Studien

How do we "measure" the compassionate impact of meditation?

This study found a smart way and convincingly demonstrated the positive effects on meditation on our pro-social behavior. After a three-week use of a mindfulness app, participants were lured into a situation that required an empathetic response. It turned out that the app users, compared with the control group, offered their seats more often to a person with cast and crutches.

Mindfulness Hype vs. Actual Research

The supposedly unlimited benefits of meditation are often hyped, far exceeding the actual findings of reliable scientific research. At least that is what 15 experts argue in a recent article.

Reviewing critical voices will help toward a more complete understanding and toward a more productive dialogue with mediators, scientists, therapists and the various stakeholders of capitalist economies.

If you have never experienced a Tibetan Singing Bowl Meditation or if you are skeptical of its soothing effects, giving it a go might be especially worthwhile.

A recent study suggests that sound meditation lessens tension, anger, fatigue and depressed mood. Interestingly, the study found that those participants previously naive to singing bowl meditation reported a greater reduction in tension compared to those experienced in this type of meditation.

Meditation and Creativity

Many popular sources on the internet claim that meditation boosts our creativity. Scientific studies, however, suggest a more equivocal relationship.

Research into the possible link between meditation and creativity is relatively young. The first illuminating study dedicated to this topic was published only five years ago.

The 2012 and following studies suggest that different types of meditation have varying effects on our creativity. In short, while "focused-attention meditation" (e.g., breath awareness) does not seem to increase our creative thinking, "open-monitoring meditation" (i.e., observing any occurring thought, emotion and body sensation) appears to have a mild positive effect.

Exciting scientific insight into the effects of conscious breathing on our brain.

While shamans, spiritual practitioners and athletes have employed conscious, deep breathing for millenia in order to increase concentration and agility, a new study shows how volitional breathing effects our brain. According to the study, conscious breathing alters the connectivity of our brain and activates parts that are otherwise "unaccessible" to us.

The study was unique insofar, as it collected data through "intracranial EEG" (iEEG), meaning, electrodes directly placed inside the brain -- rather than a standard EEG that attaches the electrodes from the outside onto the skull. The iEGG method delivers more precise data and contributes to our understanding of contemplative breathing from a scientific point of view.

Access to the full study, published in the Journal of Neurophysiology HERE

Positive impact of meditation after just one week.

With little to no meditation experience, ten New York Times readers set on a quest to meditate 15min a day for one week. Although this article is no scientific study, it demonstrates the beneficial impact even a short daily meditation practice can have on our daily lives.

The Power of Loving-Kindness Meditation

Meditation that focuses on our heart and compassion can be found in many cultures, including Christian contemplative traditions and Buddhist meditation practice. While in Loving-Kindness Meditation we often give attention to "others," the positive effects for "our selves" are profound.

Emma Seppälä, Science Director of Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, compiles 18 scientific reasons that show the diverse power of practicing Loving-Kindness Meditation.

Reviewing the results of 18 exsiting studies, researchers from the Universities of Coventry and Radboud show how meditation and other contemplative practices actually affect us on a molecular level. Put simply, meditation inhibits the production of a certain stress-induced molecule called "nuclear factor kappa B (NF-kB)" that affects our "gene expression - which, in turn, is responsible for the protein production and hence for the total of our biological make-up: our bodies, brains and immune systems.

Booming Publications on Mindfulness

Parallel to the growing popularity of mindfulness in virtually all areas of our lives, the past ten years have shown an exponential increase in the number of scholarly publications in this field.

If we add yoga and other meditation research to be below graph, there are currently more than one thousand peer-reviewed studies published each year.

These numbers demonstrate that mindfulness is no longer a fringe field of research but has caught scientists' attention at top universities around the world, such as, Stanford, UC Berkeley and Oxford University. Moreover, the growing body of research helps us build a first robust and increasingly detailed understanding of how meditation affects the human body, mind and well-being.

Groundbreaking Research on Compassion

The ReSource Project carried out at the the Max-Planck-Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig is an elaborate, large-scale study exploring the different effects of various Eastern and Western contemplative methods. The ReSource Project is particularly innovative due to its attention on how meditative practices may increase our capacity for compassion.

One of the many publications related to the ReSource Project reveals a technique that reduces the stress hormone cortisol. Follow the link for more information on this finding of the study.

In what many experts are calling a milestone in neuroscience, researchers published a spectacular new map of the brain, detailing nearly 100 previously unknown regions — an unprecedented glimpse into the machinery of the human mind. A new map based on brain scan data collected by the Human Connectome Project provides an unparalleled understanding of the many specialized areas of the human brain. Scientists created the map with advanced scanners and computers running artificial intelligence programs that “learned” to identify the brain’s hidden regions from vast amounts of data collected from hundreds of test subjects, a far more sophisticated and broader effort than had been previously attempted.

The ReSource Projekt is a worldwide unique, large-scale study on Eastern and Western methods of mental training. Over a period of eleven months, participants are introduced to a wide range of mental exercises that are designed to enhance skills, such as attention, body- and self-awareness, a healthy regulation of emotions, self-care, empathy and compassion, as well as the ability of taking on different perspectives.

A study conducted by Dr. Sara Lazar and her team (Harvard) that was published by the Massachusetts General Hospital in 2011, demonstrates measurable changes in brain regions , associated with learning, memory, sense of self, empathy and stress.

The University of California investigated the effect of a 2-week meditation class on the performance of 48 students in their "Graduate Record Exam". There was an overall improvement, particularly inreading-comprehension and working memory capacity. The students practicing in meditation scored an average of 16 percentage points higher than the control group.

In a large-scale study conducted on 5 secondary schools in Leuven, Prof. Filip Raes and his team examined the effects of meditation on depression-related symptoms. They were able to prove a 29 % decrease of symptoms associated with depression.

Über einen Zeitraum von 11 Monaten führte das Max-Planck-Institut unter Leitung von Prof. Tania Singer eine Studie mit über 300 Probanden zur achtsamkeitsbasierten, mentalen Training auf Selbstbeobachtung, Gesundheit, psychisches Wohlbefinden und Einfühlung in andere durch.

In the frameworks of a study on positive affect, Prof. B. L. Fredrickson from the University of North Carolina investigated the effects of a regular practice of meditation in 75 adults. The results showed an increase in positive emotions, and reduced depressive symptoms.

In 2003, Richard J. Davidson conducted a study on alterations in brain and immune function caused by an 8-week meditation program. The findings show significant increases in left‐sided anterior activation, associated with positive affect, and an improved immune function.