What Are the Health Effects of Meditation?

Meditation-based interventions have improved health for a wide variety of patient populations as well as in healthy individuals. Research has shown that meditation can improve psychological functioning and a wide range of medical issues such as chronic pain, high blood pressure, and irritable bowel syndrome. RDA researchers using compassion meditation techniques derived from Tibetan Buddhist practices have been investigating the mechanisms of how meditation works.

Meditation Health Effects

Research Design Associates scientists along with colleagues from the Emory University Medical School have demonstrated that compassion meditation can reduce inflammation and stress. These factors are linked to serious illness including depression, cancer and heart disease. Our role was in third-party dataset development and management along with multivariate analyses of data and longitudinal statistical analyses. This collaboration has proliferated over multiple universities and continues to expand today.

Pace, T., Negi, L.T., Adame, D.A., Cole, S.P., Sivilli, T., Brown, T.D., Issa, M.J., & Raison, C.L. (2009). Effect of compassion meditation on neuroendocrine, innate immune and behavioral responses to psychosocial stress. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 34(1), 87-98.

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