Talk:Effects of meditation/Archive 1

Archive 1

The meditation and the brain section

is just a Daniel Goleman essay. 67.81.102.176 22:25, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Research on Meditation

I had added this piece of info previously, intending to locate some source material for it, but in the interim Teardrop deleted it. I strongly suggest that it (or some similar statement) be reinserted with the appropriate suggested citation since without it, and especially since the article is specifically related to health applications and clinical studies, it is absolutely necessary to make a statement like the one I suggest: (Since there are various types of meditation, the effects of each must be considered independently. What may be true of one procedure, may not apply to another. Therefore, one would be wise to consider carefully the research done on each specific type of meditation, recognizing that findings on one type may not be automatically transferable to other types. References: http://www.truthabouttm.org/truth/Research/ComparisonofTechniques/index.cfm ) Of course, the article should also remain unbiased, neither intentionally or unintentionally appearing to favor any particular type of meditation. Sueyen 21:06, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Sueyen. I think it's a good point. But I'm not sure your wording is appropriate. For example, it sounds like it's giving the reader advice, but that's not really appropriate for an encyclopedia. I suggest something like this: "Studies show that various types of meditation have been shown to have varied effects on the brain and physiology and that the effects of one type may not be generalized to other types." And then use the same ref you provided. Actually, since that site quotes Jonathan Shear's book on meditation, we may want to simply cite the book. I've ordered it and will be able to add a citation that includes page number. It could go at the end of the intro. TimidGuy 19:21, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Oxygen consumption, rejuvination and deep sleep comparison

I thinkg it would be good to have a graph comparison on oxygen consumption with deep sleep and also if possible its rejuvinating effects as compared to ordinary sleep or REM dreaming sleep.--Jondel (talk) 12:12, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good. Go ahead and add it. There is indeed research on this. TimidGuy (talk) 16:45, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Uhh , gotta work on this. I've been neglecting.--Jondel (talk) 00:58, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Cancer

Although I have begun to look at this article and wish to work on it slowly - given time restraints - I am especially concerned about this quote:

"In 1976, the Australian psychiatrist Ainslie Meares reported the regression of cancer following intensive meditation (published in the Medical Journal of Australia)"

I cannot see how this can remain without a reference to the actual research paper. As I recall some of Meares findings were a little "controversial" I will give it a day or so and if no one can find will remove before beginning the "bulk" of the work on this. The7thdr (talk) 19:01, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

The ref is in the subsequent citation, along with a list of his other publications. But I have real reservations about this material. I've only glanced at the titles, but my very hasty impression is that these are case studies. In other words, anecdotal evidence. What would be ideal is if we could get one of these and look at it. Do you have access to a library? You could likely get one of the publications through interlibrary loan. TimidGuy (talk) 21:22, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

I have access to an extensive academic library and shall have a look. I vaguely remember reading some of his stuff previously and not being overly impressed. His material came form a time (late 60's/early 70's) when meditation was being seen as a "cure all" for everything. The findings in these early case studies have not only never been repeated as controlled studies but I think never again found incidentally. I don't mind having his stuff included and critiqued correctly but if it is included it should perhaps be so later in the article, it certainly shouldn't be in the "lead" where it may give the reader the wrong idea about the state of the research and present thoughts on clinical applications. The7thdr (talk) 23:14, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

I too had qualms about it in the lead. It would only be appropriate there if its purpose was to show that there was an interest in health applications. In which case we could maybe simply note a best-selling book on meditation on health and not mention the specific claim until later -- and very briefly. Having the study would help us state its limited nature. Any critique would need to be sourced. In any case, I think the lead needs to be changed because this research is too prominent. TimidGuy (talk) 11:56, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

add at Adverse effects text from Kundalini Syndrome

add at Adverse effects phrases from Kundalini Syndrome,or mention Kundalini Syndrome Zenhabit (talk) 20:15, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Rename article

The title of the article is too long and it seems to combine two or three topics into one. Any ideas or suggestions? Barkeep ^{Chat | $} 18:44, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

obvious:split, less obvious rename to Meditation in Modern Medicine--Keerllston 03:21, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. I think particularly the section on perception can be split off, as well as the section on meditation and drugs, and then the article renamed to Meditation and Medicine or something like that.Snake666 (talk) 18:33, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

"Clinical Applications Of meditation"? "Health Applications Of Meditation"? The7thdr (talk) 19:03, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Particularly since and clinical studies is redundant - embarrassingly and obviously so - I'm astonished that two years have passed, yet nothing has happened. Extraction of those three words would appear to be all that's needed. In the absence in all that time of any dissenting voice, I propose their removal forthwith. Wingspeed (talk) 12:01, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Seeing as this thread has been going on for nearly three years now, I am declining from posting another possible page name and just choosing one, then moving it myself. I will choose "Meditation in Health Science" because I think it is both simple, captures the current idea and also it enables users to search for something really simple (either 'health' or 'science') and then get results. I also thought of choosing "Meditation in Neuroscience" but that might pigeon-hole the page as well as not being as relevant to a search input as well. --makeswell 18:26, 22 June 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Makeswell (talk • contribs)

specify type of meditation

Please remember to specify what type of meditation is being observed. makeswell (talk) 18:22, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

This article should begins by presenting the different categories of meditations.

Starting the article with an explanation of the different categories of meditations, as they are reported in peer reviewed scientific papers, will help avoiding a bias toward any specific kind of meditations. I am surprise that the article begins, after the Introduction, by a section only on Mindfulness meditation, which is not even followed by corresponding sections for other kind of meditations. The different categories of meditation should be discussed first, before we write a section on any specific kind of meditations. After that, the information that is available in the published literature for each category should be provided. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.230.155.29 (talk) 03:29, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

inaccurate medical advice is harmful

As of now, I'm removing those sections which may prove hazardous to people's health. I'll place them here. For example, studies that show that meditation does not have an effect, or that the studies which were analyzed did not have enough rigor, do not mean that meditation has no effect - the lack of knowledge of something does not imply that it does not exist. Also, a "quick search", on scholar.google.com should seriously not equate to medical advice. This could prove very negative, and is against Wikipedia's policy on health-related articles. Let us all aspire to refrain from the sort of work as is shown below.

Effects on mental disorder

A 2007 review article found no reliable effect of mindfulness meditation on anxiety or depression. A 2006 article found "The strongest evidence for efficacy was found for epilepsy, symptoms of the premenstrual syndrome and menopausal symptoms. Benefit was also demonstrated for mood and anxiety disorders, autoimmune illness, and emotional disturbance in neoplastic disease." but noted also that "Clear and reproducible evidence supporting efficacy from large, methodologically sound studies is lacking." A 2009 article found, "substantial disparity between what is espoused clinically and what is known empirically about the benefits of mindfulness practice". Meditation was found to alleviate depressive symptoms in patients with fibromyalgia. Participants enrolled in a 10-week mindfulness meditation program showed improved scores on test of depression and associated stress. makeswell (talk) 18:47, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Can you tell me how these verifiable facts are supposed to be either "inaccurate", "medical advice" or "harmful"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:15, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Is that a serious question? The articles may,may, be accurate. The studies were no doubt preliminary and had methodological flaws, or quite possibly could have flaws in design and therefore conclude that there is no benefit, or in another case that there is some benefit, when in truth there is no benefit, or there is harm from that meditative exercise. Now, imagine that somebody with a psychological disorder came onto Wikipedia and read this information posted above. Then we would also expect that there would be a high probability that person would either 1) not engage in a practice which in actuality would be of great benefit to them, or 2) engage in a practice which is harmful to them while they believe it to beneficial.

As to whether the studies are accurate or not, I am not going to spend too much time researching and discussing this debatable question, nor should I as someone who is not an expert. However, I will mention that below this Talk section there is another in which there is a quote from a scientific study, also found on scholar.google.com, in which it was found that there was a significant chance that practitioners of meditation would accurately guess which picture was chosen before being told the answer, that they displayed precognition and had psychic powers. Furthermore, the studies certainly do not encapsulate the full spectrum of the research on meditation, and are therefore, most certainly, incomplete. Therefore one could realistically imagine somebody foregoing the practice of meditation after reading the information which I had removed from the public Wikipedia. As to how it is medical advice, it isn't, but it is medical information and therefore may become the basis of a decision regarding the health of a person. I am surprised really that I would have to write this response, I would feel it to be rather unnecessary to explain the potential harm that could arise from posting this sort of information without any certifiable experience in the field or a more full study. I would guess, though this is not something that I would hastily post online, that meta-analyses of a large number of studies, done by a large and reputable organization, for example one such study as the National Institute of Health meta-analysis of the scientific literature on meditation, which found that there were a very large and substantial number of studies which did have methodological flaws and were therefore unreliable, would be a more reliable basis on which to found any sort of practical decision regarding one's health.makeswell (talk) 08:36, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Meditation and drugs

Section Meditation and drugs says:

East Asian traditions use tea and Middle Eastern (and many Western) religions use coffee as an aid to meditation.^{[citation needed]}

What "many" Western religions? Indigenous American religions? Otherwise there are about c:a 3-4 western religions (nearly not eligible for "many"), i.e. Christianity, Islam, LDS and Jehovas Witnesses. Regarding Islam I don't know, but the other ones don't use meditation (except that Swedish Lutherans are beginning to import buddhist methods without changing them). "Many" is not likely, unless we speak of indigenous Americans. ... said: Rursus (bork²) 12:00, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Many is weasel wording so has to go even if there is a source for this statement. That is, the statement should be reworded to be more specific unless "many" is directly quoted from the source.(olive (talk) 16:11, 21 February 2009 (UTC))

Olive, genuinely glad you are getting involved in this article, presently it is horrible. I have never read such badly miss-leading material anywhere. We may not agree in other articles but this would be constructive. I have very little time at the moment, but if you fancy having a stab at this - and wish to do so in sections I would be happy to assist. :) The7thdr (talk) 16:48, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I think I can go through and check for syntax and weasel wording that kind of thing but not sure how involved I can become given my time right now, but we'll see... Finding sources and getting rid of some of the generalizations may make a big difference :o). Thanks for your welcoming remarks.(olive (talk) 16:53, 21 February 2009 (UTC))

I deleted that sentence first mentioned because it was unsourced and those religions that do use tea generally don't equate it as an "aid" in meditation, it's just like a tea break in England or something. Also, there's more examples of real drugs and meditation sort of things there now.--makeswell 05:32, 25 June 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Makeswell (talk • contribs)

...like Entheogens and Religion and drugs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Makeswell (talk • contribs) 08:39, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

meditators have psychic powers, study shows.

This study, entitled, "An Exploration of Degree of Meditation Attainment in Relation to Psychic Awareness with Tibetan Buddhists" was found on scholar.google.com via a search for, "shamatha".

It found that, "Age and years of meditation practice correlated significantly with the psi scores (Pearson r = 0.52, p , 0.05). This suggests that, as one practices meditation, psychic awareness begins to manifest more reliably." Three meditators were able to accurately predict which one of a set of four images was selected by a computer, before receiving any feedback from the computer in regards to its selection.

The .pdf is here: http://www.scientificexploration.org/journal/jse_22_2_roney-dougal.pdf .

I feel like this study has relevance for this Wikipedia page. makeswell (talk) 08:20, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

p.s. I think that this study is not typical of all studies on meditation, as it only showed a significant correlation between psychic powers and 3 Tibetan meditators, which is not very many, and so chance could've been a bit like the wind blowing a scarecrow. For this Research on meditation page to be valuable and meaningfully accurate we must discriminate between this sort of study and other more reliable and serious studies. Not everything we find on scholar.google.com is going to be useful, but a study from researchers at Berkley University in California, published in Oxford Journals, is likely to be more meaningfully accurate. makeswell (talk) 10:26, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Journal of Scientific Exploration is a very low quality journal. I think if it is included it needs to be qualified and very clearly attributed to the source.   Will Beback  talk  04:32, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

references lotto

Disclaimer: Do not read the following if you value your time.

If anybody can decipher the following quote they will win the grand prize of being able to use it in the article. Before I let you go buck wild with it, first I'd like to mention that the first reference supports the name of a researcher, lol, which is not something that necessarily has to be cited in my experience.

"Among the side-effects that have been reported we find those mentioned by Craven : uncomfortable kinaesthetic sensations, mild dissociation, feelings of guilt and, via anxiety-provoking phenomena, psychosis-like symptoms, grandiosity, elation, destructive behaviour and suicidal feelings ."

The second reference is just an excerpt from a secondary source about a Craven study, and when you look up the actual study, in the synopsis you read, "It is hoped that improved understanding of meditation will contribute to an increased acceptance and use of these practices as aids to psychotherapeutic change and will facilitate meaningful research regarding meditation," which simply does not go along with the secondary quote above. So I'm removing this part, and posting it here in part so that I do not have to feel guilty for removing such a large section of the page which is cited. :/ makeswell (talk) 22:15, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

to do

this is a good article to add to this page, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2944261/ and also a study of the 'attentional blink' pheonomenon, http://brainimaging.waisman.wisc.edu/publications/2007/SlagterMentalTrainingPLoS.pdf makeswell (talk) 17:11, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Cultivatoin link

"Meditation refers to the cultivation of positive fa..." Cultivation leads to a link about Bahva or something. Not sure if they are exactly the same thing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.250.74.141 (talk) 21:17, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Purpose of meditation

The definition in the article: "Meditation refers to the cultivation of positive factors in one's life, through a practice session and/or throughout one's daily life"

Is there a source for this statement?

It makes no reference to the spiritual aspects of meditation and the consequences in the afterlife/future lives. Given that a significantly large percentage of meditators also believe in reincarnation the idea that they do so in order to improve this lifetime is too simplistic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.68.203.230 (talk) 13:12, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

It should NOT be noted that this page is incomplete

There's a paragraph in the top of this article which says that this article is incomplete. This ought to be taken for granted and need not be stated. The appropriate place for a set of links to other related wikipedia pages is in the see also section. Sentences like "It is also unlikely that this page will ever completely cover all the studies..." are simply stating the obvious and should be deleted. The same could be said for any field of research in any encyclopedia, and therefore it need not be said at all. Flies 1 (talk) 16:57, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree that it's an odd paragraph and shouldn't be there. A Wikipedia article shouldn't talk about itself. TimidGuy (talk) 18:49, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I went ahead and cut it last week (Sept 7 2011). The issue is closed unless somebody speaks up in defense of that caveat. Flies 1 (talk) 20:16, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Future Directions

I wanted to ask what people think about this page, and potential areas for improvement.

My thoughts are that the page needs to be organized around meditation styles or prominent theories, such as the MBSR section and the Goleman section currently present, and that the page should not be organized around effects, such as the EEG section and the Grey and White Matter section.

Specifically, I plan to create a subsection about Insight meditation and Anapanasati and link to those pages from here. There is already some information on those pages about the research being done that we can link to. makeswell (talk) 05:08, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

moving something, just btw

The following material was posted at the end of the section on Theoria (without even a paragraph break) and seems to reference a study by Lazar on anapanasati. It isn't well-written and doesn't summarize the import of the study, which was that meditation activates regions of the brain that are involving in regulating autonomic activity. I would've just left it if it hadn't been placed within the theoria section. I'm going to rewrite it though to make it clearer (I think) and put it in a proper section, which turns out to be anapanasati.

"During a meditation test, using fMRI two states were compared. Activity during the last 6 minutes of meditation and activity during 6 minutes of controlled meditation. As a result, in the controlled analysis increases were found in putamen, midbrain, pregenual anterior cingulate cortex and hippocampal/parahippocampal formation. However, in the last 6 minutes multiple foci of activation within prefrontal, parietal and temporal cortices as well as in the precentral and postcentral gyri, and hippocampal/parahippocampal formation were identified. The article shows activation during meditation. The prompt values were analyzed at the Mind-Body Medical Institute."

makeswell (talk) 01:23, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

writing on this page leaves out important details

one big problem with this page is that there are so many uncategorized studies which don't mention what style of meditation is being referred. there's even a comparison between different studies without referring to what it is, what style, that is being compared.

i tried to remedy this situation somewhat by putting categories to the paragraphs, like 'brain waves during meditation' goes in the category 'research by effect on the body' and so forth.

i would honestly really truthfully want to remove these studies outright, they make the page worse. but, i think they might be salvaged and serve some purpose some day. but to be honest they definitely need to be rewritten to at least involve the name of the type of meditation that is being studied. studies saying that the brain has grown during meditation should be used as a citation for a single claim that meditation changes the brain rather than summarized to make this same point. it's just a waste of space and pointless and it really is a big problem for this article.

i think future directions might be to rewrite these summaries of articles and then categorize them by style of meditation. makeswell (talk) 13:16, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

p.s. sorry i am pissed off but it's true. makeswell (talk) 13:18, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

p.p.s this is the same point i made in october on this talk page.

eremetic?

I can't find a definition of this word? If it's a meditation term could it be referenced and a definition given? If it's a typo could someone suggest a correction? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.68.203.230 (talk) 13:03, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

wikt:eremetic. It means "hermit-like". WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:14, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

biased paragraph removed from article

This paragraph was in the article in the section about research methodology. I didn't really know what to do with it, but I figured I'd place it here because it did more harm to the article than good. It sounds like someone who practices mental silence meditation placed it in the article to improve their self-esteem. The last few words of it sound especially biased and unclear.

In 2006 NCCAM revised their definition of meditation, emphasizing the experience of the “suspension of thought activity". This definition led to the possibility of comparing mental silence oriented meditation with resting alone and studies have found significant physiological differences between the two. It has been found that all approaches to meditation can achieve some non-specific benefits however the mental silence approach may be associated with additional specific benefits which are clinically beneficial.

makeswell (talk) 03:28, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi Makeswell, I like most of what you have done with the article in terms of organisation but this latest change does not make sense to me. This paragraph is referenced and if anything, probably understates the value of the research into this type of meditation. I feel that instead of being deleted, it deserves a more prominent place in the article, perhaps as a comparison with mindfulness meditation. Otherwise, where else is there any mention in the article about the suspension of thought activity being one definition of meditation? Reading the research shows that the studies done using this definition have some measurable clinical advantages over other techniques. Freelion (talk) 01:19, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

This material seems to primarily concern Sahaja Yoga. The lead researcher, Ramesh Manocha, is closely connected to the Sahaja Yoga and its late founder, Nirmala Srivastava. See Talk:Sahaja Yoga/Archive 5#Disputed Authorship, Talk:Sahaja Yoga/Archive 5#Ramesh Manocha, and Talk:Sahaja Yoga/Archive 7#Three instances of original research. That does not invalidate his research, but it's relevant context for this discussion.   Will Beback  talk  02:38, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi Willbeback, as per a conversation with Owlmonkey from one of those links (and what was agreed regarding the Sahaja Yoga article), I guess we could make it clear that R.Manocha had an affiliation of some kind and let the readers decide about the quality of the research. Perhaps this could mean including more details about the methods of the study (was it double blind, peer reviewed etc). Freelion (talk) 04:16, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

I've rewritten some of that paragraph and split it into two sections. One went into the section on Kundalini yoga and the other (about NCCAM's definition of meditation) went into the introduction. I felt it was appropriate here since there was already a paragraph on the shortcomings of the 1000 or so studies (1000 up 'til the '80s, now it's over 3000). The analysis of the available randomly controlled trials found that the results of the prevailing western definition of meditation is no better than sleep etc. This leads on to the updated definition of meditation by NCCAM and the subsequent trials which have demonstrated a difference between relaxation alone and a mental silence approach. Freelion (talk) 06:35, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

If NCCAM did something major regarding the definition of meditation then it'd be best to find a less partisan source for that issue.

As for "mental silence oriented meditation", if we're going to discuss it we should define it. We should probably keep the two issues separate.   Will Beback  talk  07:20, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

I've found the link at NCCAM where they use that definition [here], but I'm still looking for a non partisan reference that talks about NCCAM changing the definition. I found another reference for mental silence in meditation [here]. I agree that the two issues could be made separate - NCCAM changing their definition and perhaps a separate section on a mental silence approach to meditation. Freelion (talk) 03:30, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

removed section from lede, placed here.

I tried to be generous and forgiving with regards to a recent edit based on this source by salvaging and keeping in the article what I could, but I don't know how well the rest of the edit would fit into the article. Some of the information wasn't cited, so I added a citation tag. The following has the statement, "High-quality reviews," but then only gives one review not multiple as a source. I could re-word this but then there are concerns are the importance of this study in the field. I can't continuously try to salvage every single study ever done on meditation on this page, there just isn't room for all the thousand plus studies on meditation, ya know. I'm sure there are other articles that I could find that include a definition of meditation that differentiates it from the experience of simple relaxation, for instance there are a lot of definitions out there of meditation as involving emotional elements (see Richard Davidson), and I know that if I tried really hard I'd pretty easily find a couple reviews of meditation defined as mindfulness that has controls to groups, and I remember seeing one specifically in a Matthieu Ricard video where he mentions how anapanasati influences the brain differently than playing the guitar did. So, I don't have time for all this, of course.

High-quality reviews of the RCTs consistently find that meditation, as it is practised and defined in western society does not give better results than simple relaxation (for example - sleeping, listening to pleasant music or thinking pleasant thoughts). This has lead to the consideration of the need to find a better definition that could differentiate the experience and effects of meditation from those of simple relaxation.

P.S. I also found this in the lede which is definitely not how we need to introduce this article. This study was cited by how many other studies according to a search on Google Scholar?

I replaced the following sentence in the intro: "There have also been made the proposal of new categories of meditation styles in order to reduce comparisons between studies which actually were concerned with different styles of meditation." with a clearer, referenced sentence about the need for a better definition. Freelion (talk) 02:55, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I put back the sentence about high quality reviews of the RCTs because it is referenced by the Manocha article which is itself a secondary reference to "Meditation Practices for Health: State of the Research". Freelion (talk) 04:05, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

References

Adverse effects

A categorical discussion of the health effects of meditation seems counter-productive given then breadth and diversity of the subject. Also, the stated references are few in number and are too limited in scope for the same reason. Finally, references to Chogyam Trungpa as an authoritative source on possible detrimental effects seems somewhat misguided given the well-documented history of his substance abuse and other related problems. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.184.1.100 (talk) 21:03, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, I agree with you. It would be nice to see the discussion in some detail, but I don't know how realistic that would be here, since getting into detail about specific practices sounds like it would take some original research. Nevertheless, even within one practice (like Buddhism) there are lots of different teachings, and if you read the old books from China and Japan you can see that many of the authors at that time were critical of various flawed teaching methods. That's more to do with Buddhism and less to do with "meditation", perhaps, but I'm just indicating that it's a 1100-year old flame war! Arided (talk) 09:07, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Broken link

Link 47 in the References does not work. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.122.10.80 (talk) 10:33, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. It can be found here.[7] But this raises a question: the reason the link changed is because AHRQ has archived this report as no longer current. We're giving a lot of weight to a review that doesn't include any research conducted after Sept. of 2005. Quite a few reviews have appeared since then, such as Sedlmeier 2012 systematic review and meta-analysis. TimidGuy (talk) 11:12, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Contradiction in Flow section

The Research_on_meditation#Flow section seems to contradict itself. Attention/flow/directed thought, vs. awareness/reactivity/responsiveness, are kind of opposites aren't they? The section is confusing to me.

The flow article describes a state of exclusive focus, of ignoring outside distractions and internal clutter, where meditative flow exercise would be "intended to train attention for the sake of provoking insight"
Versus this, which seems to be the opposite:
"more flexible attention span makes it easier to be aware of a situation, easier to be objective in emotionally or morally difficult situations, and easier to achieve a state of responsive, creative awareness".

Full section:
"Mindfulness meditation, anapanasati, and related techniques, are intended to train attention for the sake of provoking insight. A wider, more flexible attention span makes it easier to be aware of a situation, easier to be objective in emotionally or morally difficult situations, and easier to achieve a state of responsive, creative awareness or "flow".[23] Research from Harvard medical school also shows that during meditation, physiological signals show that there is a decrease in respiration and increase in heart rate and blood oxygen saturation levels.[24]"

LieAfterLie (talk) 02:32, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

complete WP:MEDRS failure

With the exception of the last section "Research Methodolgy" this entire article is a WP:MEDRS failure, with almost all sources cited being WP:PRIMARY. Gaijin42 (talk) 02:36, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Section on Transcendental Meditation is inaccurate

There are two parts that are inaccurate. First:

In 2011 a study researching the role of TM in lowering Blood Pressure was scheduled for publication in the Archives of Internal Medicine. It was withdrawn 12 minutes before publication time, and was later published by the American Heart Association in 2013, and titled"Beyond Medications and Diet: Alternative Approaches to Lowering Blood Pressure: A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association".[35]

Here's the accurate part: In 2011 a study researching the role of TM in lowering Blood Pressure was scheduled for publication in the Archives of Internal Medicine. It was withdrawn 12 minutes before publication time,

Here's the inaccurate part: and was later published by the American Heart Association in 2013, and titled"Beyond Medications and Diet: Alternative Approaches to Lowering Blood Pressure: A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association"

The study, as published in the American Heart Association journal CIRCULATION: CARDIOVASCULAR QUALITY AND OUTCOMES was actually entitled: Stress Reduction in the Secondary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease Randomized, Controlled Trial of Transcendental Meditation and Health Education in Blacks and listed by the editors of CIRCULATION: CARDIOVASCULAR QUALITY AND OUTCOMES in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes Editors’ Picks: Most Important Articles Published in 2012 for its finding that TM could reduce mortality from strokes and heart-attacks and other causes by 48%, with a 24% reduction in mortality from stress and hypertension-related causes specifically.

Since I'm self-identified as a highly biased and partisan TM practitioner, I've agreed to refrain from making edits myself. My suggestion for editing is to remove the mention of the AHA Circulation study entirely because anything you can say about the final version necessarily includes the above, as none of the blog-writers who enjoyed criticizing and blogging about the unpublished manuscript have bothered to write a letter to the editor about the new version, so there's no "reliable source" public discussion of it except that it made "editor's pick" in its final home. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sparaig2 (talk • contribs) 22:59, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

wiki's revision detector failed to note that I had added this new section and deleted it while someone else was adding text, so I cut and paste the section back in from the history, including my hardcoded citation.

The second inaccurate statement is this:

and were therefore unable to recommend TM in the treatment of high blood pressure,

The above actually reverses the sense of the summary of the AHA scientific statement which basically says that ONLY TM is currently recommended for the treatment of hypertension, while other practices are not currently recommended. Here's the full text of the summary for the section on relaxation and meditation in Beyond Medications and Diet: Alternative Approaches to Lowering Blood Pressure A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association (bold emphasis mine).

Summary and Clinical Recommendations [meditation/relaxation research]

The overall evidence supports that TM modestly lowers BP.It is not certain whether it is truly superior to other meditation techniques in terms of BP lowering because *there are few head-to-head studies*. As a result of the paucity of data, we are unable to recommend a specific method of practice when TM is used for the treatment of high BP. However, TM (or meditation techniques in general) does not appear to pose significant health risks. Additional and higher-quality studies are required to provide conclusions on the BP-lowering efficacy of meditation forms other than TM.

The writing group conferred to TM a Class IIB, Level of Evidence B recommendation in regard to BP-lowering efficacy. TM may be considered in clinical practice to lower BP. Because of many negative studies or mixed results and a paucity of available trials, all other meditation techniques (including MBSR) received a Class III, no benefit, Level of Evidence C recommendation. Thus, other meditation techniques are not recommended in clinical practice to lower BP at this time.

Any rewrites I suggest are going to be exceedingly partisan. You guys will have to figure out how best to save the entry. Sparaig2 (talk) 23:14, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Parking here material added that was citing unpublished research

Per WP:MEDRS, we probably shouldn't cite unpublished research based on anecdotal evidence. So have removed this text from the article for discussion:

Dr. Willoughby Britton of Brown University is currently conducting the first large scale interview study of experienced meditators to document anecdotal reports of serious adverse effects of intensive (retreat based) meditation practice. She has not yet published the research, but she has spoken about her preliminary findings of numerous long lasting physical, cognitive, and emotional symptoms that have been reported in the wake of intensive practice. These symptoms are serious enough to cause major functional impairments for durations of months to years in people with no previous history of psychiatric problems. <ref>Willoughby Britton, 2011. http://www.buddhistgeeks.com/2011/09/bg-232-the-dark-night-project</ref>

TimidGuy (talk) 11:42, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Indeed, while I find the topic of research interesting, the study isn't even published, so it doesn't count. It has no place in Wikipedia. At least not yet. If it is published, and it's not just a collection of anecdotes, then it can be included. Until then, it can't.--ZarlanTheGreen (talk) 19:36, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

I wrote the material that has been removed. I think it needs to be included. First, although it has not yet been published, Dr. Britton has presented her work at academic conferences. Second, she is a reputable academic in this area. Third, regarding the question of anecdotal evidence, this is all that exists in this realm and it's difficult to see how it could be otherwise. It can take years of dedicated meditation practice to get to dark night stage, so it wouldn't be feasible to do a longitudinal study. The typical studies use the 8-week MBSR training as their model, and very few people enter into deep meditation territory after 8-weeks. What Dr. Britton is talking about is the types of disconcerting experiences that meditators experience after years of practice or after extended silent retreats. It's important information that people need to know, particularly people who may be going through the adverse stages of the meditative process and not realize that it is a recognized part of the process. I've re-posted the material along with a new reference link to a conference presentation by Dr. Britton. 135.23.157.190 (talk) 19:31, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

If it has been presented at conferences, then this could be used as a valid reference. As far as making a broad claim on how meditation affects health etc. this should be held off until her work is published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Zambelo; talk 06:31, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Why would merely being having it presented at conferences, make it a valid reference? How does that make it "reliable"?--ZarlanTheGreen (talk) 06:54, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

It's reliable, given that Dr. Britton is a qualified researcher, and is giving her findings. It would need to be attributed; "according to research by Dr. Britton..." All the conference source would do is verify her claims, not that her claims are 'factual' (ie peer-reviewed and published). Zambelo; talk 07:22, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

...

I agree that the conference would count as a Reliable Source for verifying that she makes a claim, but... so what? What possible reason could there be to include it? It's not verified to be factual, so as it is, it's merely a claim. A hypothesis.

The qualifications of the person who came up with the idea, is beside the point.

Now if it was a claim that is widely spread or something, then that may be notable enough to warrant inclusion but, as it is, including it would be giving it Undue Weight.--ZarlanTheGreen (talk) 08:31, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't know whether meditation should fall under WP:MEDRS; if it didn't then a (published or self-published) opinion by an expert who has published papers in the field would be a WP:RS. In the fields I am familiar with, even published conference proceedings are no better than that. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 07:51, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

WP:RS does not accept unpublished or self-published opinions.--ZarlanTheGreen (talk) 08:35, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it does, if of a recognized expert in the appropriate field. See WP:SPS. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:20, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Only in some circumstances (and even then it's questionable). The source suggested here doesn't qualify. It does not fulfil the conditions for when a self-published source may be used (it's not enough for it to just be from a recognized expert in the appropriate field).--ZarlanTheGreen (talk) 17:49, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Meditation research would fall under MEDRS if it makes health claims (like treatment of psychiatric conditions or symptoms). Yobol (talk) 17:44, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Primary research

In recent edits Chris Capoccia is adding health information to this article which is sourced to primary research. According to our medical sourcing guidelines we really shouldn't be doing that. Are there some good secondary sources that could be used instead? Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 10:35, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Mindfulness research move

surely mindfupness research belongs in the mindfulness article. huge section here, overweighted this article. JCJC777 (talk) 20:05, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Synaptic Pruning

Circuits Versus Metaphor Neurosynaptic processing rather than metaphorical constructs in brain science suggests that persistent phenomena such as ANGRY RUMINATION, a significant component of PTSD and Major Depressive Disorder results from selective neural activity.

Rumination is the compulsively focused attention on the symptoms of one's distress, and on its possible causes and consequences, as opposed to its solutions.

Mindfulness disciplines such as Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), Yoga, Qi Gong and other practices that utilize controlled breathing and meditative techniques serve to quiet the over-utilized fight-flight responses of the amygdala, in favor of neocortical executive functions. In effect, this represents a reassignment of neurocircuitry by mechanisms of brain plasticity--more specifically, synaptic pruning of unwanted emotions, thoughts, behavior and memories in favor of growth in executive functions of the brain.

Angry rumination as a precursor to worsening of PTSD symptoms occurs because there is less distress and more control. Slouie520 (talk) 21:46, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

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Rejecting new sourced content

Alexbrn Are you arguing with the new content? If it is just the raw refs, I find other wiki folk like improving such refs. JCJC777

You are adding material sourced to unreliable sources, which creates multiple problems. If better sources for the content exists (which I doubt), use them. Alexbrn (talk) 12:57, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Hindawi happy to bin. The other sources are mainstream science research publishers? JCJC777

Please read WP:MEDRS and maybe WP:WHYMEDRS. We need good secondary sources for bio/medical content. Alexbrn (talk) 15:16, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

No time. Just trying to help. Go well JCJC777

Research data on Heartfulness meditation

Dear contributors, Heartfulness meditation system too has taken up doing research on the effects of meditation in the overall well being of individuals. They have embarked upon doing rigorous research that includes finding the changes in the lengths of telomeres in DNA, that accounts for DNA damage due to aging or stress etc., getting overall efficiency of students and employees in their studies or productivity; using EEG to monitor the brain waves etc. They have published a handful of papers in peer reviewed journals. May I add a section on these results to make the page more comprehensive? The following are some of the papers published by researchers on the Heartfulness meditation.

• https://www.hindustantimes.com/health/world-sleep-day-meditate-to-sleep-better-overcome-insomnia-and-sleep-disorders/story-WMzOqAUMhYMsSUm0nGU9NI.html
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5463663
• http://www.ijhsr.org/IJHSR_Vol.7_Issue.5_May2017/54.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by Xtalline (talk • contribs) 06:17, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

Split proposal

(a) mindfulness section here is too big ref rest of article, and (b) debateable if mindfulness is a form of meditation, or something else. Surely the mindfulness content here should be moved to a new 'research on mindfulness' page? JCJC777

• Problems: a lot of the mindfulness material here is poorly sourced (not WP:MEDRS) and some of it is not really "research". Once this material is rationalized I think rather than create a new article a better place would be a "Research" section in the Mindfulness article, per WP:MOSMED. Alexbrn (talk) 06:33, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

agreed. I'm sorry I don't personally have the resources to do the rationalisation you suggest (I was not the creator of this material). Best, JCJC777

I also agree that it should be moved to the Mindfulness article and would do it. I just move everything that is properly cited over to the main article on Mindfulness and afterwards delete this section here? Meerpirat (talk) 15:20, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

Hi, I know I'm responding a bit late, but I wanted to give some thoughts respectfully criticizing the split proposal.

I agree that the page needs work. People may make decisions on their health strategy based on this page and it shouldn't overstate what benefits have been shown to exist. Certainly information sourced to spiritual teachers or self-help authors who aren't researchers should go; I removed one such sentence a couple months back although I don't see any more. Another improvement that may be needed: as much as possible individual studies should be replaced especially given it's known most historical studies have been flawed in one way or another and there are now dozens of meta-analyses available. That said, nearly every source here is from a scientific journal so I wouldn't agree that the article needs to be significantly shortened (unless some are shown to not be respected journals).

As for what to do with the mindfulness section, I think removing it here and placing it in the "Mindfulness" article would be a very bad idea. For one thing, that page is already way over Wikipedia's length guidelines.

More importantly, though, meditation and mindfulness, while by no means synonymous, are inextricably bound up in much of the research and in medical practice. If we make a Venn diagram of "research on meditation" and "research on mindfulness" it will be mostly overlap. To test this, I entered "mindfulness meta-analysis" on Google Scholar and looked through the first 20 meta-analyses; 14 were about mindfulness meditation or a mindfulness-based intervention (MBI) that includes meditation. An additional three discussed multiple interventions, some of which included meditation, leaving only three (15%) that didn't discuss meditation. I also searched through the first 20 results for "meditation meta-analysis," and found seven discussed only mindfulness meditation or MBIs including mindfulness, seven discussed mindfulness meditation and other forms of meditation, and only six (30%) discussed only non-mindfulness meditation.

There is a similar problem when we consider what types of MBIs and what styles of meditation exist. The two most common MBIs are mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT)—as it notes in this paper—and both include meditation as a major component. Meditation techniques have been divided by researchers into "focused attention" techniques, "open monitoring" techniques, and mixed techniques; the term mindfulness has multiple meanings but is often taken to be open monitoring, so that means around 2/3 of meditation techniques involve mindfulness as a or the central component.

For these reasons I think meditation and mindfulness research should be covered on the same page. It could be renamed "Research on meditation and mindfulness" in deference to MBIs that do not involve meditation (if material on those is added). Alternately, if other editors still find that mindfulness research should be separated despite the above, I think a "Research on mindfulness" page could be created integrating the relevant material from this page, from the "Mindfulness" page and from the MBSR and MBCT pages, which together would be far too much to be just a section of the "Mindfulness" page. Gazelle55 (talk) 17:17, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Suggesting a major re-organization of the page

Currently the main substance of the page is divided into three sections based on what type of meditation is under consideration: 1) mindfulness meditation, 2) other forms, and 3) multiple or unspecified. I think the key divisions should be between types of effects, e.g., brain effects, attention, reducing mental illness, etc. Within each of those sections, we can note different results for different types of meditation where that is what the research has found.

Under my proposal, studies that cover multiple forms of meditation would be together with research that covered those forms of meditation individually on the same topic, which would be much easier to understand for readers. As far as studies that use an unspecified meditation type, that just means they did a bad job specifying what they were studying; ideally these will be replaced with more rigorous and more recent meta-analyses that take into account differences between meditation styles. I also think we should take our cue from studies that study multiple forms of meditation, or medical bodies that issue position statements on meditation in general: the takeaway is that they are in many ways comparable and so we too can discuss them together (while noting differences where they have been found). This way, both differences and similarities will be more apparent. Furthermore, the "multiple or unspecified" section actually includes a lot of mindfulness meditation research, as well as other specific individual forms like Zen meditation, so some form of re-organizing is necessary anyways.

I'll leave this for comment for a while and if I don't get any objections I'll go ahead with re-organizing. Cheers, Gazelle55 (talk) 02:15, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Update: too much work, I gave up. I still hope to help with incremental improvements to the article, especially including recent review papers since I think a lot of this is lagging behind the state of discussion. Gazelle55 (talk) 01:07, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Mindfulness

I don't think we need to pretend this article is about meditation in general. It's not. The section on TM for example, a technique which has over 340 peer reviewed articles, multiple systematic reviews, and growing is treated in an inaccurate way. The article then goes onto focus on mindfulness, is deliberately weighted towards mindfulness meditation. I haven't looked at all the sources but I'd suggest anyone interested in a neutral article do so to make sure the research pertains to mindfulness. (Note for example that Opsina has been withdrawn as useful only for historical purposes.) Littleolive oil (talk) 21:59, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

I agree that the article is unduly weighted, though to some extent that is a reflection of the research literature. And yes, much of this is not comprehensive. Too much citing individual studies and not enough review papers. And it needs more recent sources. So much work to do. That said, I wouldn't support moving the article to "Research on mindfulness" because this does have some content on other forms of meditation. I think improving the content should be the focus, though happy to discuss further. Gazelle55 (talk) 01:06, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

The literature on meditation is overwhelmingly about TM. There was a very long comprehensive article on TM research but it was deleted. Mindfulness does not have the history TM does. Further if effects of meditation are health-related they must be MEDRS compliant per Wikipedia. Littleolive oil (talk) 18:21, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

I definitely agree that the bar for sources on this page needs to be WP:MEDRS not just WP:RS. And it turns out my impression of the research landscape was off... on PubMed "transcendental meditation" gets way more hits than "mindfulness meditation." Google Scholar shows the opposite trend but I suspect that is being thrown off by non-medical articles. Shame the old TM article was deleted. As a temporary measure I added a template to the TM section in the article. What would you suggest for a real solution? Gazelle55 (talk) 23:38, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

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Aging

I would rather see a summary of the evidence that exists for and against than the not particularly useful "no good evidence." [8] See Law of No Evidence: The Phrase “No Evidence” Is a Red Flag for Bad Science Communication. - Scarpy (talk) 20:50, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

The topic was supported only by low-quality primary research, WP:PRIMARY. Discussing it would be journal-like, but we have WP:NOTJOURNAL as a guide. If there are no good reviews to support "for or against", per WP:MEDASSESS, there is "no good evidence." It would be objective and fair to have no section on aging until good reviews are available. Until then, the topic is WP:UNDUE. Zefr (talk) 21:44, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

@Zefr: I don't see how WP:PRIMARY or WP:NOTJOURNAL apply here. WP:MEDASSESS is more or less restating what I said -- "no good evidence" is an ambiguous phrase in that isn't related to established hierarchies of evidence. If you have a careful look at the pyramids you'll there's no level that says "good" or "not good." There's levels for things like meta-analysis, reviews, RCTs, etc. When you say "no good evidence" you're doing something akin to WP:OR pr WP:SYN where you're making a subjective judgement about what is "good evidence" and what is "not good evidence," then obscuring what this means from the reader. The appropriate thing to do here is to summarize, clearly, the evidence that exist and the levels that it reaches in using less ambiguous terms (e.g. more precise and grounded in actual levels of evidence rather than "good" vs. "not good"). - Scarpy (talk) 22:51, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Summarizing evidence is what reviews in reputable publications do, Scarpy. There was a lot of SYNTH from outdated primary studies in the section I removed. The review that remains concluded "there is no evidence for causation between meditation and brain preservation." We could remove the word "good" from the existing sentence to say "There is no evidence to indicate that meditation affects the brain in aging." If you have one or more reviews to offer, please provide the literature here to assess. Thanks. Zefr (talk) 23:34, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

@Zefr: I'd like to first ask you to pay a little more attention when you're responding to talk page comments. For example, your diff is the exact same diff I opened this section discuss. If you don't waste my time, I won't waste yours.

Good science communication isn't cherrypicking quotes directly from an article as if that alone is a relevant summary. The context in the abstract is Altogether, although analyses are still sparse and based on cross-sectional data, study outcomes suggest that meditation might be beneficial for brain preservation—both with respect to gray and white matter—possibly by slowing down the natural (age-related) decrease of brain tissue. Nevertheless, it should also be recognized that, until robust longitudinal data become available, there is no evidence for causation between meditation and brain preservation.

So, thus far I think we can agree this isn't adequately summarized with "no good evidence." It's also not adequately summarized as "there is no evidence to indicate that mediation affects the brain in aging" as that leaves too much ambiguity as to the meaning. For example, a reader could take that to mean "there is high confidence that there is no there is no causal association between meditation and brain aging" when what the article is saying is closer to "longterm studies do not yet exist to confirm or disconfirm a causal relationship between meditation and again."

If I search PubMed for Reviews, Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis within the meditation MeSH term there's at least two more recent articles on meditation and aging later than 2016. Kilmecki 2019 makes a similar point (e.g. promising evidence, but no good longterm studies). Somewhat similar points in Lutz 2021 and Ramírez-Barrantes 2019. So there's a couple articles saying there is evidence, but there isn't evidence in the form of longterm randomized controlled trials. Then they also give some results from RCTs that have been preformed so far (which may not be longterm enough). SciHub has the 2019 articles, but not the 2021. Would have to read them.

Either way, there is plenty of evidence that meditation could slow aging, enough that people are actively studying it. There are not yet longterm RCTs, although it looks like there are RCTs of some durations.

It's also possible that PubMed misses some things because MeSH terms take awhile to update and are assigned by humans. So it's possible if I spent more time I could find more. Either way, with what we have now, Wikipedia doesn't accurately reflect that state of the peer-reviewed literature. - Scarpy (talk) 01:28, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

We can debate the hierarchy of evidence discussed in MEDASSESS, but for the encyclopedia, I prefer reviews in reputable journals, clinical guidelines, or government research centers. The US NIH-National Institue on Aging, for example, doesn't discuss meditation. I found no rigorous reviews on PubMed and no mention of it among national neurological or aging centers. Both reviews you mention are weak, with admission of the early state of science at the lower levels of the MEDASSESS pyramid. As both a scientist and medical editor, I don't accept preliminary research as "plenty of evidence". I regard it as too preliminary to discuss in an encyclopedia, so has UNDUE weight to even be mentioned. You could post a discussion topic at WT:MED to open consideration to a wider community. Zefr (talk) 02:07, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Again, let's not waste each other's time. This isn't about your vocation or credentials, this is about the status of the research in scholarly literature and reflecting this faithfully in an encyclopedic summary. What's in the article now isn't a faithful summary of Luders 2016.

We seem we to agree that Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences is reputable peer-reviewed journal? Its CiteScore is 10.0. Aging Research Reviews is 14.2. Neural Plasticity is 5.1. Current Opinion in Psychology is 10.1.

I prefer reviews in reputable journals, clinical guidelines, or government research centers. As implied in your conjunction (though somewhat ignored in your example) while these would all count as RS, a topic not being discussed in one of category of scholarly literature does not nullify its presence in others.

Getting back to the original point here: "No good evidence" is (1) an ambiguous statement that obfuscates the amount and kind of evidence that exists from the reader (2) does not summarize the contents of Luders 2016 faithfully (2) is OR in that it's inventing a standard of "good" that does not appear in evidence hierarchies. If you disagree with 1, 2 or 3 can you tell me where and why?

Assuming we're on the same page with the above three points, my proposal would be to rewrite this section using Luders 2016 (Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences), Klimecki 2019 (Current Option in Psychology) and Lutz 2021 (Aging Research Reviews) that makes clear there are no complete longterm RCTs showing a reduction in aging, but there are existing shorter RCTs and ongoing studies investigating longterm effects.

Let me know if you have opposition to this proposal. - Scarpy (talk) 00:23, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

If Luders is the one where the abstract says "there is no evidence for causation between meditation and brain preservation" then I have opposition. -Roxy the bad tempered dog 04:27, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps you can provide a draft of what you want to say. All three sources have serious limitations. The Luders conclusion is quoted above. Klimecki acknowledges the poor state of science - that publication is in an "Opinion" journal, which we should avoid. As his title indicates, Lutz discusses hypotheses, models, and methods in people with Alzheimer's disease, which are not research areas leading to actual encyclopedic conclusions. Zefr (talk) 04:29, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

@Roxy the dog: Can you elaborate? I'm not sure what part of that you're objecting to.

@Zefr: ...that publication is in an "Opinion" journal, which we should avoid huh? Current Opinion is a series of established review journals that offer authoritative, systematic synthesis of emerging and hot topics." This is completely inline with WP:MEDRS in a nutshell: "Cite review articles, don't write them." It's the kind of article that's ideal for a MED topic on Wikipedia. - Scarpy (talk) 21:26, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Sure, I'm saying that Luders isn't suitable for drawing any conclusions other than "there is no evidence for causation between meditation and brain preservation" and we should not make any such conclusions based on that.

I'm going to be cheeky and respond to the question you asked Zefr too. Do you know what WP:MEDRS is referring to when it says "reviews"? It is detailed right there. Your other two refs are quite clearly not that. - Roxy the bad tempered dog 22:09, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

If they're clearly not reviews, why are they categorized as reviews in PubMed? - Scarpy (talk) 22:46, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

I really don’t care what Pubmed says, I go by WP:MEDRS. - Roxy the bad tempered dog 00:07, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

I get your point. And I promise not to never quote mine you saying "I really don't care what PubMed says" as tempting as you've made it. - Scarpy (talk) 02:07, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

My point about the Klimecki article in an "opinions" journal is that expert opinion articles are shown on WP:MEDASSESS, right pyramid, at the bottom of evidence quality as "unfiltered", i.e., the expert author's view may not have the same extent and critical quality of literature as a systematic review (highest level of evidence quality, top of both pyramids on MEDASSESS). It may also not receive the same degree of multiple editor scrutiny as a systematic review would. I'm not seeing a draft of what the article would say about aging, or what literature would support it. I'm not aware of any reputable clinical neurological guideline (top of left pyramid, MEDASSESS) that recommends meditation as an effective tool to improve life quality during aging. The idea that meditation can preserve neurons or density of any brain structure during aging is conjecture beyond the state of science. Zefr (talk) 00:12, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

@Zefr: this was an excellent response! I think you're arguing with a strawman version of me. I keep failing my hands around in the air and saying "hey, I'm trying to improve the quality of science communication in this article" and you're shouting off in the opposite direction.

My initial (and so far only objection) in this section is that the phrase "no evidence" is bad science communication because it's ambiguous, the permutation of it, "no good evidence," alone with out an explanation is probably worse because it tells the reader "well, yes, there is evidence, but we're not even going to deign to summarize it passed calling it not good." It reads like a value judgement and not an assessment of evidence.

I know you asked me to a draft, and I will probably give you one at some point. But I hope you'll understand my hesitancy here because if you remember the last time you asked for something If you have one or more reviews to offer, please provide the literature here to assess. Thanks. and I was like "hmm... okay, I'll check and see if there's been more reviews since 2016" I didn't find the ensuing collaboration to be particularly congenial. - Scarpy (talk) 02:07, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Heartfulness?

This edit and section on "heartfulness" contributed by Oria 6 is not justified for several reasons: 1) all of the sources are primary research mainly in generally-poor publications. "Pilot studies" are too preliminary and vague to mention. Publications in Frontiers journals are suspected of predatory publishing (author-paid with poor editorial practices) and are highlighted as dubious on WP:CITEWATCH. Sources more than 5 years old are considered as out of date, WP:MEDDATE, India Today is not a reliable medical source, and Healthline is a non-expert source written by bloggers. 2) the entire text used is conjectural, e.g., "gamma waves are believed". There is no evidence or clear presentation of what "heartfulness" is, and quackery is likely the explanation for it. 3) all the associations suggested between physiological measurements and meditation are speculation, far from proving causality - in simpler words: they are just fiction. Following WP:BRD, I am removing the section again, and ask Oria 6 to defend this section with clearer content and WP:SCIRS or WP:MEDSCI reviews which appear not to exist. Zefr (talk) 14:47, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Dear Zefr,

Thank you for being open to discussion.

I agree with somethings you mention and differ on a few other things. Would like some clarity on them.

1. Primary sourcing:

(a) This was a small contribution in context to a larger article on the effects of meditation, voicing some academic views on specific aspects WP:PRIMARYNOTBAD. Point taken that India today is not a reliable secondary source for academic articles. Healthline may be a blog, but the article was medically reviewed by an M.D., MPH who holds the post of an Asst prof in university of illnois, Chicago. So, I am wondering if this does not fall into the category of a valid source WP:SCIRS#Other_sources (public outreach blogs). Nonetheless, more secondary sources will help. I will try to search and provide a few additional secondary sources compliant with WP:SCIRS & WP:MEDSCI for the content in question shortly.

(b) With regard to preliminary studies, your argument carries weight.

I felt, the specific topics of meditation have been researched before and they seems to to be pointing in the same direction. It is not that the whole page "effects of meditation" is based on preliminary studies. Also, the section makes an open declaration that the findings are from a pilot/preliminary study where applicable. I couldnt find any study that contradict these claims or raise caution that meditation is bad for health. If you do find, we could include them as a contrarian view. Intent is to try to contribute legitimate new info on such subjects. WP:Ignore all rules

(c) About fontiers media. Good catch. Wasnt aware of this. It seems to still be a part of COPE and OASPA. But Will minimize citations from this publication.

The content also contained citations from other journals like Taylor & Francis, Sleep (by oxford academic) etc which may not have caught your attention. Arent these approved by Wikipedia? So I find it difficult to be convinced that the entire section needs to be deleted on this account.

(d) WP:MEDDATE I am not sure this rule is applicable here. I could not find any scientific view that supercedes the date while also contradicting the finding. Are you implying that as per this policy, scientific information older than 5 years holds no value in Wikipedia and does not deserve consideration? A bit confused here, please clarify further on your statement.

2. Feedback on the writing style is well taken. I agree that it needs work and ought to be modified.

I believe the original content had some description about this practice. I guess it may have been modified/removed by other editors over time. Will try to look for it and include, incase we align on publishing this section.

3. Other scientific researches seemed to point to similar outcomes as evidenced by the publications available (Will try to provide some shortly in my succeeding response). If you have a valid reference that justifies your stated position (that meditation is quackery), it would help. As of now, finding it a bit difficult to agree with this point based on a personal opinion

Last but not the least, I understand your efforts as a content regulator. It's possibly a more difficult and thankless a job than being an editor. My humble regards and respect for what you are trying to do. Request you to assume good faith. We are all here because we believe in Wikipedia and want to help it become the go to encyclopedia for all things genuine.

Oria 6 (talk) 07:03, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Afraid I don't see anything useful in your response or needing further explanation than already given. The concept of "heartfulness" from meditating is unscientific nonsense and cannot be supported by any reputable source. Zefr (talk) 15:15, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

There were about 8 references included in the content contribution for this page, having more than 100 citations on Google scholar, several of which have more than 20 citations including in Nature Research (Scientific Reports). the sources are published in Sleep Sage T&F, Indian Heart Journal etc. I believe these are all accepted by wikipedia as reliable sources. So I dont understand what you mean. Here are a few secondary sources. I am thinking this resolves the concerns you raised. Oria 6 (talk) 09:18, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

References

@zefr. Noticing that you havent responded to any of the points expressed in defence of the content. I am assuming that the concerns you raised have been resolved. I will be re-instating the content. I request you to not delete content unilaterally again without adequate explanation WP:Content removal Oria 6 (talk) 15:14, 3 July 2022 (UTC)Oria 6 (talk) 15:18, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

I hadn't responded because there is nothing more to say beyond my previous conclusion: The concept of "heartfulness" from meditating is unscientific nonsense and cannot be supported by any reputable source. None of the above sources is a reputable review on the heartfulness method (which by definition in this source, is just absurd: "focus their attention on the source of light within their heart. Participants were asked to simply tune into their hearts and be open to any experience they may have"). Any content or sources related to this nonsense will be contested. Zefr (talk) 16:23, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

@zefr. Your quote appears to be a description of some technique that combines both FA (Focussed Attention) and OM (Open Monitoring) where the FA object is abstract. Both these are mainstream techniques accepted amongst meditation researchers. It might also help if you acquainted yourself with the topic of consciousness research, it would save both of our time here. Oria 6 (talk) 07:43, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

I would suggest that neither of those citations above qualify as medically reliable sources, WP:MEDRS, and probably do not reach the level of ordinary reliable sources, WP:RS. If you could familiarise yourself with these essential aids to editing wikipedia, you could save us even more time. Thanks. -Roxy the bad tempered dog 07:52, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

@Roxy. Added a few more references. Was expecting that they would be seen for what they are - an aid here on the talk page for Zefr own research about how meditation techniques are broadly classified in the academia, and to enable informed critiquing. Not like how you are projecting it to be. For this dont you think they are sufficient. Oria 6 (talk) 06:43, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm too much of a hardliner to take all this woolly thinking seriously;) - Roxy the bad tempered dog 06:53, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

References

Wiki Education assignment: Neuroscience

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 16 August 2022 and 9 December 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Chaysestevens (article contribs). Peer reviewers: MeadorBriannaM.

— Assignment last updated by MeadorBriannaM (talk) 05:25, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ambassador Program course assignment

This article is the subject of an educational assignment at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo supported by WikiProject Honors Psychology and the Wikipedia Ambassador Program during the 2012 Q1 term. Further details are available on the course page.

The above message was substituted from {{WAP assignment}} by PrimeBOT (talk) on 16:14, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

As an educational tool

This article is written with a slanted POV. It focuses heavily on Mindfulness and almost ignores many other types of meditation which suggests the editors adding content have a Mindfulness leaning. As well, sources are in some cases not Wikipedia compliant for WP:MEDRS content. Unless Students have the experience to both recognize and deal with this kind of badly written article, this may not be a good Wikipedia article to learn with and from. Littleolive oil (talk) 22:29, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Updated

Per the tag request, I dealt with the TM section by adding the section on health from the TM article; the content is not really updated since there is recent research that could be added.

Many of the sources in this article are not MEDRS compliant, some content is using a withdrawn review-Ospina, and much of the article is about Mindfulness rather than an overview of meditation in general. I may have to time to fix some of this, not sure at this point. It's big job! Littleolive oil (talk) 20:03, 18 May 2023 (UTC)