This post was written by admin on May 3, 2009
Posted Under: Meditation

A team of researchers from the University of Dalian (China) and Oregon (United States) have experimentally highlighted the beneficial effect of meditation on the performance of the mind in stressful situations. There is little doubt that meditation and relaxation should encourage intellectual performance. But a team of scientists wanted to verify experimentally. Forty volunteers were randomly selected from among students preparing for a university thesis, and a control group. While the experimental group received five days of meditation training using a technique called integrative body-mind training (IBMT), the control group received only five days of relaxation training. Various tests based on mental effort and thought have been carried out following a protocol identical for both groups

before and after training. We can learn to stay cool The tests were based on solving mathematical problems mentally in a state of stress. Before their respective training, both groups showed a significant rise in the rate of cortisol, a hormone stress easily measured from a sample of blood or saliva. But after training in meditation or relaxation alone, the experimental group had a lower concentration of cortisol, indicating a better adaptation and better reaction to a stressful situation. The same group also showed less susceptibility to fatigue and anger, and anxiety and depression, which was not the case for the control group. According to Professor Yi-Yuan Tang of the Institute of Neuroinformatics and Laboratory for Body and Mind at Dalian University of Technology of Dalian (China), the method proves effective IBMT to help improve the emotional and cognitive performance and behavior from one individual facing a stressful situation. Developed in 1990 and studied science in China since 1995, this technique is based on a better thought control obtained by both a higher degree of consciousness and a heightened state of vigilance, all under the influence of instructions from a master and a soothing music. The study, whose results will be published later this week in the PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences), was not to highlight any changes in the brain, although synaptic changes have been previously suggested in experiments similar. Michael I. Posner, professor emeritus in psychology at the University of Oregon, announced that this will be part of the next experiment, which will be conducted on a larger scale in the United States The research team concludes this study tentatively writing that IBMT is an easy and relevant way to get better control in terms of individual cognition, emotion and social behavior.

Tags: IBMT, Meditation, stress