizing the nervous activity of the left hemisphere, involving it in monotonous activity, which allows the right hemisphere to become dominant. So the rational mind gives way to intuitive insight.
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The brain and meditation
It has been established that meditation causes changes in the activity of the human brain, correcting its biorhythms. For meditative states, alpha waves (frequency 8-14 hertz) and theta waves (4-7 hertz) are characteristic.
Interestingly, in the normal state, the biorhythms of the brain are a chaotic pattern of waves.
Meditation makes the waves move evenly. The graphs show that uniformity of frequencies and amplitudes prevails in all parts of the cranium.
A number of Western experts (Livin, Banquat, Walls) have established various forms of coordinated activity of brain waves: the integration of the left and right hemispheres, the occipital and frontal parts, as well as the superficial and deep regions of the brain.
The first form of integration serves to harmonize intuition and imagination, the second form ensures consistency between mental activity and movement, the third form leads to the uninterrupted interaction of body and mind.
In 2005, at the Massachusetts Hospital in Boston, scientists using MRI monitored all changes in the meditator's brain. They selected 15 people with meditation experience and 15 people who had never practiced meditation.
After analyzing a huge array of information, scientists came to the conclusion that meditation increases the thickness of those parts of the cerebral cortex that are responsible for attention, working memory and sensory processing of information.
“You train your brain during meditation, which is why it grows,” said study leader Sarah Lazar.
“It's like a muscle that can be used in many different ways,” echoes Katherine Maclean of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "Once perception is relieved, the brain can redirect its resources to concentration."
Extreme relaxation
In 1935, French cardiologist Teresa Brosset traveled to India to study the effects of yoga on the human body. She noticed that experienced Indian yogis slow down their heart during meditation.
In the 1950s and 60s, scholars continued to work in this direction, studying the monks of Japanese Zen Buddhism.
It turned out that meditative practice, accompanied by specific biocurrents of the brain, significantly slows down the metabolism.
According to scientists, meditation is a special state that differs in its parameters from the state of wakefulness, sleep or ordinary sitting with closed eyes.
Relaxation during meditation is fuller than in sleep, but the mind remains alert and clear. In this case, the body reaches a state of complete relaxation in a matter of minutes, while in a dream it takes several hours.
The researchers were particularly impressed by the fact that breathing stops spontaneously during phases of deep meditation. Such pauses can last from 20 seconds to 1 minute, which indicates a state of extreme relaxation.
The work of the heart undergoes similar changes. The heart rate slows down by an average of 3-10 beats per minute, and the amount of blood pumped by the heart is reduced by about 25%.
Cardiologists unanimously say that meditation provides a unique opportunity to rest the heart, especially against the background of today's stress and heavy loads.
Psyche and meditation
Humanistic psychology, in the study of meditative states, pays special attention to the extreme sensations that the practitioner of meditation experiences.
American psychologist Abraham Maslow noted that meditators combine their inner forces in the most effective way: a person becomes less scattered, more receptive, his productivity, inventiveness, and even a sense of humor increase.
And yet, as Maslow notes, he ceases to be a slave to base needs.
Australian psychologist Ken Rigby tries to explain the inner state of meditation in the language of transcendental psychology. At first, according to Rigby, consciousness is in a vigorous state, but gradual concentration allows you to switch to a less active level, where "verbal thinking fades before subtle, mobile spiritual activity."
A number of experiments confirm that meditation leads to peace of mind and harmonizes a person with the world around him.
Researchers at Yale University note that meditation can act as an effective preventive measure for a number of neuropsychiatric disorders.
Scientists using MRI monitored the brain activity of several volunteers. Their conclusion is this: meditation inhibits the work of the neural network of the brain, which is responsible for self-awareness and introspection, which protects the psyche from excessive immersion in the jungle of one's own self. It is the “withdrawal” that is characteristic of such mental disorders as autism and schizophrenia.
Healing by meditation
Until recently, meditation was the practice of individual religious schools and directions, and today doctors of the UK public health system are seriously considering prescribing meditation for people suffering from depression.
At least this is the initiative of the British Mental Health Foundation.
The head of the foundation, Andrew Makolov, emphasizes that, according to statistics, ¾ physicians prescribe pills to patients, not sure of their benefits, and meditation, according to him, has already proven its effectiveness in combating depression.
Meditation is becoming more and more popular in Western medical circles. Sharon Salzberg and John Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts weight loss clinic use some of the techniques of Buddhist mindfulness meditation. Doctors train their patients to observe changes in the mind and openly perceive everything that arises in it. Breath is used as the object of concentration.
Research results show that after going through an 8-week anti-stress meditation program, the body's CD4-T lymphocyte count increases. It is known that CD4-T cells are primarily susceptible to attacks by the immunodeficiency virus.
Science has already proven that meditation by restructuring brain activity allows you to normalize many physiological processes: digestion, sleep, the work of the nervous and cardiovascular systems.
Meditation is a natural preventive measure against many serious illnesses, including cancer.
Scientists from Harvard have found that daily meditation for 8 weeks activates genes responsible for recovery and suppresses genes that lead to disease. A 2005 study by the American Heart Association showed that meditation prolongs life by activating telomerase in the body, which is called the key to cellular immortality.