Friday, January 16, 2004
Meditation Has a Place in Helping Patients Improve Health, Doctors Say
As patients and doctors seek answers other than medications to treat illnesses, some are finding that meditation can be strong medicine.
More doctors have opened their minds to the idea of meditation as complementary therapy as more studies emerge linking better health and meditation, said Dr. Roger Walsh, professor of psychiatry at the University of California, Irvine. Walsh has published research on meditation and teaches the practice as an elective to medical students.
Among the latest findings:
-A pilot study led by Walsh suggested that meditation is useful in understanding the effects of anti-depressants and might be useful as maintenance therapy for depression.
Researchers found that meditation - like anti-depressants - fostered a state of equanimity.
This is the ability to tolerate and not be disturbed by potentially provocative or stimulating thoughts, events, encounters or experiences. The study appeared recently in the Journal of Mental and Nervous Disorders.
-A study presented at a recent American Heart Association meeting found that transcendental meditation, or TM, reduced the severity of risk factors in metabolic syndrome.
This syndrome is a collection of conditions that lead to heart disease, such as high blood pressure and increased blood-sugar levels.
People who practiced TM significantly decreased their levels of blood pressure, blood sugar and insulin, said Dr. Noel Bairey Merz, study author and medical director of the Preventive and Rehabilitative Cardiac Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Merz continues to study the effect of meditation on heart disease.
-Preliminary results of a study on meditation and binge-eating disorder showed that meditation can help people "reconnect" with their mind and body to understand when to eat and when to stop.
Mindfulness meditation can help those with the disorder gain control over their eating habits, said Jean Kristeller, professor of psychology and director of the Center for the Study of Health, Religion and Spirituality at Indiana State University in Terra Haute, Ind.
This research joins an increasing body of knowledge based on science rather than on religious beliefs, whether rooted in Buddhism or Christianity. Religious elements can be present in meditation, but it's also possible to practice meditation without them.
Some meditators in hospital settings say the turning point for meditation in medical practice came after 1975, when Harvard University researcher Dr. Herbert Benson first wrote about the value of meditation in treating illnesses in the book "The Relaxation Response."
A common mistake some novices make is to try a type of meditation and not like it, then give up without experimenting with other ways.
Not surprisingly, time - not motivation - is the biggest obstacle to maintaining the practice of meditation, said Dr. Wadie Najm, associate professor of family medicine at UCI. Longtime practitioners recommend meditating twice a day for 20 minutes each time. "It's not as quick as taking medication," said Najm, who has recommended meditation to some patients. It requires a time commitment, much as exercise does.
Sometimes, meditation helps the body and mind so much that patients can reduce their dosage of medications, such as drugs to reduce blood pressure or stress and anxiety, Najm said. In a few cases, meditation has proved so effective that it picks up where medication leaves off.
To maintain the state of equanimity that sometimes results from meditation, meditators have to "Meditation is not about getting rid of difficult experiences or feelings. It's about learning to cope continue practicing throughout life. Even longtime meditators are never completely rid of intrusive thoughts and distractions, but with practice, are better able to deal with them, Walsh said.
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