There is some empirical evidence suggesting that emotional stress can trigger or worsen acute and chronic asthma. Moreover there is a widespread perception among health professionals that stress is a contributor to asthma, although most mainstream authorities believe that its contribution is probably a minor one. Empirical studies have shown that while stress causes a [...]
The yogic idea that one’s state of mind, if not one’s level of consciousness, is a major determinant of one’s general health conveniently combines a number of fashionable notions from popular psychology, alternative medicine and New Age spirituality. Thus it is not surprising that many relatively well educated and discerning Western consumers are attracted by [...]
Pharmacological treatment of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), while at the moment more effective than any other treatment option, is still considerably limited in its usefulness. For instance, although stimulants act for only a limited period, symptoms are continuous. Thus stimulants must be given several times per day (or at least daily in the case of [...]
It seems obvious that the non-specific effect of any intervention is closely related to its credibility and plausibility as a therapeutic intervention i.e. its “face validity”. Now, some of the effects associated with meditation must be non-specific, i.e. comprising a mixture of placebo, therapeutic contact, spontaneous improvement, and so on, whereas some, hopefully, are specific [...]
Herbert Benson (1974, 1975, 1978) argued that Eastern meditative traditions, Western religious practices and even secular activities such as hypnosis or simple rest were essentially the same despite their philosophical or metaphysical differences. He coined the term “Relaxation Response” and proposed it as a universal physiological process underlying apparently divergent tasks such as listening to [...]
The emphasis on personal development of consciousness and experience in Eastern religiosity creates a paradigm in which the achievement of health (in all its dimensions), is one stage on a more fundamental continuum of “consciousness development”. The starting point of this continuum is mundane, everyday life and the endpoint is variously described as enlightenment, sahaja [...]
In this excerpt from his thesis Dr Ramesh Manocha discusses why grey literature and non-English literature were excluded from his review.
It was decided to confine the terms of the review to randomised controlled trials (RCTs) published in peer-reviewed, English-speaking journals. This therefore excluded reports from non-English journals and the grey literature — theses, unpublished studies, [...]
On the 25th of November Dr Ramesh Manocha will give a talk on the his research on meditation in Chatswood, Sydney. The speech will focus on the effects of meditation including stress reduction, and will cover the specific effects associated with the state of mental silence. Following the talk will be a meditation workshop [...]
Major depressive disorder, current depressive symptoms, and a history of depression all have been associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) morbidity and mortality. In psychiatric patients with depression it has been noted that coronary heart disease (CHD)-related death is more common than in non-psychiatric controls. Similarly there are high rates of CVD in [...]
Recent advances in neuroimaging open up important opportunities to study the physiological corollaries the meditative experience, the brain and therapeutic effects. Given that changes in peripheral physiology are probably related to changes in the central nervous system that reflect the mental silence experience it seems logical to expand any such psychophysiological research to combine both [...]