There is quite new metaanalysis of efficacy:

http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1809754

Best Jakub,

great article! I look forward to read it.

MIndfullness (which to me is same same but different compared to for example zen meditation) is practically accepteed as treatment here in Sweden. Is this the case in Poland as well?

Til´ further notice, Pontus

Pontus,

This is relatively new movement. I am seeing a lot of workshops etc. on it. As to acceptance in actual practise it is hard to say really. There is so much mambo-jumbo in various psychotherapic and occupational interventions in mental health that I am seeing... Non-medical interventions are not robustly regulated in Poland and rarely paid for from public purse (I think only some in-patients have some psychotherapy run by psychotherapists paid for by the public purse) so anybody can claim they do some sort of therapy, why not meditation. It is really worrying situation for a bioethicist.

As you see from the meta-analysis it is mostly medium quality evidence of moderate efficacy. With large scale of placebo effects in mental health research in general it is really hard to say in any generalised way if this is something that should be part of let's say - standard of care. I am not a specialist anyway but I would be careful about it. We have enough bad science and pseudoscience as it is.

Great responses!

I can recommend a documentary (when having a pause reading one of the articles above attached by mr  Singh) which I found most interesting called the Dhamma Brothers from 2008.

I agree with you Jakub that it is an ethical problem of using this as treatment.

I practice meditation at home but I would never do it as a professional, that is, not even recommend it to a patient of mine. The silent virtues of zen and so fort apply not solely to mentally ill but to all, but as a professional i1t is self-evident not to use anything that lack scientific evidence based one the bioethical principle of doing no-harm. / pontus

I think that something that is not obviously absurd (like homoeopathy or reiki), and if there is a reason to believe there is no significant risk of harm, can be recommended by physicians as long as it is clearly explained that it is not a primary treatment for a condition that the patient is suffering from but rather a lifestyle choice and that there is no strong evidence to believe it can be treated as treatment. This is a part of therapeutic relationship I guess, but it's more as if you recommended let's say jogging in a forest instead of jogging on a treadmill to slightly overweight patient (jogging can be dangerous to the obese so only slightly overweight). ;-)

The important part of the duty to inform / informed consent process is to clearly differentiate between standard of care / scientific evidence and personal preferences / choices of a physician. Another analogy would be with surgical techniques. Let us assume that procedure A and B for the same condition has the same evidence of outcomes, but the attending surgeon clearly prefers carrying out A, although he is equipped and trained to carry out both. It is fine in my opinion to inform the patient "I prefer to do A, but the evidence supports both treatments and I will follow your decision."

It connects you with yourself. Self realization.

Dear Nilay

Your answer surprises me a little, since I´ve always believed that meditation was supposed to connect you to All and Everything and that self-realization and other ego wishes and desires just makes us kling to things that lead to endless suffering.

For you that still haven´t red Charlotte Yoko Beck´s marvelous book it is attached below.

//Pontus

Dear sir,

Mediation is science and spiritual combination. Meditation connects us to nature from what we created. 

thinking or contemplating; others use it to refer to daydreaming or fantasizing. However, meditation (dhyana) is not any of these.

Meditation is a precise technique for resting the mind and attaining a state of consciousness that is totally different from the normal waking state. It is the means for fathoming all the levels of ourselves and finally experiencing the center of consciousness within. Meditation is not a part of any religion; it is a science, which means that the process of meditation follows a particular order, has definite principles, and produces results that can be verified.

In meditation, the mind is clear, relaxed, and inwardly focused. When you meditate, you are fully awake and alert, but your mind is not focused on the external world or on the events taking place around you. Meditation requires an inner state that is still and one-pointed so that the mind becomes silent. When the mind is silent and no longer distracts you, meditation deepens.

Turning Inward

From childhood onward, we have been educated only to examine and verify things in the external world. No one has taught us how to look within, to find within, and to verify within. Therefore, we remain strangers to ourselves, while trying to get to know others. This lack of self-understanding is one of the main reasons our relationships don’t seem to work, and why confusion and disappointment so often prevail in our life.

Very little of the mind is cultivated by our formal educational system. The part of the mind that dreams and sleeps—the vast realm of the unconscious which is the reservoir of all our experiences—remains unknown and undisciplined; it is not subject to any control. It is true that the whole of the body is in the mind, but the whole of the mind is not in the body. Except for the practice of meditation, there is no method to truly develop control over the totality of the mind.

The goal of meditation is to go beyond the mind and experience our essential nature—which is described as peace, happiness, and bliss. But as anyone who has tried to meditate knows, the mind itself is the biggest obstacle standing between ourselves and this awareness. The mind is undisciplined and unruly, and it resists any attempts to discipline it or to guide it on a particular path. The mind has a mind of its own. That is why many people sit for meditation and experience only fantasies, daydreams, or hallucinations. They never attain the stillness that distinguishes the genuine experience of deep meditation.

We are taught how to move and behave in the outer world, but we are never taught how to be still and examine what is within ourselves. When we learn to do this through meditation, we attain the highest of all joys that can ever be experienced by a human being. All the other joys in the world are momentary, but the joy of meditation is immense and everlasting. This is not an exaggeration; it is a truth supported by the long line of sages, both those who renounced the world and attained truth, and those who continued living in the world yet remained unaffected by it.

Meditation is a practical means for calming yourself, for letting go of your biases and seeing what is, openly and clearly. It is a way of training the mind so that you are not distracted and caught up in its endless churning. Meditation teaches you to systematically explore your inner dimensions. It is a system of commitment, not commandment. You are committing to yourself, to your path, and to the goal of knowing yourself. But at the same time, learning to be calm and still should not become a ceremony or religious ritual; it is a universal requirement of the human body.

How to Cultivate Stillness

Learning how to be still is the method of meditation. The process of cultivating stillness begins with the body. In the yoga tradition, you are guided by a competent teacher to keep your head, neck, and trunk straight while sitting in a meditative posture (asana). When you have learned to be comfortable in this posture, you should form a regular habit of practicing in the same posture at the same time and at the same place every day.

Find a simple, uncluttered, quiet place where you will not be disturbed. Sit on the floor with a cushion under you or in a firm chair, with your back straight and your eyes closed. Then bring your awareness slowly down through your body, allowing all of the muscles to relax except those that are supporting your head, neck, and back. Take your time and enjoy the process of letting go of the tension in your body. Meditation is the art and science of letting go, and this letting go begins with the body and then progresses to thoughts.

Once the body is relaxed and at peace, bring your awareness to your breath. Notice which part of your lungs are being exercised as you breathe. If you are breathing primarily with your chest you will not be able to relax. Let your breathing come primarily through the movement of the diaphragm. Continue to observe your breath without trying to control it. At first the breath may be irregular, but gradually it will become smooth and even, without pauses and jerks.

Meditation is a process of giving your full attention to whatever object you have chosen. In this case you are choosing to be aware of the breath. Allow yourself to experience your breathing in an open and accepting way. Do not judge or attempt to control or change it. Open yourself so fully that eventually there is no distinction between you and the breathing. In this process many thoughts will arise in your mind: “Am I doing this right? When will this be over? Perhaps I should have closed the window. I forgot to make an important call. My neck hurts.” Hundreds of thoughts may come before you and each thought will call forth some further response: a judgment, an action, an interest in pursuing the thought further, an attempt to get rid of the thought.

At this point, if you simply remain aware of this process instead of reacting to the thought, you will become aware of how restless your mind is. It tosses and turns like you do on a night when you cannot fall asleep. But that is only a problem when you identify with the mind and react to the various thoughts it throws at you. If you do, you will be caught in a never-ending whirlwind of restless activity. But if you simply attend to those thoughts when they arise, without reacting, or if you react and attend to the reaction, then they cannot really disturb you. Remember—it is not the thoughts that disturb you, but your reaction to them.

Paying Attention

When you meditate, you give yourself an inner vacation.

Meditation is very simple. It is simply attending. You can begin by attending to your breath, and then if a thought comes, attend to it, notice it, be open to it—and it will pass. Then you can come back to the breath. Your normal response is to react to all your thoughts, and this keeps you ever busy in a sea of confusion. Meditation teaches you to attend to what is taking place within without reacting, and this makes all the difference. It brings you freedom from the mind and its meandering. And in this freedom you begin to experience who you are, distinct from your mental turmoil. You experience inner joy and contentment, you experience relief and inner relaxation, and you find a respite from the tumult of your life. You have given yourself an inner vacation.

This inner vacation is not a retreat from the world but the foundation for finding inner peace. You must also learn to apply the principle of attending in your worldly activities, so that you can apply yourself in the world more effectively. Through practicing meditation you can learn to be open to what comes before you in your daily life and give it your full attention.

Ordinarily, you react to the experiences that come before you in much the same way that you react to your thoughts. If someone says something negative to you, you become angry or depressed. If you lose something, you become emotionally upset. Your mood depends on what comes before you, and, as a result, your life is like a roller coaster ride. You react before you have fully experienced what you are reacting to. You immediately interpret what you see or hear according to your expectation, fears, prejudices, or resistances. You short-circuit the experience, and thus limit yourself to one or two conditioned responses instead of responding to a situation openly and creatively.

But if you apply the principle of meditation to experiences that come before you, you can fully attend to what is taking place. You can attend to your initial reaction without reacting to your reaction: “Oh, look how threatened I feel by that.” Let yourself be open to experiencing your reaction and it will move through you and allow other spontaneous responses to also come forward, so that you can select the one that is most helpful in that particular situation.

In this way meditation is very therapeutic. It not only leads to inner balance and stability, it also exposes your inner complexes, your immaturities, your unproductive reflexes and habits.

In this way meditation is very therapeutic. It not only leads to inner balance and stability, it also exposes your inner complexes, your immaturities, your unproductive reflexes and habits. Instead of living in these complexes and habits and acting them out, they are brought to your awareness and you can give them your full attention. Only then will they clear.

Signs of Progress

Have patience and do your practice systematically. Every action has a reaction. It is not possible for you to meditate and not receive benefits. You may not notice those benefits now, but slowly and gradually you are storing the samskaras(impressions) in the unconscious mind that will help you later. If you sow a seed today, you don’t reap the fruit tomorrow, but eventually you will. It takes time to see results; be gentle with yourself.

Meditation means gently fathoming all the levels of your being, one level after another. Be honest with yourself. Don’t care what others say about their experiences—keep your mind focused on your goal. It is your own mind that does not allow you to meditate. To work with your mind, you’ll have to be patient; you’ll have to work with yourself gradually.

Some of the most important benefits of meditation make themselves known gradually over time and are not dramatic or easily observed.

At first you may see progress in terms of physical relaxation and emotional calmness. Later you may notice other, more subtle changes. Some of the most important benefits of meditation make themselves known gradually over time and are not dramatic or easily observed. Persist in your practice and you will find that meditation is a means of freeing yourself from the worries that gnaw at you. Then you are free to experience the joy of being fully present, here and now.

Dear Pontus

Google Harvard Medical School. I think they recently published a popular paper on meditation. Also google The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine. Good luck. Best wishes Paul

Meditation is a pathway of life as it correlates with us & also with the resulting forces of our day to day action of our life with our family,social surrounding & working environment. 

Meditation has a direct tuning with our relation for which we have to take recourse to religion,philosophy ,& meditative action . We should not be a one day exercise but it should be a continuing energy forces of our life so that we may keep our mind calm & quite without any worries,tension ,& frustration so that we may meet the challenge of our life with may help us to bring tranquility in our life.

This is my personal opinion 

Great sir

Dear Pontus sir,

I think only practicing Meditation can make you realize the advantages of it.

In childhood I learned from my parents and elders that the best technique is what your teacher or master instructs.

And the differences because of  technique will be there, but just temporary. For example you've to go to place B from place A.

You take route via C, I reach there via D, So our experiences on the way will be different, but once we reach B, our destination, it's same for us.

- Based on what I've learned from elders and by daily practice of it.

There are many forms of meditation, as I have written before in this forum. They do tend to fall into the categories of concentration, contemplation, and transcending, but even so there are significant differences within a category.

The most successfully researched form of meditation is Transcendental Meditation. As the title implies, this is a transcending form of meditation.

There are over 400 published studies on TM, starting in 1969, about ten years after TM was brought out to the world. While some are replications, metastudies, or do not have strong experimental design, that still leaves 100 or more studies with strong experimental design. Every study shows benefits and effects in various areas of the physiology or psychology of various types of subjects.

You can find summaries of these studies at the TM website (www.tm.org) and at other more specialized websites.

The second most researched form of meditation is called mindfulness, a simplified version of vipassana. Summaries of these studies may easily be found by searching the Web.

Practicing meditation has shown to enhance neuroplasticity (Ability of our brain to change as a result of experience). This has been validated with number of studies involving FMRI and MRI. In one study, they have observed increased cortical thickness in long term mediators. Other studies have shown its efficacy on limbic areas, which is a seat of emotional regulation and pre frontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex areas. Pl add a key word Meditation/Meditation and Neuroplasticity in Pubmed. U shall get many papers related to this.

@Halappa: I believe that most research on the enhancement of neuroplasticity has been done with particular flavors of mindfulness, forms of concentration, such as Insight meditation (Lazar, et.al.,Meditation experience is associated with increased cortical thickness). Studies on one form of meditation cannot be assumed to apply to other forms. See my posting above on forms of meditation. Different techniques may produce different results. The word meditation does not refer to a single specific technique.

fyi:

Article Natya yoga therapy: Using movement and music to create medit...

As is apparent in the replies to your question, there are both a variety of definitions of meditation and a variety of meditation techniques.

Two respected researchers' names I'm not seeing so far mentioned are:

-- Richard Davidson, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, whose work (primarily in the area of brain-imaging) has largely examined Tibetan Buddhist meditation techniques. One summary of his work is here:

http://centerhealthyminds.org/about/founder-richard-davidson

-- Willoughby Britton, at Brown University, who has done studies with Vipassana and mindfulness (including work looking at some of the difficult, "negative" experiences that meditators sometimes have). A select listing of her work is here:

https://vivo.brown.edu/display/wbritton

Both Davidson and Britton also have TED talks and other videos online.

Britton's Research Gate profile is here:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Willoughby_Britton2

.

And there are increasingly many books and studies on applied uses of mindfulness and meditation in, for example, psychotherapy. Two books I happen to have on my desk at the moment are:

Mind in the Balance: Meditation in Science, Buddhism, & Christianity, by B. Alan Wallace (244 pages)

Clinical Handbook of Mindfulness, ed. by Fabrizio Didonna (523 pages)

Thank you all

for your interesting and wise answers!

I have not yet been able to read all of your suggestions- but I sure will!

In closing the gap between lived experiences and science I believe there will many benfits for us all.

Til further notice, Pontus

I have been meditating now for about forty years - TM and Chakra meditation – and have experienced different forms of my spiritual nature, including glimpses of timelessness. For me, meditation is the only way to understand the Big Bang illusion, which quantum physicists recently have begun to deduct as opposed to the teachings of mysticism.