Researchers Say Ancient Tibetan Practice May Improve Health & Happiness

Data from a new Emory University study suggests that individuals who engage in “compassion meditation” based on a thousand-year-old Tibetan Buddhist mind-training practice (called "lojong" in Tibetan), appears to effectively reduce the inflammatory and behavioral responses to stress that have been linked to depression and a number of physical illnesses. The practice revolves around fostering a sense of heightened compassion for others.

"Our findings suggest that meditation practices designed to foster compassion may impact physiological pathways that are modulated by stress and are relevant to disease," explains Charles L. Raison, MD, a lead author on the study.

The study focused on the effect of compassion meditation on inflammatory, neuroendocrine and behavioral responses to psychosocial stress, and evaluated the degree to which engagement in meditation practice influenced stress reactivity.

"While much attention has been paid to meditation practices that emphasize calming the mind, improving focused attention or developing mindfulness, less is known about meditation practices designed to specifically foster compassion," says Geshe Lobsang Tenzin Negi, PhD, who designed and taught the meditation program used in the study.

Sixty-one healthy college students between the ages of 17 and19 participated in the study. Half the participants were randomized to receive six weeks of compassion meditation training and half were randomized to a health discussion control group.

The thousand-year-old Tibetan Buddhist mind-training practice "lojong" utilizes a cognitive, analytic approach to challenge an individual's unexamined thoughts and emotions toward other people, with the long-term goal of developing altruistic emotions and behavior towards all people. Each meditation class session combined teaching, discussion and meditation practice.

After the study interventions were finished, the students participated in a laboratory stress test designed to investigate how the body's inflammatory and neuroendocrine systems respond to psychosocial stress.

Within the meditation group there was a strong relationship between the time spent practicing meditation and reductions in inflammation and emotional distress in response to the stressor.

"These initial results are quite exciting," says study co-author Thaddeus W.W. Pace, PhD. "If practicing compassion meditation does reduce inflammatory responses to stress it might offer real promise as a means of preventing many conditions associated with stress and with inflammation including major depression, heart disease and diabetes."

Raison concurs. "Based on the promising findings from this study we are planning to offer compassion meditation classes to patients at Emory Winship Cancer Institute, and have partnered with the Emory Predictive Health Institute to study potential long term effects of compassion meditation on health and well-being," says Raison.

The study's findings are published in the medical journal Psychoneuroendocrinology.

Posted by Rebecca Sato

*Portions of this post were extracted from an Emory University news release.

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Comments

[Star]

That's pretty amazing. It makes sense though. Cultivating compassion for others would make you see the world differently--from a less self-centered perspective. America's culture of ME ME ME doesn't seem to be making us happier and less stressed, but it probably does contribute to why our life expectancy in the US is worse than in almost every other developed nation (and many undeveloped ones too) on Earth.

[EvilCosmicMonkey from Knoxville]

Meditation can be helpful with concentration, memory, relieving tension. Meditation of the Zen variety especially is being taken seriously by mainstream medicine, & the benefits / chaanges have been measured & observed by serious scientists & medical professionals. Thich Nhat Hanh's teachings on everyday mindfulness could stave off dementia & Alzheimer's.

Western medicine is getting somewhat more accepting of alternatives than it was about a decade ago. Emphasis on " SOMEWHAT ".

[Michael]

This is a great exercise! It's too bad most people won't want to invest the time necessary for practicing this kind of meditation....

[jer35mx]

Some say that it's not really the practice that makes easier something, but the amoldment of the place or act to do something, if you were relax some time in a place and you impregnated it with it, if you are angry and go to that place you will be more peaceful, now, if you "opened" a breach with a place, object or being in the surfaces to pass peaceful in interaction when you come back to there it will happen again, at least easily.

[EvilCosmicMonkey from Knoxville]

So many Westerners think that one has to be a monk or ascetic, or in a special place of worship to seriously practice meditation. The truth is, it can be done almost anywhere under the right conditions. Too many people discount the mind - body connection, which is PROPABLY why we have Alzheimer's & Senile Dementia.

[Stephen]

Very cool article. I have read research regarding how loving-kindness meditation (metta) effects the brain but never research along these lines. Of course in my own personal practice and experience I know what science is confirming is true. Always nice to have confirmation though.

I found this your website because I just wrote a guided loving-kindness meditation on my own website and someone sent me here.

Nice work!

[EvilCosmicMonkey From Knoxville]

I find that one can practice forms of meditation that aren't specific to any kind of faith, like calming, in - & - out breaths to focus attention on the moment. Sometimes these meditations are best done away from crowds & distractions, sometimes they can be done like walking meditation.
My denomination doesn't look too kindly on other forms of " worship ", but Eastern meditation has much to recommend it. Buddha actually was very secular, & the original Buddhist meditation practices were more secular than religious / spiritual.
Buddhism actually became an organized religion after his death.