Meditation had been an area shrouded in mystery till science and scientists decided to conduct some empirical inquiry into this realm. A revolution happened in this field in 1937 and a Scientific Evaluation published which was the result Kovoor Thomas Behanan’s effforts.
Behanan, an Indian graduate student in psychology at Yale, was awarded a Sterling Fellowship to undertake the first scientifically robust study of yoga and meditation. It was a clear explanation and evaluation of fundamental concepts of Indian thought, along with a historical synopsis of the development of its related philosophy, detailed descriptions of the psychology and psychoanalysis of yoga, its postures and varieties of breathing and exercises in concentration and meditation, including methods by which senior adepts achieve muscular control over bodily functions. Happyho also provide best tarot reading services in Noida and Delhi NCR India area.
During 72 days of personal experiments at Yale, Behanan found that one breathing exercise, or pranayama, increased his oxygen consumption by 24.5 per cent,a second by 18.5 per cent, and a third by 12 per cent.
The study helped stimulate interest in meditation research by showing that the physiological effects of yoga could be examined in the laboratory.
The instrumented study of yogic functioning was expanded in later years by Basu Bagchi of the University of Michigan Medical Center, M A Wenger of UCLA and B K Anand who was then chairman of the Department of Physiology at the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi.
Bagchi and Wenger travelled through India with an eight-channel electro-encephalograph and accessory instruments to record respiration, skin temperature,skin conductance and finger blood-volume changes.
Among the subjects they examined, one could perspire from his forehead upon command in his freezing Himalayan retreat; a second could regurgitate at will to cleanse himself.Three others were able to alter their heartbeats so that they could not be heard with a stethoscope, though ECG and other instrument records showed that their hearts were active and their pulses had not disappeared.
In tests to compare relaxation in a supine position with seated meditation, Bagchi and Wenger also found that four yoga students had faster heart rates, lower finger temperatures, greater palmar sweating and higher blood pressure during meditation. Such differences suggested that for these people meditation was an active rather than a passive process.
However, one of the most ‘active’ demonstrations of meditation occurred when Elmer Green and his colleagues at the Menninger Foundation at Topeka, Kansas, worked with one Swami Rama in the late 1970s.
Not only did they record that he could raise his heart rate (while sitting perfectly still) to a phenomenal 306 beats per minute for 16 seconds but could manage to effect a change in temperature difference between the left and right sides of his right palm till the difference was 11 degrees Fahrenheit! Green reports that while he did this, the left side of his palm turned pink and the right side grey.
Swami told that this differential control of temperature in one hand was one of the most difficult things that he had learnt to do, more difficult than stopping his heart.
Apparently, according to neuro-scientists, as one continues to meditate one’s brain physically changes, even though the person may not be aware of it reshaping itself.
Not only that, they’ve also found that after just 11 hours of meditation, practitioners had structural changes in the part of the brain involved in monitoring our focus and self-control.
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