Neuroscience
Meditation can reduce heart rate, lower blood pressure and improve mental health, thus relieving the harmful effects of stress. But does it matter whether the meditation is spiritual in nature or not? A study by Amy Wachholtz and Kenneth Pargament at Bowling Green State University suggests it does. They trained 25 student participants in spiritual meditation and 21 participants in secular meditation. The two groups received identical training except that the spiritual group were instructed to concentrate on a phrase such as “God is joy”, or “God is love” whereas the secular group were instructed to concentrate on a phrase such as “I am content” or “I am joyful”. Before the training, participants in the two groups did not differ on demographics or spirituality. A control group of 22 participants were taught to relax and to avoid stressful thoughts. All participants were then asked to practise their technique for 20 minutes a day for two weeks.
After two weeks, the spiritual meditation group reported lower anxiety, more positive mood, and greater spirituality than the secular meditation and control groups. Moreover, the spiritual group participants were able to withstand holding their hand in icy water (a measure of pain tolerance) for twice as long as the other participants. “The current study suggested that spiritual therapeutic techniques may be more effective than secular techniques”, the authors said.
___________________________________
Wachholtz, A.B. & Pargament, K.I. (2005). Is spirituality a critical ingredient of meditation? Comparing the effects of spiritual meditation, secular meditation, and relaxation on spiritual, psychological, cardiac, and pain outcomes. Journal of Behavioural Medicine, In Press. DOI: 10.1007/s10865-005-9008-5.
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
- The Psychology Of Mindfulness, Digested
Right now, mindfulness is a hot topic in psychology and beyond. In 2012, 40 new papers on mindfulness were published every month, a number that has probably risen since. Last September, the Guardian journalist Barney Ronay noted that a staggering 37 new...
- Just Fifteen Minutes Of Mindfulness Meditation Can Improve Your Decision Making
Do you have an expensive but uncomfortable pair of shoes or jeans at the back of your cupboard that you never ever wear, but you simply cannot throw away because to do so would be to admit defeat and recognise that you wasted a lot of money? If so, you...
- Meditation Helps Us Make The Most Of Our Limited Brain Resources
It's easy to expose the limited processing power of the human brain. Present someone with a sequence of letters, and ask them to look out for the two numbers that will be embedded among those letters. They'll spot the first one okay, but if the...
- How Meditation Alters The Brain
New evidence suggests meditating can make parts of the cerebral cortex thicker and protect other parts from age-related thinning. Sara Lazar and colleagues at Massachusetts General Hospital scanned the brains of 20 people who meditated for an average...
- Present Tense
Lately, The Neurocritic (and recent neuronews) has been focused on the past and the future. But what about the present? What happens to the brain when we are truly focused on the present moment? Overlapping brain areas activated while remembering the...
Neuroscience
The God ingredient
Meditation can reduce heart rate, lower blood pressure and improve mental health, thus relieving the harmful effects of stress. But does it matter whether the meditation is spiritual in nature or not? A study by Amy Wachholtz and Kenneth Pargament at Bowling Green State University suggests it does. They trained 25 student participants in spiritual meditation and 21 participants in secular meditation. The two groups received identical training except that the spiritual group were instructed to concentrate on a phrase such as “God is joy”, or “God is love” whereas the secular group were instructed to concentrate on a phrase such as “I am content” or “I am joyful”. Before the training, participants in the two groups did not differ on demographics or spirituality. A control group of 22 participants were taught to relax and to avoid stressful thoughts. All participants were then asked to practise their technique for 20 minutes a day for two weeks.After two weeks, the spiritual meditation group reported lower anxiety, more positive mood, and greater spirituality than the secular meditation and control groups. Moreover, the spiritual group participants were able to withstand holding their hand in icy water (a measure of pain tolerance) for twice as long as the other participants. “The current study suggested that spiritual therapeutic techniques may be more effective than secular techniques”, the authors said.
"...the spiritual group participants were able to withstand holding their hand in icy water for twice as long as the other participants"
Elizabeth Valentine at Royal Holloway, University of London told New Scientist magazine the finding could be explained by a placebo effect. “Participants in the spiritual group might simply have expected benefits because they were practicing 'real' meditation", she said. But lead author Amy Wachholtz rejected this argument. She told the Digest: “It is unlikely that the effects were simply due to placebo because of the inclusion of the secular meditation condition. It is interesting that Professor Valentine described the spiritual meditation practice as the ‘real’ meditation practice, given that all participants received the exact same training in meditation. There are a number of meditation practices in both the popular culture and in use by psychologists that are described as secular forms of meditation. Therefore assignment to a secular meditation practice would not necessarily be deemed a lesser or unusual meditation practice by participants”.___________________________________
Wachholtz, A.B. & Pargament, K.I. (2005). Is spirituality a critical ingredient of meditation? Comparing the effects of spiritual meditation, secular meditation, and relaxation on spiritual, psychological, cardiac, and pain outcomes. Journal of Behavioural Medicine, In Press. DOI: 10.1007/s10865-005-9008-5.
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
- The Psychology Of Mindfulness, Digested
Right now, mindfulness is a hot topic in psychology and beyond. In 2012, 40 new papers on mindfulness were published every month, a number that has probably risen since. Last September, the Guardian journalist Barney Ronay noted that a staggering 37 new...
- Just Fifteen Minutes Of Mindfulness Meditation Can Improve Your Decision Making
Do you have an expensive but uncomfortable pair of shoes or jeans at the back of your cupboard that you never ever wear, but you simply cannot throw away because to do so would be to admit defeat and recognise that you wasted a lot of money? If so, you...
- Meditation Helps Us Make The Most Of Our Limited Brain Resources
It's easy to expose the limited processing power of the human brain. Present someone with a sequence of letters, and ask them to look out for the two numbers that will be embedded among those letters. They'll spot the first one okay, but if the...
- How Meditation Alters The Brain
New evidence suggests meditating can make parts of the cerebral cortex thicker and protect other parts from age-related thinning. Sara Lazar and colleagues at Massachusetts General Hospital scanned the brains of 20 people who meditated for an average...
- Present Tense
Lately, The Neurocritic (and recent neuronews) has been focused on the past and the future. But what about the present? What happens to the brain when we are truly focused on the present moment? Overlapping brain areas activated while remembering the...