Short-Term Meditation Training Alters Brain Activity and Sympathetic Responses at Rest, but not during the meditation

Summary

Meditation is widely used for well-being, but it is unclear how quickly physiological changes appear in non-devoted practitioners. This work asks whether changes during meditation can be observed and used with biofeedback or neurofeedback to improve training outcomes.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Numerous studies have shown that meditation has a number of positive effects on the physical and psychological well-being of practitioners. As a result, meditation has become widely practiced not only as a religious practice but also as a self-regulation technique to achieve specific measurable goals. This raises the question of how quickly physiological changes can be noticed in individuals for whom meditation is not the main focus of their lives but rather a wellbeing keeping technique. Another question is whether it is possible to observe changes occurring directly during meditation and use bio- or neuro-feedback to enhance such meditation training and achieve tangible results.