Purpose: According to the World Health Organization, stress is a significant problem of our times and affects both physical as well as the mental health of people. Stress is defined as a situation where the organism‘s homeostasis is threatened or the organism perceives a situation as threatening. Stress coping methods are the cognitive, behavioral and psychological efforts to deal with stress. ...

In recent years a number of assessments of the non-Western consciousness disciplines have been undertaken by Western behavioral scientists. The author suggests that a variety of conceptual, methodological, experimential, and content inadequacies render the conclusions of these investigations of doubtful validity. He then describes the models of human nature postulated by these disciplines and t...

We report the first EEG recordings of an expert in the 8 advanced meditations called jhanas, and propose 5 hypotheses on how the jhanas differ in EEG power from the eyes-closed resting state at 7 different brain regions. We hypothesize simple changes in the brain regions responsible for each of the 5 principal experiential features of jhana states. These features are: (1) internal verbalization...

Background Despite the risk of ‘method slurring’, researchers have triangulated within a single qualitative study methods that are philosophically incongruent or in a limited context, are congruent, as with hermeneutic phenomenology and constructivist grounded theory. Methods/ Materials We aimed to make the case that what works best can be to mix two qualitative methods that are philosophically...

Abstract Contentless experience involves an absence of mental content such as thought, perception, and imagery. In academic work it has been classically treated including states like those aimed for in Shamatha, Transcendental, Stillness Meditation. We have used evidence synthesis to select review 135 expert texts from within the three traditions. this paper we identify features contentless ref...

709 This editorial discusses recent systematic reviews on yogic meditation techniques used for treating medical disorders and contrasts the results with two recent very large multisite state-of-the-art pharmacologic trials (one for depression,1–4 the other for schizophrenia5–7) funded by the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH). The intent here is to put the new emerging interest in medi...

Psychedelic use is generally considered safe, and their effects are being equated with those of meditation practices. To assess these conclusions, this paper compares psychedelic experiences in terms 1) EEG patterns, 2) brain blood-flow 3) content experience, 4) mechanism action, 5) therapeutic application. On five factors, transcendental during practice completely different: gamma vs alpha EEG...

This study outlines and empirically tests a field-theoretic view of consciousness positive social change based on the ancient Vedic tradition knowledge from India (Veda means “knowledge” in Sanskrit) as brought to light by scholar scientist consciousness, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. In contrast most contemporary theories mind originating West, Maharishi’s science posits existence an interpersonal, n...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE African Americans suffer disproportionately higher cardiovascular disease mortality rates than do whites. Psychosocial stress influences the development and progression of atherosclerosis. Carotid intima-media thickness (IMT) is a valid surrogate measure for coronary atherosclerosis, is a predictor of coronary outcomes and stroke, and is associated with psychosocial stres...

Background Current treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are only partially effective. This study evaluated whether an extensively researched stress reduction method, the Transcendental Meditation (TM) technique, can reduce the PTSD symptoms of veterans. Previous research suggested that TM practice can decrease veterans' PTSD symptoms. Methods A one-group pretest-posttest desig...