Scientific books on meditation

[E.K.]

I want to find books on the science of meditation, and I mean science not "science" as in how TM - literature uses the word. I want to now specifically what science knows about what happens in brain and body when you meditate and similar states of non drug-induced altered states of consciousness. Any suggestions?

[Edwin]

Biggest problem is that most of the scientific research done on meditation comes from TM.
One can argue about how trustworthy that research is.

Other research has been done by Chinese doctors, but they are known to accept certain "facts" from traditional Chinese medicine ( not saying they don't work, they just aren't accepted by Western medicine ) and base their results on that.

Mind & Life Institute is an institute that claims to work independantly, and they have some interesting articles, not sure if they are based on research tho.

Meditation Research » Home seems to do the same..

I am sure using Google and search words like "meditation research" can give you more articles...

[Gema]

I found Deepak Chopra has some very interesting books published on this subject.

[Maribo]

Can be found at

http://www.ahrq.gov/downloads/pub/ev...tion/medit.pdf

Enjoy!

[mob]

there are a number of academic medical journal search engines out there - the best if you are unfamiliar is PUBMED PubMed Home

This is managed by U.S. National Library of Medicine and will only include peer reviewed research. Type in meditation and there are 1000s of articles. What has been said above about research and TM is true. However, this has changed greatly over the last 10 years or so. In part this is due to Dr Jon Kabat-Zinn, Professor of Medicine Emeritus and founding director of the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. In other words The center For Mindfulness already mentioned. His academic credentials are good and as you can no doubt imagine. Because of the involvement of an accredit university the amount of funding into meditation has grown substantially and thus you will find much more non TM research out there.

You seem aware of the problems with TM research already but as you nodoubt know most of it is done from the academic staff at TMs own university. TM of course will say this is untrue but all you need to to is google the names of the people responsible for the research and all becomes clear.


Center For Mindfulness website can be found here: Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at UMass Medical School -- Home Page

They teach mindfulness meditation which is different to the form taught here in the first Cd's - which as you know is mantra based, but the two are not incompatible and some people start from one and go onto the other, while some use a combination of both. In the case of the latter, using the "cue" of the mantra to set themselves up for the mindfulness - if that makes any sense?

And as to pubmed, well, you find research into all sorts of meditation now.

[Maribo]

Originally Posted by mob

there are a number of academic medical journal search engines out there - the best if you are unfamiliar is PUBMED PubMed Home
.............
And as to pubmed, well, you find research into all sorts of meditation now.

Hi Mob,

I had a look at PubMed, but there seem to be only abstracts available there - is there any way to get full articles?

Thanks and all the best,

Maribo

[mob]

Thats always a problem if you don't have access to an athens access point. Two possibilties really.

1 narrow your search to full articles only. There are actaully a lot more availble then you might first think.

2 Find something that you are interseted in and then copy the tle and google it. You may find more avaialble free online then you might think.

Not very helpful I'm afraid but hopes it helps a little.

[lebourdonant]

mind & body institute with Harvard science.

a look: Search | HarvardScience

mind & body in collaboration with his Holiness the Dalai Lama and other Buddhist monks have released printed material.

the institute of Earthmath Institute of Heartmath – Global leader in research of decoding the hearts intelligence

"The electromagnetic energy generated by your heartbeat radiates outside your body. The rhythmic pattern of our heartbeat, which conveys our emotional state, is communicated electromagnetically to others (Mc Craty, Atkinson, et al; 1998)
This can be measured" (Mc Craty)

Measurment of Chi,
The measurements of the CHI - energy - The IPN

DMT the spirit molecule,
Rick Strassman

Messages from the water,
https://www.hado.net/


let's build up the science facts !! cause this is an important threat,

let's bring the knowledge to the society and let the society realize how meditation can shape our world for the better.

Thx for starting and posting.

If I meditate, we feel better. (F.K.)

[Maribo]

Following a link Lebourdonant gave into another thread, I drifted to another interesting, although older, report available at

http://www.universal-tao.com/archive...aringhouse.pdf

And there is also an on-line book on the effects of meditation at

IONS: The Physical and Psychological Effects of Meditation - A Review of Contemporary Research

Enjoy!

[NeuralNet]

Like you, I'm really interested in the real science (in particular neuroscience which is my background) that supports and investigates meditative states and the relative difference between the various types of meditation. The spiritual and new age books just leave me absolutely cold.

For me I became most interested in TM because of the purported benefits were rated as the highest in TM.

The best books I've found, that have probably been mentioned a few times on this great site somewhere, are:

1) - The Relaxation Response (The Relaxation Response: Amazon.co.uk: Herbert Benson: Books)
This is written by Herbert Benson, who is a very well respected book from a senior professor of medicine at Harvard who studied the physiological effects of TM for years and also provides detail on exactly what TM is and how to do it. Don't let the fact that its a best-seller put you off!

2) The Blissful Brain (The Blissful Brain: Neuroscience and Proof of the Power of Meditation Gaia Thinking: Shanida Nataraja: Amazon.co.uk: Books).
This is a more in depth look at the neuroscience behind meditation and is written by another researcher at the University of London and is based on fMRI data.

I found these two to be really beneficial and reduce my skepticism of the other mass market, more spiritual books. I can now read other books without having that underlying gap in understanding of what is really going on.

Hope that helps.

-NN