Scientific & Medical Studies / Research
on Relaxation, Meditation & Hypnosis Mental States

Alzheimer’s Association International Conference on the Prevention of Dementia:

Improved Cognitive Function

October 8, 2022

Meditation is among the most commonly used alternative therapies in the world, practiced by millions of individuals to reduce stress and anxiety, improve concentration, and even lower blood pressure.

At the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference on the Prevention of Dementia in Washington, D.C., results from a University of Pennsylvania study were unveiled confirming for the first time that daily practice of meditation can improve cognitive function among individuals with memory complaints.

Researchers began their investigation by conducting a series of neurological and memory tests on each subject, who ranged in age from 52-70, with either a history of memory complaints or a diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment.

Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT) scans, a brain imaging technique which measures cerebral blood flow, were also conducted on each subject.

Testing confirmed statistically significant improvements in memory among all of the study's subjects.

But the most significant outcome of the study was the dramatic increases in blood flow to the region of the brain associated with learning and memory (the first region of the brain to decline in individuals diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, which helps to explain why the blood flow-producing meditation has such a profound impact on cognitive functioning).

“This exciting study confirms what we have been observing in clinical practice for many years, that meditation is one of the most effective tools to address memory loss,” said Dharma Singh Khalsa, M.D., president and medical director of the Alzheimer’s Research and Prevention Foundation, the non-profit organization which sponsored the study.

“While we are planning additional research in this area, we can say today with confidence that daily meditation is recommended as part of an integrated brain longevity strategy to delay, even prevent, cognitive decline”.

Andrew Newberg, M.D., assistant professor of radiology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and the study’s principal investigator, agreed.

“For the first time, we are seeing scientific evidence that meditation enables the brain to actually strengthen itself, and battle the processes working to weaken it,” said Newberg. “If meditation is helping patients with memory loss, we are encouraged by the prospects that daily practice may even prevent neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s.”

[ref. 40]

Univeristy of Liege:

Mind Blanking Improves Cognitive Function

October 8, 2022

Researchers from the GIGA CRC In vivo Imaging at the University of Liège (Belgium), the EPF Lausanne and the University of Geneva published a study that shows “mind blanking” challenges the belief that the human mind is always thinking - as the brain actually enters into a similar mode to deep sleep, but while fully awake.

A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences indicates that our brains need to “go offline” for some moments.

“Mind blanking is a relatively new mental state within the study of spontaneous cognition. It opens exciting avenues about the underlying biological mechanisms that happen during waking life”, says the principal investigator Dr. Demertzi Athena, FNRS researcher at GIGA ULiège.

[ref. 41]

UCLA / NeuroImage:

Measurable Differences in Brain

September 13, 2022

Recent research suggests that meditation may contribute to a measurable difference between the brains of mediators and non-meditators.

A study published in NeuroImage presents findings by a group of researchers at UCLA who used MRI to scan the brains of meditators.

The researchers found that certain brain areas of the long-term meditator group were larger than those of the non-meditating control group, including hippocampal tissue, orbito-frontal cortex, the thalamus and the inferior temporal gyrus.

All of these areas are recognized as playing a role in emotional regulation.

[ref. 35]

University of Turku:

Hypnosis Changes Processing of Information Within the Brain

April 1, 2021

Researchers from the University of Turku have revealed that the way the brain processes information is fundamentally altered during hypnosis.

Published in the journal Neuroscience of Consciousness, the breakthrough helps us to understand how hypnosis brings about changes to behavior and experiences. The study was conducted by tracking electrical current through the brain during hypnosis and normal waking state.

“This allowed us to control the possible effects of the experimental set-up or other factors, such as alertness,” said Jarno Tuominen, a senior researcher at Turku.

[ref. 49]

University of Wisconsin:

Increased Left-Brain Activity, Optimism

Tulsa, Okla.

Scientific studies in the UK and Australia indicate that focused meditation techniques increase left-brain activity, altering perception and creating optimism. Two scientific studies have shown that certain relaxation techniques stimulate the left side of the brain, resulting in decreased anxiety and a happy disposition.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin - Madison looked at the effects of meditation on 41 people. Twenty-five of the people attended a weekly class and a seven-hour retreat, and worked on meditation exercises at home. The others were a control group and did no meditation.

After eight weeks, the group who had meditated had a more active left frontal lobe, which is related to lower anxiety and a positive emotional state. The findings lend scientific credibility to the use of meditation techniques to reduce stress and treat pain.

Flinders Medical Centre's Centre for Neuroscience:

Science Backs Evidence of Clearer and Sharper Brain

Science can finally prove what Buddhists have sworn by for centuries - meditation really does sharpen and clear the brain.

Tests by Adelaide researchers have revealed that as people go further into a deep meditative state, their brain rhythms shift into a pattern of focus.

This supports long-standing beliefs that the practice can improve concentration levels and alertness in daily activities.

Scientists at the Flinders Medical Centre's Centre for Neuroscience have completed the first scientific demonstration of brain activity changes in distinct meditative states. The test used electroencephalography (EEG), which relies on electrodes placed on the scalp.

The results, reported at the World Congress of Neuroscience in Melbourne, showed clear changes in brain activity as subjects progressed deeper into meditative states.

Alpha brainwaves, which are associated with focus and attention, initially increased and delta brainwaves, linked to drowsiness, decreased.

As participants went further into mediation the alpha brainwaves, too, started to decrease, as the brain no longer needed to make an effort to be alert.

"So instead of becoming increasingly drowsy, they apparently become more alert" PhD researcher Dylan DeLosAngeles said.

"This supports the idea that meditation may help your day-to-day concentration." 

Meditation was developed more than 2500 years ago as a way to explore consciousness and a discipline to help people achieve a more beneficial state of mind.  The research was presented at the International Brain Research Organisation's annual world congress.

University of Wisconsin:

Several Weeks of Meditation Improve Brain Scan Results

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin in Madison studied meditation and brain scans showed surprising differences in brain waves with patients who had clinical depression, after just weeks of meditation.

Johns Hopkins School Of Medicine:

Synchronizing Left & Right Brain

March 2014

Neuroscientist Dr Shanida Nataraja Shanida Nataraja's PHD and post-doctoral research at the neuroscience department of Johns Hopkins School Of Medicine, Baltimore, has proved meditation does more than clear your head - it can put both halves of your brain to work, improving your concentration, memory and decision-making.

[ref. 36]

Memory Improvement

Tucson, Arizona
A study has found for the first time that there is evidence that daily meditation appears to improve memory loss and may strengthen parts of the brain affected by Alzheimer's disease.

Alzheimer's Research and Prevention Foundation:

Brain has Increased Blood Flow & Memory

Meditation can increase blood flow in the brain and improve memory, according to researchers who found the improvement after just eight weeks.

The 15 participants, ages 52 to 77, all had memory problems at the start, says Dharma Singh Khalsa, MD, one of the researchers and the medical director of the Alzheimer's Research and Prevention Foundation in Tucson, Ariz.

The researchers first gave all 15 participants cognitive tests and took brain images to measure blood flow.

Improve Immune Response

March 3, 2010

Using brain scans, researchers have recently discovered that meditation can change brain activity and improve immune response; while other studies have shown it can lower heart rate and blood pressure, both of which reduce the body’s stress response.  

There are thousands of scientific tests backing the power of meditation in the area of health, stress and longetivity.

In 1991 the Dalai Lama approached Richard Davidson, a University of Wisconsin scientist, professor and director of UW's Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior, who had been working on how the brain regulates emotion, whether he would study the effect meditation had on the brain.

Fifteen years later in May 2006, after Davidson’s research led to the groundbreaking discovery that activities like meditation could in fact train the mind to react to situations with positive emotions, Davidson was named a pioneer in the exciting frontier of mind-body medicine.

Davidson’s research discovered that during meditation, people experience increased brain activity in areas associated with attention and emotion, specifically in the left prefrontal cortex, a region associated with positive emotions.

The discovery, hailed as scientific validation of the link between spiritual practices and mental and physical health, earned Davidson worldwide recognition.

[ref. 33]

Immune Booster - Wards off Illess, Infection

September 2, 2003

Meditation has shown to helps ward off illness and infections. In one study testing immune function, flu shots were given to volunteers who used mental relaxation for eight weeks and to people who didn't meditate.

Blood tests taken later showed the meditation group had higher levels of antibodies produced against the flu virus, according to the study in Psychosomatic Medicine.

[ref. 34]

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The Garvan Institute:

Stress Inhibits the Immune System

The Garvan Institute discovered how stress causes a hormone to be released into the bloodstream which inhibits the immune system and makes people more susceptible to getting sick.

Stanford University:

Neuroscientists Discover Hypnosis May Improve Focus

July 29, 2016

According to a study published in Cerebral Cortex, patterns of mental activation indicate that hypnotized patients focus better upon single tasks without worrying about their surroundings.

Hypnosis is a “state of relaxed focus,” according to the American Association of Professional Hypnotherapists. David Spiegel, a psychologist at Stanford and lead author of the paper, describes it as the feeling of living in the moment without feeling self-conscious about your behavior.

“You do shift into a different kind of brain function when you go into a hypnotic state,” he says. “It helps you focus your attention so you’re not thinking about other things, you have better control what’s going on in your body, and you’re less self-conscious.”

“In general, people who are hypnotizable tend to be less self-conscious, trust other people more…and use their imaginations more,” Spiegel says.

[ref. 48]

American University:

Greater 'Restful Alertness'

April 8, 2010

A study at American University and published in a special issue of Cognitive Processing dedicated to meditation and consciousness in February, 2010, concluded that meditation produced a unique state of "restful alertness," and that meditation produced greater brain functioning.

Finally, the study described how meditation enhanced an individual's sense of "self" by activating what neuroscientists call the "default node network" in the brain, the natural ground state of the brain that exists when you close your eyes, but is much more enhanced during meditation.

Previous research, funded by the National Institute of Health shows that meditation practice decreases blood pressure, heart disease, and lowers cholesterol.

[ref. 38]

Clifford Saron at the University of California-Davis Center for Mind and Brain:

3 Month Study Shows Quicker Focus / Sharper Attention

May 8, 2007

Researchers at the Clifford Saron at the University of California-Davis Center for Mind and Brain investigated 17 meditation volunteers before and after they completed three months of rigorous training in meditation.

They meditated for 10 to 12 hours a day and the researchers also studied 23 novices who received a one-hour meditation class and then meditated for 20 minutes daily for a week.

The scientists asked volunteers to look for numbers flashed on a video screen amongst a series of distracting letters. Their brain activity was monitored using electrodes placed on their scalps.

Davidson and his colleagues found the brains of volunteers who received the intense mental training apparently needed less time to spot details than before. The training also improved their ability to detect the second number within the half-second attentional blink time window.

[ref. 37]

University of Wisconsin:

Concentration & Emotional Control

Richard Davidson, a University of Wisconsin scientist, found that longtime Buddhist practitioners of meditation can induce a heightened pattern of electrical signals called gamma-band oscillations.

These are associated with concentration and emotional control not seen in control groups. These changes are sustained even after meditating.

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Psychological Science Journal:

Longer Attention Spans

A study in the journal Psychological Science shows that meditation can help people focus their attention more clearly and for longer periods of time.

University of Wisconsin-Madison:

Neuroscience Discovers Transformational Deeper Focus

June 25, 2007

A study by Richard Davidson, a neuroscience professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison, showed that Tibetan Buddhist monks managed to structurally alter their brain functions with meditation. 

Davidson's study showed that while meditating, Tibetan monks produced gamma waves which represent extremely focused thought thirty times stronger than a control patient.

Davidson also documented that normally erratic brain waves became more synchronized during meditation and that the part of the brain associated with positive emotions was more active.

"I think the science behind meditation is actually quite good," says Matthew Stanford, a neuroscientist at Baylor University in Texas who signed the petition and who is working on an article about Christianity and psychology.

[ref. 39]

Harvard:

Stronger Attention and Sensory Processing

Nov 28, 2005

At Harvard, scientist Dr Sara Lazar found that people who incorporate meditation into their daily lives have thicker brain tissue in regions associated with attention and sensory processing.

Her results, published in November in NeuroReport, showed that those regions were 20 percent larger than in control groups. Practicing meditation regularly may slow age-related thinning of the frontal cortex, her study suggests.

Of the 20 subjects studied, two were full-time meditation teachers and three were part-time yoga or meditation teachers. The rest were professionals in other fields who meditated an average of once a day for 40 minutes.

[ref. 29]

Psychological Institute of the University of Zurich:

Hypnosis Extends Restorative Slow-Wave Sleep

June 2, 2014

A study published in the scientific journal "Sleep," demonstrated that hypnosis has a positive impact on the quality of sleep, to a surprising extent.

"It opens up new, promising opportunities for improving the quality of sleep without drugs," says biopsychologist Björn Rasch who heads the study at the Psychological Institute of the University of Zurich.

Seventy young women took part in the study, using a special 13-minute slow-wave sleep hypnosis tape developed by hypnotherapist Professor Angelika Schlarb, a sleep specialist, in a sleep laboratory before taking a 90-minute midday nap.

In their study, sleep researchers Maren Cordi and Björn Rasch were able to prove that highly suggestible women experienced an 80 percent increase of slow-wave sleep after listening to the hypnosis recording, compared with the control group.

According to psychologist Maren Cordi "the results may be of major importance for patients with sleep problems and for older adults.In contrast to many sleep-inducing drugs, hypnosis has no adverse side effects."

It was concluded that everyone who responds to hypnosis could benefit from improved sleep through hypnosis.

[ref. 50]

University of Kentucky:

Overcome Effects of Sleep Deprivation

January 2014

Dr Bruce O'Hara, from the University of Kentucky, studied claims by Buddhist monks that dedicated meditation can reduce the need for sleep, and tested a group who deprived themselves of sleep the night before a test. Those who meditated right before the test performed better than those who did not.

  O'Hara next examined sleep-deprived subjects who took a nap right before the test. They actually did worse because it takes time to fully recover alertness after a nap.  O'Hara found meditating subjects, whether alert or sleep-deprived, still performed better on the test an hour after meditating.

[ref. 27]

Harvard, Yale & MIT Universities

Treatment for Insomnia and Anxiety

February 2, 2006

Meditation is fast becoming a more widely endorsed treatment for conditions such as insomnia and anxiety, according to a new body of empirical research released from Harvard, Yale and MIT Universities.

Following on from the range of scientific research into the benefits of meditation and the positive psychological and physiological elements of the practice, many mainstream physicians are recommending that patients suffering from sleep deprivation or nervous conditions undertake a process of meditation as a self-help remedy, which is helping the treatment win new fans the world over.

This means meditation's medical credentials are now making it more mainstream after having previously been seen as a purely alternative treatment, with more and more physicians beginning to adopt and endorse the findings of research into meditation, and it looks to continue to grow in popularity over the coming years.

The news follows recent high profile research from Harvard, Yale and MIT that found a correlation between brain size and meditation, leading to the conclusion that meditation can actually help increase the size of certain areas of the brain, compared to those that don’t meditate and have never done so.

"Our data suggest that meditation practice can promote cortical plasticity in adults in areas important for cognitive and emotional processing and well-being," said top neurologist Dr. Sara Lazar, leader of this research project at Harvard University.

It has been suggested that there is a clear physiological benefit to meditation in achieving greater relaxation and improving sleep, and it was stated there is a voluminous amount of literature about meditation research and study all pointing to the conclusion that it is beneficial for the human body, spirit and mind.

It was a surprise that it has taken this long for medical science at a practitioner level to adopt treatment by meditation after people across the world have testified to its effectiveness for thousands of years on a spiritual and physical level.

[ref. 43]

Associated Professional Sleep Societies:

Good News on Insomnia

June 9 2009

Meditation may be effective in the treatment of insomnia, according to research presented at the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.

Sleep latency, total sleep time, total wake time, wake after sleep onset, sleep efficiency, sleep quality and depression improved in patients who used meditation.

[ref. 53]

New research shows that long term practitioners of meditation have significantly lower free radical levels, which dramatically boosts longetivity.

University of Kentucky:

Slowing Aging In Parts of the Brain

January 2014

Massachusetts General Hospital study published in November 2005 showed that meditation slowed the aging of certain portions of the brain and increased its user's ability to focus, and a University of Kentucky team found that meditation could offset the sluggishness of sleep deprivation. 

[ref. 26]