Alternative Therapies – Meditation, with Dr Kathy Sykes

• Matthieu Ricard (French) - translator for Dalai Lama – Nepal, Kathmandu, meditation
• Dr Herbert Benson – the relaxation response - book
• Marharishi Vedic City
  • Transcendental meditation, impact on coronary health
• pubmed.gov for papers
  • “reviews” collate information from a number of papers, periodically
• Professor Mark Williams, Oxford
  • Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT)
  • Anti-depression/clinical-depression 
  • 80% mindfulness meditation, 20% cognitive therapy
  • Uses meditation similar to that taught by Mattiau in Nepal
    • Buddhist practices
    • focus on breathing
  • Observing without trying to fix
  • Seeing thoughts as just thoughts
  • Reduces risk of recurrence by up to 50% in patients who have had 3 or more depressive episodes
  • Helps other anxiety – can help everyone (universal anxieties, self-doubts etc, awareness)
  • Available to some on the NHS
• Dr Richard Davidson, University of Wisconsin – Madison
  • Meditation shifts brain activity over time from left-hand-side to right-hand-side
• Dr Sarah Lazar
  • Meditation over time is associated with increased cortical thickness
  • Effects are cumulative (”every minute sitting counts”)
  • Cortex associated with attention and sensory processing
    • alters ability to concentrate
    • alters response to “sensory” stimuli – physical sensations (pain, hunger etc) but also emotional sensations (fear, anger etc)

BBC Listing

OU information