Namaskar The physiological effects of meditation and proper yoga postures have been studied over the years. As early as 1977 specialists in the area of psychophysiology looked into these matters. Below are summaries of some articles explaining findings by researchers. The research continues with recent studies showing that meditative states are a natural condition of the brain if a person allows that focus into their life. Shrii Shrii Anandamurti termed this are biopsychology. Doctors are increasingly prescribing meditation instead of drugs. Meditation techniques have proved highly successful in treatment of stress related symptoms and other associated diseases. These techniques and their application within the medical field is now increasing. Many people normally operate at levels of stress which can even improve their level of performance. However, if the levels of stress are excessive and prolonged, the individual's ability to cope can suffer, causing damaging levels of neurophysiological stress and symptoms of ill health and disease. When subjected to mental or physical stress, the autonomic nervous system (ANS) initiates a complex series of neurophysical and biochemical changes. The two branches of the ANS - the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems - are responsible for the regulation of those changes. The sympathetic nervous system is concerned with arousal and preparing the body for action. For example, it accelerates the heart and pulse rate, constricts involuntary muscles, dilates the pupils, increases the respiration rate and activates the secretion of adrenalin and noradrenaline. This fight or flight response, or ergotrophic response, constitutes the body's most comprehensive reaction to a perceived threat. The effects of activation of the parasympathetic system are inhibition, slowing and restorative functions, referred to as the trophotrophic response. This includes slowing the heart and pulse rate and dilating the blood vessels. The effects of prolonged stress can deteriorate one's health. Relaxation techniques produce a temporary trophotrophic state. The state of deep relaxation is highly conductive to positive health since it is the physiological opposite of the sympathetic stress response and leads to psychophysiological restoration of the body. Deep relaxation has been shown to be effective in the treatment of insomnia, hypertension, migraine, tension headaches, and subjective reports of anxiety, pain, etc. One of the many benefits of meditation is this state of deep relaxation. Meditation is a technique which has been used for thousands of years within the religious and philosophical traditions of the East, and only for the past 30 years with the medical health care, scientific and psychotherapeutic traditions of the West. Several hundred papers and books have appeared in the medical literature describing the physiological and psychological effects of meditation, as well as the physical, emotional and spiritual well-being of the practitioners. Meditation techniques have the potential for inducing an awakened trophotrophic state. Although there are many types of meditation one common element is some focal device like a mantra (a word or phrase usually is Sanskrit language, which has a special vibration, rhythm and uplifting meaning). One theory is that the focal device allows the intuitive, non-ego-centred mode of thought process carried out in the right hemisphere to dominate consciousness in place of the normally dominant analytical, ego- centred mode of thought. The focal devise engages the left hemisphere's neural circuitry so that the right hemisphere becomes dominant. During meditation, certain physiological changes have been consistently reported such as reduced heart rate, decreased oxygen consumption, decreased blood pressure, increased skin resistance, increased regularity and amplitude of alpha activity, reduction in blood lactate, decreased respiration rate and so on. A number of research studies have investigated the use of meditation in reducing high blood pressure. These studies consistently show a reduction in blood pressure in the treatment group, a reduction in the use of anti-hypertensive drugs and a reduction in somatic symptoms. Follow-up data have shown that treatment effects were maintained after a four year period (Patel, 1985). There have been a number of studies concerned with the reduction of fears and phobias and with stress management. These studies suggest that meditation may be a promising clinical intervention technique for stress-related disorders ranging from fear of enclosed spaces, examinations, elevators and being alone to generalised anxiety, anxiety neurosis, back pain, fear of heart attack, rehabilitation after heart attacks and bronchial asthma. Meares (1982) has reported a number of cases of regression of cancer after intensive meditation in the absence of any orthodox treatment which could have accounted for the regression. Fleming (1985) reported the successful use of relaxation therapy in patients with far advanced cancer. One feature that each of the meditation strategies have in common is regulation and awareness of breath. Doctors are prescribing the use of meditation for patients suffering from various disorders, such as general anxiety states, with symptoms of exhaustion and fatigue, irritability, inability to relax, shakiness, restlessness; sleeping difficulties; cognitive anxiety such as difficulty in concentration, forgetfulness; muscle tension; cardiovascular symptoms such as palpitations, high blood pressure, fast heart rate, respiratory symptoms such as breathing difficulties, breathlessness, hyperventilation, shallow breathing; gastro-intestinal symptoms; tension headaches, feelings of fear and panic, dizziness, pain, PMT (premenstrual tension), asthma, and migraine. It is important for the doctor to inquire into the patient's previous knowledge or experience of these approaches because misconceptions and misinformations can prevent their successful implementation. The patient should be provided with a basic explanation of the rationale and use of these approaches. Dharma --- Elson, B.D., Hauri, P. and Cunis, D., 1977. Physiological changes in yoga meditation. Psychophysiology. January. Vol. 14, pp. 52-57 The authors are from the University of Connecticut School of Medicine, Farmington, CT, Darmouth Medical School and Darmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA. Abstract: A group of 11 meditators using Ananda Marga Yoga techniques were matched individually with non-meditating controls. Controls were instructed to remain "wakefully relaxed for 40 minutes while the others meditated for the same amount of time. Six of the 11 controls feel asleep during the 40 minutes (defined by K-complexes and spindles in the EEF), while none of the meditators feel asleep. Rather, meditators remained in a relatively stable state of alpha and theta EEF activity. Meditation was also characterized by a marked increase in basal skin resistance and by a decrease in respiratory rate, changes which were not observed in the controls. Some physiological changes observed during meditation continued into the post-meditation resting periods. These findings suggest that Ananda Marga meditation produces a physiological effect different from that observed in controls who try to relax with their eyes closed. --- James C Corby, Walton T. Roth, Vincent P. Zarcone, and Bert S. Kopell. 1978. Psychological correlates of the practice of tantra yoga meditation. Arch. Gen. Psychiatry. Vol. 35. May. pp. 571-577. Abstract: Autonomic and electroencephalographic (EEG) correlates of Tantric Yoga meditation were studied in three groups of subjects as they progressed from normal consciousness into meditation. Groups differed in their level of meditation proficiency. Measures of skin resistance, heart rate, respiration, autonomic orienting response, resting EEG, EEG alpha and theta frequencies, sleep-scored EEG, averaged evoked responses, and subjective experience were employed. Unlike most previously reported meditation studies, proficient meditators demonstrated increased autonomic activation during meditation while unexperienced meditators demonstrated autonomic relaxation. During meditation, proficient meditators demonstrated increased alpha and theta power, minimal evidence of EEF-defined sleep, and decreased autonomic orienting to external stimulation. An episode of sudden autonomic activation was observed that was characterized by the meditator as an approach to the Yogic ecstatic state of intense concentration. These findings challenge the current "relaxation" model of meditation states. Note: This second article in Arch. Gen. Psychiatry used three groups of people: * college students with no prior meditation experience served as the control group *trainees from the Ananda Marga Regional Training Center (meditating for an average of 2.1 years and for about 3.1 hours a day) *expert group of Ananda Marga meditators. "Experts were chosen by Ananda Marga as the ten most proficient meditators in the San Francisco area" (meditating for an average of 4.4 years and for about 3.4 hours a day) ... . All had met the spiritual leader of Ananda Marga during visits to India, and had received the most advanced set of meditation techniques." Some excerpts from this study: "One expert meditator reported the experience of 'having my breathing taken over by the mantra' during the meditation condition, and felt it might represent what she termed as a 'near-Samadhi' experience. The concurrent respiratory record showed a pattern of respiratory acceleration with little change in respiratory amplitude followed by cessation of respiration for approximately 100 seconds." " ... respiratory rate, heart rate, and skin resistance measures plotted for each ten-second interval during the event. A dramatic decrease in skin resistance of approximately 200 k ohms preceded the respiratory acceleration." "Visual inspection of the meditation EEG record of this subject disclosed large amounts of high amplitude (up to 100 micro V) alpha range frequencies and also large amounts of theta range frequencies (up to 150 micro V). Occasionally there were discrete bursts of theta range frequencies of amplitudes up to 300 micro V. No particular EEG changes were associated with the "near-Samadhi" event." "Our results indicate that meditators became physiologically activated during their meditations while the control subjects became relaxed. This differential change is evident in the significant group x conditions iterations for the measures of basal skin conductance and frequency of spontaneous GSR responses. The heart rate of the meditators also increased during meditation relative to the control period, although the increase was not statistically significant. Controls demonstrated relaxation similar to that reported in previous studies of TM, whereas meditators demonstrated activation similar to the previously cited field studies of Indian Yoga." ".... the meditators studied were unusually experienced with meditation techniques ... . Such expertise is unusual in meditation studies with the exception of the field studies conducted in India." "It appears that proficiency in this form of Tantric meditation is characterized by physiological activation by EEG and autonomic criteria. This activation is consistent with the Tantric emphasis on struggle to achieve union with the object of concentration." "These findings tend to discourage the current assumption that meditation is indistinguishable from states of deep relaxation. Rather, they suggest that meditation techniques may give access to a variety of physiological and subjective states, depending on the technique and proficiency of the meditator." "Those techniques that employ longer meditations, such as Zazen and Ananda Marga, would be expected to be accompanied by greater physiological activation than shorter meditation techniques such as TM." --- Bera TK, Rjapurkar MV Body composition, cardiovascular endurance and anaerobic power of yogic practitioner. Indian J Physiol Pharmacol (India). Jul 1993, Vol. 37(3), pp. 225-8. ISSN: 0019-5499 The authors are from the Scientific Research Department, Kaivalyadhama, Lonavla. The article concerns body composition (physiology), physical endurance (physiology) and yoga. ABSTRACT: Forty male high school students, age 12-15 years, participated for a study of yoga in relation to body composition, cardiovascular endurance and anaerobic power. The students were placed into two subsets viz., yoga group and control group. Body composition, cardiovascular endurance anaerobic power were measured using standard methods. The duration of the experiment was one year. The result of ANCOVA statistics revealed that a significant improvement in ideal body weight, body density, cardiovascular endurance and anaerobic power was observed as a result of yoga training. This study could not show significant change in body fat (midaxillary), skeletal diameters and most of the body circumferences. It was evident that some of the fat-folds (tricep, subscapular, suprailiac, umbilical, thigh and calf) and body circumferences (waist, umbilical and hip) were reduced significantly. --- PLUMBING THE MYSTERY OF PRAYER WITH THE INSTRUMENTS OF SCIENCE Published on 3 May 2001 Author(s): Gareth Cook, Globe Staff Boston Globe Scientists find biological reality behind religious experience 09 May 2001 Scientists find biological reality behind religious experience In a quiet laboratory, Andrew Newberg takes photographs of what believers call the presence of God. The young neurologist invites Buddhists and Franciscan nuns to meditate and pray in a secluded room. Then, at the peak of their devotions, he injects a tracer that travels to the brain and reveals its activity at the moment of transcendence. A pattern has emerged from Professor Newberg's experiments. There is a small region near the back of the brain that constantly calculates a person's spatial orientation, the sense of where one's body ends and the world begins. During intense prayer or meditation, and for unknown reasons, this region becomes a quiet oasis of inactivity. "It creates a blurring of the self-other relationship," said Professor Newberg, an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania whose work appears in Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging. "If they go far enough, they have a complete dissolving of the self, a sense of union, a sense of infinite spacelessness." Professor Newberg and other scientists are finding that people's diverse devotional traditions have a powerful biological reality. During intense meditation and prayer, the brain and body experience signature changes, as yet poorly understood, that could yield new insights into the religious experience. An example is a National Institutes of Health sponsored clinical trial at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore that will study the effects of group prayer sessions among black women with breast cancer - the first such study. Already, scientists say, the young field has provided evidence that these meditative states - which rely on shutting down the senses and repeating words, phrases or movements - are a natural part of the brain; that humans are, in some sense, inherently spiritual beings. "Prayer is the modern brain's means by which we can connect to more powerful ancestral states of consciousness," said Gregg Jacobs, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. With meditative states, people seem to turn off what Professor Jacobs called "the internal chatter" of the higher, conscious brain. During meditation, researchers have observed increases in the activity of the "theta" brain wave, a type known to inhibit other activity in the brain. Following a preliminary analysis of recent data, Professor Jacobs said he had observed inhibitory theta activity coming from the same area of the brain that contains the becalmed oasis during prayer. Eventually, researchers hope to identify a common biological core in the world's many varieties of worship. --- 'The Prayer Spot' Found A couple of years ago researchers at the University of California at San Diego found the famous 'God Spot,' a part of the brain that reacts to certain spiritual/religious stimuli. Now scientists have gone even further to probe the biological underpinnings of prayer and other kinds of religious experience. Professor Newberg, an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania whose work appears in Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, takes images of the brains of people during peak religious experiences -- deep prayer and religious meditation. A pattern has emerged from Professor Newberg's experiments. There is a small region near the back of the brain that constantly calculates a person's spatial orientation, the sense of where one's body ends and the world begins. During intense prayer or meditation, and for unknown reasons, this region becomes a quiet oasis of inactivity. "It creates a blurring of the self-other relationship," said Professor Newberg, "If they go far enough, they have a complete dissolving of the self, a sense of union, a sense of infinite spacelessness." Professor Newberg and other scientists are finding that people's diverse devotional traditions have a powerful biological reality. During intense meditation and prayer, the brain and body experience signature changes, as yet poorly understood, that could yield new insights into the religious experience. An example is a National Institutes of Health-sponsored clinical trial at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore that will study the effects of group prayer sessions among black women with breast cancer -- the first such study. Already, scientists say, the young field has provided evidence that these meditative states -- which rely on shutting down the senses and repeating words, phrases or movements -- are a natural part of the brain; that humans are, in some sense, inherently spiritual beings. "Prayer is the modern brain's means of connecting to more powerful ancestral states of consciousness," said Gregg Jacobs, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. With meditative states, people seem to turn off what Professor Jacobs called "the internal chatter" of the higher, conscious brain. Eventually, researchers hope to identify a common biological core in the world's many varieties of worship. We have been saying for a long time that humans were inherently spiritual beings. This will not come as news to Fortinberry-Murray practitioners. BM Sydney Morning Herald 22 May 2001 --- Some websites: www.anandamarga.org The main Ananda Marga site, an overall view of the organization. www.innersports.org Spiritual sports and adventures club. www.yogainnewyork.com New York City activities.