New Study Outlines Differences Among Types of Meditation
A study to be published in April uses EEG characteristics to show that different types of meditation show different types of activity in the brain.
Writing in the journal Consciousness and Cognition, MUM researcher Fred Travis and former faculty Jonathan Shear discuss three categories of meditation: focused attention -- concentrating on an object or emotion; open monitoring -- being mindful of one's breath or thoughts; and automatic self-transcending -- meditations that transcend their own activity.
The first two categories had been previously discussed, and to those the authors added the third category of self-transcending.
The authors assigned EEG bands to each category based on reports in the scientific literature of the characteristic EEG patterns for various mental tasks. They then categorized the meditations based on the EEG patterns that have been reported to be associated with them.
"The idea is that meditation is, in a sense, a 'cognitive task,' and EEG frequencies are known for different tasks," Dr. Travis said. The variations among meditation are due to differences in focus, subject/object relation, and procedures, leading to different EEG patterns, he said.
The authors found that a single type of meditation might fall into different categories, depending in part on the length of time the subjects had practiced meditation. The results showed that focused attention, which is characterized by beta/gamma activity, can be seen in meditations from Tibetan Buddhist (loving kindness and compassion), Buddhist (Zen and Diamond Way), and Chinese (Qigong) traditions.
Open monitoring, which is characterized by theta activity, can be seen in meditations from Buddhist (Mindfulness, and ZaZen), Chinese (Qigong), and Vedic (Sahaja Yoga) traditions.
Automatic self-transcending, characterized by alpha1 activity, is seen in meditations from Vedic (Transcendental Meditation) and Chinese (Qigong) traditions.
The authors explained that the EEG characteristics of self-transcending are the result of the effortless nature of the technique and that brain wave patterns in the Transcendental Meditation technique reach high levels after just a few months. In contrast, the authors describe a case study in which a practitioner of Qigong achieved effortless practice after 45 years, which was hypothesized to be the result of "automaticity through extensive rehearsal" -- just as any activity becomes more automatic through repeated practice.
The authors said that these findings shed light on the common mistake of lumping meditations together.
"Meditations differ in both their ingredients and their effects, just as medicines do, so lumping them all together as 'essentially the same' is simply a mistake,' Dr. Shear said.
