BUDDHISM, HEALTH AND WELL-BEING
Mind, Body and Buddhist Spirituality
The interdependence of the mind and body and the impact of emotions and thoughts on health and well-being were well known to ancient Buddhists. Buddhism speaks of the power of the mind and how we could control many functions of our bodies with our minds. According to Buddhist thinking, when dealing with illness and health, the mind, emotions and body must be dealt with in an integrated manner. Buddhism is emphatic on the inseparable connection between the mind and body - the complex interactions that take place between thoughts, body, and the outside world.
In the East Buddhism has impacted the field of health and medicine for many years. In Buddhist sutras and ancient Buddhist chronicles, there are countless references to and discussion on health and medicine, and how the mind and emotions affect ones behavior and ultimately ones health. Buddhist spirituality is founded on “maithri” or loving-kindness and compassion towards all living beings. According to Buddhism, to be active and healthy, one needs to live a spiritual life. Spirituality with meditation as an essential element of daily life, has a direct impact on the overall health of people.
The Integrated Approach to Health in Buddhism
What science and Buddhism really share is the goal of understanding the nature of reality. Science uses that scientific method and a lot of technology – it starts from the outside and probes the nature of reality. Buddhism uses the human mind, reformed through meditation, starting from the inside, looking at the same questions.
The World Health Organization defines health as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. The Buddhist understanding of good health is similar with its emphasis on the balanced interaction between the mind and body as well as between life and its environment. Illness tends to arise when this delicate equilibrium is upset. Buddhist theory and practice aim to restore and strengthen this balance.
While modern medicine tends to address the ailing part of the body in isolation from the rest, treating it alone, the Buddhist understanding of health sees disease as a reflection of the total somatic system, or life itself, and seeks to cure it through a fundamental reorientation of a person's life-style and outlook. Physical aspects of life are inseparable from the emotional, mental and spiritual aspects. The optimal condition of health is one achieved when mind and body are functioning well and interacting together as one. Central to the Buddhist approach to health and healing is its emphasis on spiritual strength and an overriding sense of purpose in life based on compassionate action for others.
Although modern medical science has made great strides, it has not necessarily furthered the cause of human happiness. The emergence of the holistic and psychosomatic movements testifies to the need for something deeper in understanding the human being.
In recent years focused scientific studies have revealed the decisive influence of people's states of mind, emotions, attitudes and beliefs on how they get sick and how they stay well. Upsets or shocks to the mind such as divorce, death of a loved one, have direct bearing on the biochemistry of the immune system. Similarly, wear and tear on the mind such as boredom, self-obsession, sense of not being in control, alienation, wears down the physical systems of the body.
A sense of purpose makes people live longer, feel better and stay physically healthier. Also compassion, generosity and patience are qualities that make people strong and resilient. Buddhism directs its energy inward to train the mind to understand the mental state of happiness, to identify and defuse sources of negative emotions and to cultivate emotional states like “metta, mudita, karuna upekkha”, or loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity, in order to improve personal and societal well-being.
Pioneer in Modern Scientific Research on Buddhist Meditation
Dr. Herbert Benson, Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School was a pioneer in modern scientific research on meditation. He says that he gives a biological explanation of meditation, which has been practiced in the East for thousands of years. In the 1970's he published “The Relaxation Response” where he showed how meditation could increase concentration and counteract the harmful effects of stress. He founded the Mind -Body Medical Institute and argued that meditators counteracted the stress-induced fight-or-flight response and achieved a calmer, happier state.
Richard Davidson and the Mind and Life Institute
Dr. Richard Davidson, Director of the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin at Madison is the founder of the Mind and Life Institute which is dedicated to creating a powerful working collaboration and research partnership between modern science and Buddhism – the world's two most powerful traditions for understanding the nature of reality and investigating the mind. Its purpose is firstly, to promote the creation of a contemplative, compassionate, and rigorous experimental and experiential science of the mind which could guide and inform medicine, neuroscience, psychology, education and human development. Secondly, to contribute to the epistemological revolution which is taking place through modern physics as well as philosophy, in order to extend our understanding of knowledge to one that integrates the diverse dimensions of our world.
Research of Mind and Life Scientists
In 1990 Mind and Life scientists initiated research projects to investigate the neurobiological effects of meditation on long-term meditators. These western scientists were intrigued by the ability of Buddhist meditators to intentionally manipulate basic physiological processes and to catalyze psychological and biological healing effects, all through the directed mental processes of meditation practices.
In recent years Mind and Life scientists at the University of Wisconsin Madison , University of California-San Francisco , University of California-Berkeley and Harvard University have conducted experiments and are developing in-depth research projects to deepen scientific understanding of Buddhist theory and practices. These projects utilize the most recent advances in the neurosciences and psychology.
In order for a dialogue between Buddhism and science to have a durable contribution to humanity, collaborative research programs are being conducted in first rate Western scientific laboratories and the results of these studies will be published in prominent peer-reviewed scientific journals. Data has been collected from highly trained Buddhist meditative adepts using EEG, fMRI, and MEG neuro-imaging techniques and other psychological, neurological and immunological measures.
In 2001, in a laboratory at the University of Wisconsin , a Tibetan Buddhist monk donned a cap studded with hundreds of sensors that were connected to a state-of-the-art EEG, the brain-scanning device, capable of recording changes in his brain with speed and precision. When the monk began meditating in a way that was designed to generate compassion, the sensors registered a dramatic shift to a state of great joy. The very act of concern for others well-being creates a greater state of well-being within oneself.
Study Using Brain Imaging Techniques
What goes on in the brain during meditation was the theme of a recent study led by Dr. Richard Davidson, Director of the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and Jon Kabat-Zinn, the founding director of the Stress Reduction Clinic and Centre for Mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Discovery of the technique of brain imaging led to increased sophistication of research on the meditating brain. This powerful brain scanning technologies not only can reveal a mind in the midst of meditation, but also can detect enduring changes in brain activity months after a prolonged course of meditation.
The Richard Davidson- Jon Kabat-Zinn study involved a group of stressed-out volunteers of a high-technology firm in Madison , who were tested with electroencephalographs in which electrodes were placed on the scalp to collect brain wave information. The volunteers were then separated into two groups – a meditation and a non-meditation control group. The meditators were given an eight-week course on meditation by an expert in meditation, Kabat-Zinn. At the end of the eight weeks, both meditators and controls were again tested with electroencephalographs and a flu shot. They also got blood tests to check for antibody response. Four months later, all got electroencephalographs again.
Results of the Study
At the end of the study the meditators brains showed a pronounced shift toward the left frontal lobe while the non-meditators brains did not. Each person has a baseline frontal cortex activity level that is characteristically tipped left or right, and around which daily fluctuations of mood swirl. In people who are stressed, anxious or depressed, the right frontal cortex of the brain is overactive and the left frontal cortex under active. Such people sometimes show heightened activation of the amygdale, a key centre in the brain for processing fear. On the other hand, people who are habitually calm and happy typically show greater activity in the left frontal cortex. They pump out less of the stress hormone cortisol, recover faster from negative events and have higher levels of certain immune cells.
Meditation Can Reshape the Brain
This study using sophisticated imaging techniques suggested that meditation could actually reset the brain, it can train the mind and reshape the brain. Richard Davidson used brain imaging to show that meditation shifts activity in the prefrontal cortex (right behind our foreheads) from the right hemisphere to the left. His research suggests that by meditating regularly the brain is reoriented from a stressful fight-or-flight mode to one of acceptance, a shift that increases contentment. People who have a negative disposition tend to be right prefrontal oriented as opposed to left pre-frontals who have more positive emotions, self control, enthusiasm, more interests, relax more and tend to be happier.
These tests have shown that the left pre-frontals of brains of regularly meditating people are constantly lit up and not just when they are meditating. This suggests according to scientists, that those who regularly meditate are likely to experience positive emotions and be in good mood. The fact that the brain can adapt and molecularly re-sculpture itself on the basis of experience and training suggests that meditation may leave a biological residue in the brain that might be captured and measured with the increasing sophistication of new technology.
An Extraordinary Symposium
“Investigating the Mind” was the theme of an extraordinary symposium held at the MIT Cambridge, USA on September 13 and 14 th , 2003. This was a meeting of some of North America 's leading neuroscientists, behavioural scientists, Buddhist scholar-practitioners and the Dalai Lama of Tibet. This was an exchange between Buddhism and Biobehavioral Science. It was co-sponsored by the McGovern Institute at MIT and the Mind and Life Institute, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA .
Identification of common ground between two powerful empirical traditions – Tibetan Buddhism and Biobehavioral Science was the objective of this meeting. Although the approaches and perspectives of the two traditions are different, understanding how the mind works forms the basis of both traditions.
Buddhism has refined meditation methods in order to probe the nature of mind, using the mind itself as the instrument of investigation. Only in recent years that scientists in fields such as psychology, cognitive science, neuroscience and medical science have begun to show interest in this vast field of Buddhist knowledge. Today, biobehavioral scientists in increasing numbers are extending their methods and expanding their conceptual frameworks realizing the complementary nature of the two approaches.
Among the speakers and panellists were outstanding Buddhist practitioners and university professors from universities such as MIT, Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, UCLA, Michigan, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Wisconsin Madison, Virginia, Cambridge UK, Oregon, UC Berkeley, York U. Canada.
Positive Impacts Of Regular Meditation
Areas of the brain associated with good mood and positive feelings are more active among Buddhists who practice meditation. Those who meditate regularly are less likely to be angry, shocked, surprised or confused as compared to other people. Scientific tests done in the USA reveal that Buddhists who meditate are happier and calmer than other people. Scientists have announced that experiments suggest that Buddhists, who try to focus on achieving inner peace, really did seem to enjoy life more. Meditation practices lead to better states of well-being and better states of health.
For decades scientific research in USA has focused on the short-term effects of meditation on the nervous system, finding that meditation reduces stress. This was followed by Professor Herbert Benson's research related to meditation. Several medical studies on meditation have shown that it helps to lower blood pressure, heart rate and respiration. It reduces anxiety, anger, hostility and mild to moderate depression. It helps to alleviate insomnia, premenstrual syndrome, hot flashes and infertility. It relieves some types of pain, most notably tension headaches.
Impacts on the Immune System
Also, studies have shown that meditation leads to significant improvement in the immune system. Women who meditate have a higher level of the immune cells known to combat tumors in the breast. Meditation can significantly reduce blood pressure, stress and depression. Meditation along with dieting and yoga helps to reverse the build-up of plaque in coronary arteries. The most recent finding is that meditation slow prostate cancer.
Studies show that meditation is boosting the immune system and helps to reduce stress. Ten million American adults practice meditation regularly, twice as many as a decade ago. Meditation classes are very popular among mainstream Americans. Meditation is being recommended by more and more physicians and other health-care professionals as a way to prevent, slow or at least control pain of chronic diseases like heart conditions, AIDS, cancer and infertility.
Alleviating Depression
Meditation is being used to restore balance in the face of such psychiatric disturbances as depression, hyperactivity and attention deficit disorder. Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who have studied the links between a person's psychological state and their immune response have shown that depression does not just make people feel bad mentally, it can leave them vulnerable to physical illness too.
An estimated 121 million people worldwide suffer from depression. The World Health Organization has identified depression as the fourth leading cause of disease burden, which is defined, as years patients must live with a disability. It will become the first cause worldwide by the year 2020.
Depression is rivalling heart disease and cancer for the toll they are taking on Canadian lives. New figures from 2003, released by Statistics Canada show that one in ten Canadians aged 15 or older, or about 2.6 million reported symptoms of mental illness – depression, mania disorder, panic disorder, social phobia and agoraphobia and only 1.1 million (42%) of those were not able to get appropriate care, or aren't getting the treatment they need. The latter includes mostly teenagers and young adults. It is estimated that depression and other mental disorders already costing nearly $5 billion on direct health care costs. The Canadian Mental Health Association and Health Canada released a report on Mental Illness in Canada in October 2002, showing that one in five Canadians will personally experience a mental illness during their lifetime.
Although drugs have treated depression in many people, the precise causes and controls for the disorder remain elusive. Often patients must go through a trial and error period before the appropriate treatment is identified. Meditation has helped to alleviate depression, stress and related ailments in millions of people. Being free, portable and not having any harmful side effects, meditation is strongly and freely recommended physicians for those suffering from or prone to depression and stress. People whomeditate have long known that this practice has positive health benefits that include improved energy and calmness of mind. Meditation helps to become more deeply aware of ourselves, to see ourselves more clearly.
Coping with Stress
Modern life frequently results in on-going stressful situations. These may include difficult work or personal situations. Psychological pressures such as relationship problems, loneliness and financial worries can lead to chronic stress. Physical illness, especially chronic conditions is another common source of stress. Too much stress can seriously affect physical and mental well-being. Long-term stress can lead to physical or psychological damage to the body. People under a great deal of stress are likely to have high blood pressure, which can increase the risk of coronary artery disease or stroke. Chronic stress causes the immune system to become less effective leaving the person more vulnerable to colds, flues and digestive problems. Chronic stress has been associated with the development of diabetes, undesirable skin conditions such as acne, hives, psoriasis and eczema. It can cause sexual and reproductive disturbances including infertility.
Studies show that between 60% and 90% of all physician visits are for stress-related complaints. The efficacy of meditation practices has been proven in the treatment of stress and ailments caused by or made worse by stress. Regular meditation practice has helped millions of men and women in the USA to reduce the stress that can cause or exacerbate conditions such as: Joint Pain, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Hypertension, Repetitive strain injury, Cardiac disorders, Chronic pain, Infertility, Migraine headaches, Diabetes, Perimenopause/menopause, Gastrointestinal disorders.
Meditation techniques are helpful in reducing stress, promoting positive attitudes, decreasing symptoms and improving quality of life for persons with life-threatening illness, such as cancer and HIV/AIDS. In addition, meditation can prevent disease, such as cardiovascular disease by helping individuals change adverse lifestyle behaviors.
Daya Hewapathirane, Ph.D.