In 1999 a Harvard University Magna Cum Laude named Kaleil Isaza Tuzman quit his job as a French-cuffed arbitrageur at Goldman Sachs (GS ) to found a startup called govWorks with his childhood best friend, an experience that was captured in the riveting documentary Startup.com. As the company unwinds, we see the once-smooth Tuzman kick furniture, burn through girlfriends (not to mention $60 million), and, in the company's last gasps, send a two-sentence letter of termination to the best friend -- all before he was 30.
What we don't see, however, is that Tuzman had let his longtime meditation practice slide. When he was at Goldman, Tuzman often closed his eyes on the trading floor to meditate -- a Zen man in Zegna. But when he plunged into govWorks and its 20-hour days, he slacked off. "I have regretted letting it lag for years," says Tuzman. "Because if I had stayed disciplined, I have a feeling I would have been able to see some of the harbingers and perils that I didn't see at the time." Today, Tuzman, now CEO of Recognition Group, is back at his 20-minute-a-day practice, sometimes shutting his office door and sitting ballet-dancer straight in his leather swivel chair.
For decades, researchers at the National Institutes of Health, the University of Massachusetts, and the Mind/Body Medical Institute at Harvard University have sought to document how meditation enhances the qualities companies need in their human capital: sharpened intuition, steely concentration, and plummeting stress levels. What's different today is groundbreaking research showing that when people such as Tuzman meditate, they alter the biochemistry of their brains. The evolution of powerful mind-monitoring technologies has also enabled scientists to scan the minds of meditators on a microscopic scale, revealing fascinating insights about the plasticity of the mind and meditation's ability to sculpt it.
Some of those insights have emerged in the lab of Richard Davidson, a professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Throughout his career, Davidson has pondered why people react so differently to the same stressful situations, and for the past 20 years he has been conducting experiments to find out. With the blessing of the Dalai Lama, who is supporting U.S. neuroscientists in their quest to crack the mysteries of meditation, Davidson has been placing electrodes on meditating Buddhist monks as they sit on his lab floor watching different visual stimuli -- including disturbing images of war -- flash on a screen. Davidson and his team then observe the monks as they meditate while ensconced in the clanking, coffin-like tubes of MRI machines.
What the researchers see are brains unlike any they have observed elsewhere. The monks' left prefrontal cortexes -- the area associated with positive emotion -- are far more active than in nonmeditators' brains. In other words, he says, the monks' meditation practice, which changes their neural physiology, enables them to respond with equanimity to sources of stress. Meditation doesn't lobotomize meditators; it simply allows them to detach from their emotional reactions so they can respond appropriately.
"In our country, people are very involved in the physical-fitness craze, working out several times a week," says Davidson. "But we don't pay that kind of attention to our minds. Modern neuroscience is showing that our minds are as plastic as our bodies. Meditation can help you train your mind in the same way exercise can train your body."
Davidson's research didn't stop with the monks. To find out whether meditation could have lasting, beneficial effects in the workplace, he performed a study at Madison (Wis.) biotech company Promega. Four dozen employees met once a week for eight weeks to practice mindfulness meditation for three hours. The result, published last year in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, showed that the employees' left prefontal cortexes were enlarged, just like those of the monks. "We took typical, middle-class Americans trying to cope with the demands of an active work life and active family life who reported being relatively stressed out," says Davidson. "And what we found out is that after a short time meditating, meditation had profound effects not just on how they felt but on their brains and bodies."
These results matter at a time when companies lose an estimated $200 billion annually in absenteeism, subpar performance, tardiness, and workers' compensation claims related to stress. In fact, stress-related ailments account for upwards of 60% of all doctor visits, according to the Mind/Body Medical Institute. President Herbert Benson, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School, notes that stress does amp up performance to a certain level. But sustained too long, it erodes productivity. "If businesses were clever, what they would do is simply put time aside [and have] a quiet room for people to carry out a meditative behavior of their choice," says Benson.
Some are already doing so. AOL (TWX ), Raytheon (RTN ), Nortel Networks (NT ), and even ultra-staid law firm Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton offer their employees meditation classes. At some companies, the practice gets advocacy from the top. Medtronic's (MDT ) former CEO, Bill George, who has meditated twice a day for 20 minutes for the past 30 years, says: "Out of anything, it has had the greatest impact on my career." (Life offers many opportunities: George meditates from the time his plane taxis to when the steward offers him a Diet Coke (KO ).)
Former Aetna International Chairman Michael Stephen also started meditating in 1974 and says it helped transform him from an impatient, demanding know-it-all into a more effective leader. Ex-Monsanto (MON ) CEO Robert Shapiro is such a devotee that he brought in teachers to help his execs learn the practice. And McKinsey Managing Partner Michael Rennie, an avid meditator, has studied the beneficial effects of meditation in corporations.
Health insurers are starting to realize that meditation, like preventive health and exercise programs, may help them control costs. Cigna (CI ) is so intrigued with the new meditation findings that it has hired Davidson's partner, Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, to study the ways in which meditation may be able to reduce costs for everything from chronic fatigue to irritable bowel syndrome.
Of course, as with exercise, it's natural to face difficulties adhering to a schedule or to go through periods when you question the payoff. That's why it's important to find a teacher, a Zen center, or some other authority to turn to in such moments, much as one turns to a personal trainer to help maintain or heighten the challenge of an exercise regimen.
The point is: Don't just do something -- sit there.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Zen and the Art of Corporate Productivity , Business week
More companies are battling employee stress with meditation
For Dave Jakubowski, vice-president of business development for Internet service provider United Online (UNTD ) Inc., the job isn't what it used to be. Instead of an unlimited expense account and stays at the plush Chateau Marmont, the 31-year-old Manhattanite now brown-bags his lunch and stays at a Hyatt when he's in Los Angeles on business. He logs 18-hour days to help his Westlake Village (Calif.)-based company hit its quarterly sales targets of around $8 million. How to cope? Jakubowski is no breathe-like-a-tree kind of guy. "I'm in business," he says, "and I need results." So he recently turned to a mat and 60 minutes of silence. "It's amazing," he says of his new meditation practice. "I'm able to sort through work challenges in this state of calm much faster than trying to fight through it. And I make fewer mistakes."
Increasingly, the overstretched and overburdened have a new answer to work lives of gunning harder for what seems like less and less: Don't just do something -- sit there. Companies increasingly are falling for the allure of meditation, too, offering free, on-site classes. They're being won over, in part, by findings at the National Institutes of Health, the University of Massachusetts, and the Mind/Body Medical Institute at Harvard University that meditation enhances the qualities companies need most from their knowledge workers: increased brain-wave activity, enhanced intuition, better concentration, and the alleviation of the kinds of aches and pains that plague employees most.
It doesn't hurt that meditation has some high-profile corporate disciples, including bond-fund king William H. Gross, of Newport Beach (Calif.)'s Pacific Investment Management Co., who often meditates with yoga before a day of trading at his $349 billion money-management firm. Tech outfits like Apple Computer (AAPL ), Yahoo!, and Google, which already offers an organic chef and an on-site masseuse, are also signing up. So are white-shoe, Old Economy outfits like consulting firm McKinsey, Deutsche Bank, and Hughes Aircraft.
There are no hard numbers on how many companies have added meditation benefits, but the anecdotal evidence is mounting. And it's no surprise that more employers are seeking a new corporate balm. The National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health finds that stress-related ailments cost companies about $200 billion a year in increased absenteeism, tardiness, and the loss of talented workers. Between 70% to 90% of employee hospital visits are linked to stress. And job tension is directly tied to a lack of productivity and loss of competitive edge. "Stress is pretty much the No. 1 health problem in the workplace," says Eric Biskamp, co-founder of WorkLife Seminars in Dallas, who has begun teaching one-on-one meditation skills to executives at Texas Instruments (TXN ), Raytheon (RTN ) and Nortel Networks (NT ).
Meditation quiets mental chatter, explains coach Tevis Trower of New York's Balance Integration Corp., which develops meditation and yoga programs for large corporations. "It lays the foundation for better decision-making and communication," she says. Adds Viacom (VIA ) International Inc.'s manager of work/life and training, Lisa Grossman: "These programs sound a little out there. But they have a positive impact."
Sometimes meditation classes are offered as a gesture of thanks for a job well done. Consider AOL Time Warner Inc., where the sales and marketing group was reduced from 850 to 500 people three years ago. Meditation classes were incorporated to help employees deal with the new 12-hour days.
Other companies have added classes to help break up the drudgery of day-long meetings. AstraZeneca (AZN ) Pharmaceuticals in Wilmington, Del., now offers three meditation courses aimed at energizing its 5,000 employees during and after marathon powwows. "We usually had a coffee and a Danish on our meeting breaks and would go right into a sugar slump," says spokeswoman Lorraine Ryan.
The icing for companies is that meditation programs come cheap. "Everybody is dealing with limited dollars," says Grossman. "It's important to keep things going when times aren't so good." So employees can breathe easy: This is one perk that isn't likely to get axed.
By Mara Der Hovanesian in New York
For Dave Jakubowski, vice-president of business development for Internet service provider United Online (UNTD ) Inc., the job isn't what it used to be. Instead of an unlimited expense account and stays at the plush Chateau Marmont, the 31-year-old Manhattanite now brown-bags his lunch and stays at a Hyatt when he's in Los Angeles on business. He logs 18-hour days to help his Westlake Village (Calif.)-based company hit its quarterly sales targets of around $8 million. How to cope? Jakubowski is no breathe-like-a-tree kind of guy. "I'm in business," he says, "and I need results." So he recently turned to a mat and 60 minutes of silence. "It's amazing," he says of his new meditation practice. "I'm able to sort through work challenges in this state of calm much faster than trying to fight through it. And I make fewer mistakes."
Increasingly, the overstretched and overburdened have a new answer to work lives of gunning harder for what seems like less and less: Don't just do something -- sit there. Companies increasingly are falling for the allure of meditation, too, offering free, on-site classes. They're being won over, in part, by findings at the National Institutes of Health, the University of Massachusetts, and the Mind/Body Medical Institute at Harvard University that meditation enhances the qualities companies need most from their knowledge workers: increased brain-wave activity, enhanced intuition, better concentration, and the alleviation of the kinds of aches and pains that plague employees most.
It doesn't hurt that meditation has some high-profile corporate disciples, including bond-fund king William H. Gross, of Newport Beach (Calif.)'s Pacific Investment Management Co., who often meditates with yoga before a day of trading at his $349 billion money-management firm. Tech outfits like Apple Computer (AAPL ), Yahoo!, and Google, which already offers an organic chef and an on-site masseuse, are also signing up. So are white-shoe, Old Economy outfits like consulting firm McKinsey, Deutsche Bank, and Hughes Aircraft.
There are no hard numbers on how many companies have added meditation benefits, but the anecdotal evidence is mounting. And it's no surprise that more employers are seeking a new corporate balm. The National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health finds that stress-related ailments cost companies about $200 billion a year in increased absenteeism, tardiness, and the loss of talented workers. Between 70% to 90% of employee hospital visits are linked to stress. And job tension is directly tied to a lack of productivity and loss of competitive edge. "Stress is pretty much the No. 1 health problem in the workplace," says Eric Biskamp, co-founder of WorkLife Seminars in Dallas, who has begun teaching one-on-one meditation skills to executives at Texas Instruments (TXN ), Raytheon (RTN ) and Nortel Networks (NT ).
Meditation quiets mental chatter, explains coach Tevis Trower of New York's Balance Integration Corp., which develops meditation and yoga programs for large corporations. "It lays the foundation for better decision-making and communication," she says. Adds Viacom (VIA ) International Inc.'s manager of work/life and training, Lisa Grossman: "These programs sound a little out there. But they have a positive impact."
Sometimes meditation classes are offered as a gesture of thanks for a job well done. Consider AOL Time Warner Inc., where the sales and marketing group was reduced from 850 to 500 people three years ago. Meditation classes were incorporated to help employees deal with the new 12-hour days.
Other companies have added classes to help break up the drudgery of day-long meetings. AstraZeneca (AZN ) Pharmaceuticals in Wilmington, Del., now offers three meditation courses aimed at energizing its 5,000 employees during and after marathon powwows. "We usually had a coffee and a Danish on our meeting breaks and would go right into a sugar slump," says spokeswoman Lorraine Ryan.
The icing for companies is that meditation programs come cheap. "Everybody is dealing with limited dollars," says Grossman. "It's important to keep things going when times aren't so good." So employees can breathe easy: This is one perk that isn't likely to get axed.
By Mara Der Hovanesian in New York
Meditation Associated with Increased Grey Matter in the Brain
Published: November 10, 2005
Jeremy Gray, Yale Univ
New Haven, Conn. — Meditation is known to alter resting brain patterns, suggesting long lasting brain changes, but a new study by researchers from Yale, Harvard, Massachusetts General Hospital, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology shows meditation also is associated with increased cortical thickness.
The structural changes were found in areas of the brain that are important for sensory, cognitive and emotional processing, the researchers report in the November issue of NeuroReport.
Although the study included only 20 participants, all with extensive training in Buddhist Insight meditation, the results are significant, said Jeremy Gray, assistant professor of psychology at Yale and co-author of the study led by Sara Lazar, assistant in psychology at Massachusetts General Hospital.
“What is most fascinating to me is the suggestion that meditation practice can change anyone’s grey matter,” Gray said. “The study participants were people with jobs and families. They just meditated on average 40 minutes each day, you don’t have to be a monk.”
Magnetic resonance imaging showed that regular practice of meditation is associated with increased thickness in a subset of cortical regions related to sensory, auditory, visual and internal perception, such as heart rate or breathing. The researchers also found that regular meditation practice may slow age-related thinning of the frontal cortex.
“Most of the regions identified in this study were found in the right hemisphere,” the researchers said. “The right hemisphere is essential for sustaining attention, which is a central practice of Insight meditation.”
They said other forms of yoga and meditation likely have a similar impact on cortical structure, although each tradition would be expected to have a slightly different pattern of cortical thickening based on the specific mental exercises involved.
Co-authors include Catherine Kerr, Rachel Wasserman Jeffery Dusek, Herbert Benson and Metta McGarvey, Harvard; Douglas Greve, Brian Quinn, Bruce Fischl, Michael Treadway and Scott Rauch, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Christopher Moore, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
NeuroReport 16: 1893-1897 (November 28, 2005)
Jeremy Gray, Yale Univ
New Haven, Conn. — Meditation is known to alter resting brain patterns, suggesting long lasting brain changes, but a new study by researchers from Yale, Harvard, Massachusetts General Hospital, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology shows meditation also is associated with increased cortical thickness.
The structural changes were found in areas of the brain that are important for sensory, cognitive and emotional processing, the researchers report in the November issue of NeuroReport.
Although the study included only 20 participants, all with extensive training in Buddhist Insight meditation, the results are significant, said Jeremy Gray, assistant professor of psychology at Yale and co-author of the study led by Sara Lazar, assistant in psychology at Massachusetts General Hospital.
“What is most fascinating to me is the suggestion that meditation practice can change anyone’s grey matter,” Gray said. “The study participants were people with jobs and families. They just meditated on average 40 minutes each day, you don’t have to be a monk.”
Magnetic resonance imaging showed that regular practice of meditation is associated with increased thickness in a subset of cortical regions related to sensory, auditory, visual and internal perception, such as heart rate or breathing. The researchers also found that regular meditation practice may slow age-related thinning of the frontal cortex.
“Most of the regions identified in this study were found in the right hemisphere,” the researchers said. “The right hemisphere is essential for sustaining attention, which is a central practice of Insight meditation.”
They said other forms of yoga and meditation likely have a similar impact on cortical structure, although each tradition would be expected to have a slightly different pattern of cortical thickening based on the specific mental exercises involved.
Co-authors include Catherine Kerr, Rachel Wasserman Jeffery Dusek, Herbert Benson and Metta McGarvey, Harvard; Douglas Greve, Brian Quinn, Bruce Fischl, Michael Treadway and Scott Rauch, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Christopher Moore, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
NeuroReport 16: 1893-1897 (November 28, 2005)
Meditation For Health & Wellbeing
The following are just some of the potential benefits to health and wellbeing and some of the conditions which can be helped.
Taken daily, it can untangle tension, fight fatigue and even lower your blood pressure. It can lift your spirits…it costs nothing, has no side effects and doesn't require medical help.
Arthritis Today - magazine of the Arthritis Foundation
RESEARCH AND EVIDENCE FOR HEALTH & WELLBEING BENEFITS
There are hundreds of studies, ranging from Harvard Medical School and Yale University, through to the Swedish Airforce, which provide strong research on these benefits (and many others). Research on one form of meditation alone has been conducted at over 200 different universities, hospitals and research institutions in over 30 countries. Included below are just a few
Dr Craig Hassed, senior lecturer, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing & Health Sciences at Melbourne's Monash University, says:
Meditation is a great adjunct for a lot of things, from chronic pain to improving sleep, helping reduce blood pressure and coping with stress, anxiety and depression.
Stress Reduction & Relaxation
• Meditation is the only activity that reduces blood lactate, a marker of stress and anxiety.
• The calming hormones melatonin and serotonin are increased by meditation and the stress hormone cortisol is decreased (cortisol is an adrenal hormone that is found in extremely high levels in people with pain).
• Meditation creates a unique state, in which the metabolism is in an even deeper state of rest than during sleep. During sleep, oxen consumption drops by 8 percent, but during meditation, it drops by 10 to 20 percent.
• Meditating 45 year old women and men had on average, respectively, 47% and 23% more DHEA (the youth related hormone) than non-meditators -this helps decrease stress, heighten memory, preserve sexual function, and control weight.
Extracts from Meditation as Medicine - D. S. Khalsa, M.D. and C. Stauth - Pocket Books, 2001
Meditation provides a far deeper state of relaxation than does simple eyes-closed rest. The breath rate and plasma lactate decreases and the basal skin resistance increases significantly more during meditation than during eyes-closed rest. Prior to the meditation sessions, meditating subjects had lower levels of breath rate, plasma lactate, spontaneous skin conductance, and heart rate than did the controls and this deeper level of relaxation before starting the practice suggests that reduced physiological stress through meditation is cumulative.
American Psychologist 1987.
Experiments conducted by Dr H Benson of Harvard University into meditation techniques established that the techniques had a very real effect on reducing stress - direct effects included slowed heartbeat and breathing, reduced oxygen consumption and increased skin resistance. "The Relaxation Response" Dr H Benson 1968
According to a randomised study conducted by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, a stress-reducing meditation technique can significantly reduce the severity of congestive heart failure, the leading cause of death in the U.S. This study is in the winter 2007 issue of Ethnicity & Disease.
Even the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have recommended meditation (along with salt and dietary restrictions) above prescription drugs as the first treatment for mild hypertension.
Improved Sleep
75 percent of insomniacs were able to sleep normally when they meditated. Meditation as Medicine. D.S. Khalsa, M.D. and C Stauth 2001
One hundred percent of insomnia patients reported improved sleep and 91% either eliminated or reduced the use of sleeping medication. The American Journal of Medicine 1996
Living Younger & Longer and slowing the ageing process
Reversal of Ageing Process - A study group of long-term meditators (practising meditation for five years or more) were physiologically twelve years younger than their chronological age, as measured by reduction of blood pressure, and better near-point vision and auditory discrimination. Short-term meditators were physiologically five years younger than their chronological age. The study controlled for the effects of diet and exercise.
International Journal of Neuroscience 1982.
• Meditators secrete more of the youth-related hormone DHEA as they age than non-meditators.
• Meditating 45 year old women and men had on average, respectively, 47% and 23% more DHEA than non-meditators - this helps decrease stress, heighten memory, preserve sexual function, and control weight.
• Meditation has a profound effect upon three key indicators of ageing: hearing ability, blood pressure, and vision of close objects.
Extracts from Meditation as Medicine - D. S. Khalsa, M.D. and C. Stauth - Pocket Books, 2001
A study by neuroscientist Sara Lazar Ph.D (who leads Meditation research at Harvard Medical School) showed that the part of the brain known as the cerebral cortex (critical in decision making and working memory) was thicker in people who meditated for as little as 40 minutes a day, compared with people who did not. It is possible that meditation may protect against age-related thinning of this part of the brain.
Weight Management
According to Dr Pamela Peeke, assistant clinical professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, stress can be a major contributor in weight gain and an increase of body fat and particularly abdominal fat.
This is because when stressed or anxious, the body produces stress hormones such as cortisol. These are the "fight or flight" hormones and would normally be discharged/dispersed if either of those physical options were followed. However, in modern society, these options are often not realistic possibilities and the stress hormones do not get released - particularly when a person is under regular stress or unable to manage/release their stress.
When held in this way, these hormones signal the fat cells to hold tight and this makes weight loss even harder. Additionally, stress hormones signal the brain to increase appetite. Finally, these hormones can have an effect on the "happy hormones" such as serotonin, which can lead to depressed moods and potentially, comfort eating.
Meditators secrete more of the youth-related hormone DHEA as they age than non-meditators and this can help decrease stress and control weight. Extracts from Meditation as Medicine - D. S. Khalsa, M.D. and C. Stauth - Pocket Books, 2001
Blood pressure
Meditation lowers blood pressure
BBC News report, August 1999
A randomised study conducted by the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine showed that a widely practised, stress-reducing meditation technique can significantly reduce the severity of congestive heart failure. Referenced in Ethnicity & Disease journal 2007.
"People with high blood pressure may want to medicate and meditate" American Heart Association journal. Results published in the Association's journal Hypertension, showed that the Transcendental Meditation technique significantly lowered blood pressure in older African American men and women who were at high risk for five major risk factor groups. August 1996
Practising meditation may play an important role in controlling certain risk factors for heart disease…practice for 20 minutes a day has a positive, measurable effect on the build up of fatty deposits in arteries or atherosclerosis…just a small reduction could reduce the risk of heart attack by 11 % and reduce the risk of stroke by 15%.
CNN, July 2000 and referencing the March edition of the journal Stroke.
Eighty percent of hypertensive patients have lowered blood pressure and decreased medications - 16% are able to discontinue all of their medications. These results lasted at least three years. Journal of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation 1989
A relaxation technique known as transcendental meditation may decrease blood pressure and reduce insulin resistance among patients with coronary heart disease, according to a report in the June 12 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Even the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have recommended meditation (along with salt and dietary restrictions) above prescription drugs as the first treatment for mild hypertension.
Greater Energy
TIME Magazine
Many people who meditate claim the practice restores their energy, allowing them to perform better at tasks that require attention and concentration. If so, wouldn't a midday nap work just as well? No, says Bruce O'Hara, associate professor of biology at the University of Kentucky. In a study he had college students either meditate, sleep or watch TV. Then he tested them for what psychologists call psychomotor vigilance. Those who had been taught to meditate performed 10% better - "a huge jump, statistically speaking," says O'Hara. Those who snoozed did significantly worse.
Improved General Health & Immune System
There is significant data that meditation can enhance healing - Executive Director, Centre for Mindfulness in Medicine, University of Massachusetts, as quoted in Arthritis Today magazine.
Recent studies suggest meditation may balance the immune system to help the body resist disease. Arthritis Today magazine.
Extensive research on the benefits of meditation has shown significant improvements in-patients with cancer, diabetes, asthma, psoriasis, headache, multiple sclerosis, and other ailments. University of Massachusetts Medical School
"...Meanwhile, the evidence from meditation researchers continues to mount. One study, for example, shows that women who meditate and use guided imagery have higher levels of the immune cells known to combat tumours in the breast. This comes after many studies have established that meditation can significantly reduce blood pressure.
TIME Magazine
A 5-year study of medical care statistics on 2,000 people who regularly practised Transcendental Meditation found that their overall rate of hospitalisation was 56% lower than the norm. Psychosomatic Medicine 1987.
A new study shows that meditation can help produce antibodies against illness and also lift your spirits. Researchers say biological effects seen in the study are long lasting -- up to four months after the end of meditation training. Psychosomatic Medicine 2003.
Medical outcomes from 15,000 patients' participation since 1979 have shown a 35% reduction in the number of medical symptoms and a 40% reduction in psychological symptoms. University of Massachusetts Medical School
The managers and employees in two companies which introduced meditation and who regularly practised meditation improved significantly in overall physical health and mental well being, as compared to control subjects with similar jobs in the same companies. The meditation practitioners also reported significant reductions in health problems such as headaches and backaches, improved quality of sleep, and a significant reduction in the use of hard liquor and cigarettes, compared to personnel in the control groups.
Anxiety, Stress and Coping International Journal.
Better Cardiovascular Health
In a randomised study conducted by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, a widely practised, stress-reducing meditation technique can significantly reduce the severity of congestive heart failure." The results of this study indicate that transcendental meditation can be effective in improving the functional capacity and quality of life of congestive heart failure patients" said Ravishankar Jayadevappa, PhD, lead author and Research Assistant Professor in Penn's Division of Geriatric Medicine. "These results also suggest long-term improvements in survival in these individuals." The study appears in the Winter 2007 issue of Ethnicity & Disease.
This study was sponsored by the National Institutes of Health-National Centre for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, in a collaboration between the University of Pennsylvania with the Institute for Natural Medicine and Prevention at Maharishi University of Management.
Pain Management
65 percent of the patients who spent 10 weeks in Jon Kabat-Zinn's Stress Reduction Clinic reported that their pain was reduced by one-third or more. This study was published in the April 1982 issue of General Hospital Psychiatry.
Research shows meditation can help relieve many arthritis symptoms, such as pain, anxiety, stress and depression, as well as relieve the fatigue and insomnia associated with fibromyalgia. Arthritis Foundation.
Meditation reduces cortisol, the stress hormone, which is found in very high levels with people in pain. As referenced by DK Singh M.D. in his book, Meditation as Medicine.
"We're decreasing their bodily pain, decreasing the intensity of their pain and we're increasing the quality of their life" Dr Jackie Gardner-Nix, (who runs a meditation programme at Sunnybrook and St Michael's hospitals in Toronto).
Twelve healthy long-term meditators who had been practising Transcendental Meditation for 30 years showed a 40-50% lower brain response to pain compared to 12 healthy controls, reported by a latest NeuroReport journal article, published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins August 2006. Further, when the 12 controls then learned and practised Transcendental Meditation for 5 months, their brain responses to pain also decreased by a comparable 40-50%. According to Orme-Johnson, lead author of this research, "Prior research indicates that Transcendental Meditation creates a more balanced outlook on life and greater equanimity in reacting to stress. This study suggests that this is not just an attitudinal change, but a fundamental change in how the brain functions".
Improved Mental Function, Intelligence & Memory
Significant performance improvements in memory and cognition were shown by students instructed in meditation, as compared with students randomly allocated a routine of 'eyes closed' rest twice a day and those who did not have any change to their routine.
Memory and Cognition 1982.
Intelligence increased significantly in University students who regularly practised meditation over a 2-year period. Personality and Individual Differences 1991 and Perceptual and Motor Skills 1986.
Results showed that the practice of meditation techniques develops greater field independence (which is associated with a greater ability to assimilate and structure experience, greater organisation of mind and cognitive clarity, improved memory and greater creative expression). This improvement in meditators is remarkable because it was previously thought that these basic perceptual abilities do not improve beyond early adulthood.
Perceptual Motor Skills.
A study using the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (measuring figural and verbal creativity) in a control group and in a group that subsequently learned meditation, showed five months later that the meditation group scored significantly higher on figural originality, flexibility and verbal fluency. Journal of Creative Behaviour.
Depression
In the 1990s British psychiatrist John Teasdale became intrigued with mindfulness meditation, a Buddhist practice in which you sit quietly and observe whatever thoughts and perceptions arise in your consciousness, but without judging them. He and colleagues showed that mindfulness training halves the rate at which people treated for depression relapse. Newsweek 2007
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
This is an extract taken from additudemag.com from an interview with psychiatrist L Zylowska MD who heads the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Centre's ADHD programme.
"We just completed a study involving 25 adults and eight adolescents, half of whom had the combined (both inattentive and hyperactive) form of ADHD, and the results were very promising. We observed significant improvements in both inattention and hyperactivity. In cognitive tests, the participants got better at staying focused, even when different things were competing for their attention. Many of them also felt less anxious and depressed by the end of study. Researchers have shown that, compared with people who don't meditate, long-time meditators have different EEG and MRI patterns, particularly in the brain's frontal region-the region that is involved with AD/HD. Another study found a rise in the level of the neurotransmitter dopamine during meditative states. Lowered levels of dopamine have been found regularly in people with ADHD.
Respiratory Conditions
Asthma, emphysema and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) all restrict breathing and raise fears of suffocation, which in turn makes breathing even more difficult. Studies show that when people with these respiratory conditions learn breath meditation, they have fewer respiratory crises.
Improved mental function in older age
A study by neuroscientist Sara Lazar Ph.D (who leads Meditation research at Harvard Medical School) showed that the part of the brain known as the cerebral cortex (critical in decision making and working memory) was thicker in people who meditated for as little as 40 minutes a day, compared with people who did not. It is possible that meditation may protect against age-related thinning of this part of the brain.
The structural changes were found in areas of the brain that are important for sensory, cognitive and emotional processing. Jeremy Gray, assistant professor of psychology at Yale and co-author of the study led by Sara Lazar, said "What is most fascinating to me is the suggestion that meditation practice can change anyone's grey matter. The study participants were people with jobs and families. They just meditated on average 40 minutes each day, you don't have to be a monk.
Magnetic resonance imaging showed that regular practice of meditation is associated with increased thickness in a subset of cortical regions related to sensory, auditory, visual and internal perception, such as heart rate or breathing. The researchers also found that regular meditation practice may slow age-related thinning of the frontal cortex. November issue of NeuroReport.
The hormones cortisol and adrenaline, which are over produced under stress "accelerate the ageing process and is a major risk factor not only in Alzheimer's disease but also in the far more common condition of age-associated memory disorder". D S Khalsa M.D. Meditation as Medicine 2001.
Cancer Management
Meditation and other approaches to deep relaxation help centre people so they can figure out how they'd like to handle the illness and proceed with life. An Australian psychiatrist who uses meditation with cancer patients, studied seventy-three patients who had attended at least twenty sessions of intensive meditation, and wrote: "Nearly all such patients can expect significant reduction of anxiety and depression, together with much less discomfort and pain. There is reason to expect a 10 percent chance of quite remarkable slowing of the rate of growth of the tumour, and a 50 percent chance of greatly improved quality of life.
Long-term meditators experience 80 percent less heart disease and 50 percent less cancer than nonmeditators.
Meditation as Medicine 2001 D S Khalsa and C Stuath
Reduced Hospitalisation
In a study reported in Psychosomatic Medicine 1987, a study was compiled from health insurance statistics on over 2,000 people who had practised meditation for a five or more years period. This study found that the meditators consistently underwent less than half of any hospitalisation undertaken by other groups and this factored in those of comparable age, gender and profession. This difference increased in older-age brackets and the meditators had fewer incidents of illness in seventeen medical treatment categories, including 87% less hospitalisation for heart disease and 55% less for cancer. Finally, the meditators consistently had more than 50% fewer doctor visits than did other groups.
Multiple Sclerosis
Extensive research on the benefits of meditation has shown significant improvements in-patients with cancer, diabetes, asthma, psoriasis, headache, multiple sclerosis, and other ailments. University of Massachusetts Medical School Centre for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care and Society.
Taken daily, it can untangle tension, fight fatigue and even lower your blood pressure. It can lift your spirits…it costs nothing, has no side effects and doesn't require medical help.
Arthritis Today - magazine of the Arthritis Foundation
RESEARCH AND EVIDENCE FOR HEALTH & WELLBEING BENEFITS
There are hundreds of studies, ranging from Harvard Medical School and Yale University, through to the Swedish Airforce, which provide strong research on these benefits (and many others). Research on one form of meditation alone has been conducted at over 200 different universities, hospitals and research institutions in over 30 countries. Included below are just a few
Dr Craig Hassed, senior lecturer, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing & Health Sciences at Melbourne's Monash University, says:
Meditation is a great adjunct for a lot of things, from chronic pain to improving sleep, helping reduce blood pressure and coping with stress, anxiety and depression.
Stress Reduction & Relaxation
• Meditation is the only activity that reduces blood lactate, a marker of stress and anxiety.
• The calming hormones melatonin and serotonin are increased by meditation and the stress hormone cortisol is decreased (cortisol is an adrenal hormone that is found in extremely high levels in people with pain).
• Meditation creates a unique state, in which the metabolism is in an even deeper state of rest than during sleep. During sleep, oxen consumption drops by 8 percent, but during meditation, it drops by 10 to 20 percent.
• Meditating 45 year old women and men had on average, respectively, 47% and 23% more DHEA (the youth related hormone) than non-meditators -this helps decrease stress, heighten memory, preserve sexual function, and control weight.
Extracts from Meditation as Medicine - D. S. Khalsa, M.D. and C. Stauth - Pocket Books, 2001
Meditation provides a far deeper state of relaxation than does simple eyes-closed rest. The breath rate and plasma lactate decreases and the basal skin resistance increases significantly more during meditation than during eyes-closed rest. Prior to the meditation sessions, meditating subjects had lower levels of breath rate, plasma lactate, spontaneous skin conductance, and heart rate than did the controls and this deeper level of relaxation before starting the practice suggests that reduced physiological stress through meditation is cumulative.
American Psychologist 1987.
Experiments conducted by Dr H Benson of Harvard University into meditation techniques established that the techniques had a very real effect on reducing stress - direct effects included slowed heartbeat and breathing, reduced oxygen consumption and increased skin resistance. "The Relaxation Response" Dr H Benson 1968
According to a randomised study conducted by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, a stress-reducing meditation technique can significantly reduce the severity of congestive heart failure, the leading cause of death in the U.S. This study is in the winter 2007 issue of Ethnicity & Disease.
Even the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have recommended meditation (along with salt and dietary restrictions) above prescription drugs as the first treatment for mild hypertension.
Improved Sleep
75 percent of insomniacs were able to sleep normally when they meditated. Meditation as Medicine. D.S. Khalsa, M.D. and C Stauth 2001
One hundred percent of insomnia patients reported improved sleep and 91% either eliminated or reduced the use of sleeping medication. The American Journal of Medicine 1996
Living Younger & Longer and slowing the ageing process
Reversal of Ageing Process - A study group of long-term meditators (practising meditation for five years or more) were physiologically twelve years younger than their chronological age, as measured by reduction of blood pressure, and better near-point vision and auditory discrimination. Short-term meditators were physiologically five years younger than their chronological age. The study controlled for the effects of diet and exercise.
International Journal of Neuroscience 1982.
• Meditators secrete more of the youth-related hormone DHEA as they age than non-meditators.
• Meditating 45 year old women and men had on average, respectively, 47% and 23% more DHEA than non-meditators - this helps decrease stress, heighten memory, preserve sexual function, and control weight.
• Meditation has a profound effect upon three key indicators of ageing: hearing ability, blood pressure, and vision of close objects.
Extracts from Meditation as Medicine - D. S. Khalsa, M.D. and C. Stauth - Pocket Books, 2001
A study by neuroscientist Sara Lazar Ph.D (who leads Meditation research at Harvard Medical School) showed that the part of the brain known as the cerebral cortex (critical in decision making and working memory) was thicker in people who meditated for as little as 40 minutes a day, compared with people who did not. It is possible that meditation may protect against age-related thinning of this part of the brain.
Weight Management
According to Dr Pamela Peeke, assistant clinical professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, stress can be a major contributor in weight gain and an increase of body fat and particularly abdominal fat.
This is because when stressed or anxious, the body produces stress hormones such as cortisol. These are the "fight or flight" hormones and would normally be discharged/dispersed if either of those physical options were followed. However, in modern society, these options are often not realistic possibilities and the stress hormones do not get released - particularly when a person is under regular stress or unable to manage/release their stress.
When held in this way, these hormones signal the fat cells to hold tight and this makes weight loss even harder. Additionally, stress hormones signal the brain to increase appetite. Finally, these hormones can have an effect on the "happy hormones" such as serotonin, which can lead to depressed moods and potentially, comfort eating.
Meditators secrete more of the youth-related hormone DHEA as they age than non-meditators and this can help decrease stress and control weight. Extracts from Meditation as Medicine - D. S. Khalsa, M.D. and C. Stauth - Pocket Books, 2001
Blood pressure
Meditation lowers blood pressure
BBC News report, August 1999
A randomised study conducted by the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine showed that a widely practised, stress-reducing meditation technique can significantly reduce the severity of congestive heart failure. Referenced in Ethnicity & Disease journal 2007.
"People with high blood pressure may want to medicate and meditate" American Heart Association journal. Results published in the Association's journal Hypertension, showed that the Transcendental Meditation technique significantly lowered blood pressure in older African American men and women who were at high risk for five major risk factor groups. August 1996
Practising meditation may play an important role in controlling certain risk factors for heart disease…practice for 20 minutes a day has a positive, measurable effect on the build up of fatty deposits in arteries or atherosclerosis…just a small reduction could reduce the risk of heart attack by 11 % and reduce the risk of stroke by 15%.
CNN, July 2000 and referencing the March edition of the journal Stroke.
Eighty percent of hypertensive patients have lowered blood pressure and decreased medications - 16% are able to discontinue all of their medications. These results lasted at least three years. Journal of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation 1989
A relaxation technique known as transcendental meditation may decrease blood pressure and reduce insulin resistance among patients with coronary heart disease, according to a report in the June 12 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Even the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have recommended meditation (along with salt and dietary restrictions) above prescription drugs as the first treatment for mild hypertension.
Greater Energy
TIME Magazine
Many people who meditate claim the practice restores their energy, allowing them to perform better at tasks that require attention and concentration. If so, wouldn't a midday nap work just as well? No, says Bruce O'Hara, associate professor of biology at the University of Kentucky. In a study he had college students either meditate, sleep or watch TV. Then he tested them for what psychologists call psychomotor vigilance. Those who had been taught to meditate performed 10% better - "a huge jump, statistically speaking," says O'Hara. Those who snoozed did significantly worse.
Improved General Health & Immune System
There is significant data that meditation can enhance healing - Executive Director, Centre for Mindfulness in Medicine, University of Massachusetts, as quoted in Arthritis Today magazine.
Recent studies suggest meditation may balance the immune system to help the body resist disease. Arthritis Today magazine.
Extensive research on the benefits of meditation has shown significant improvements in-patients with cancer, diabetes, asthma, psoriasis, headache, multiple sclerosis, and other ailments. University of Massachusetts Medical School
"...Meanwhile, the evidence from meditation researchers continues to mount. One study, for example, shows that women who meditate and use guided imagery have higher levels of the immune cells known to combat tumours in the breast. This comes after many studies have established that meditation can significantly reduce blood pressure.
TIME Magazine
A 5-year study of medical care statistics on 2,000 people who regularly practised Transcendental Meditation found that their overall rate of hospitalisation was 56% lower than the norm. Psychosomatic Medicine 1987.
A new study shows that meditation can help produce antibodies against illness and also lift your spirits. Researchers say biological effects seen in the study are long lasting -- up to four months after the end of meditation training. Psychosomatic Medicine 2003.
Medical outcomes from 15,000 patients' participation since 1979 have shown a 35% reduction in the number of medical symptoms and a 40% reduction in psychological symptoms. University of Massachusetts Medical School
The managers and employees in two companies which introduced meditation and who regularly practised meditation improved significantly in overall physical health and mental well being, as compared to control subjects with similar jobs in the same companies. The meditation practitioners also reported significant reductions in health problems such as headaches and backaches, improved quality of sleep, and a significant reduction in the use of hard liquor and cigarettes, compared to personnel in the control groups.
Anxiety, Stress and Coping International Journal.
Better Cardiovascular Health
In a randomised study conducted by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, a widely practised, stress-reducing meditation technique can significantly reduce the severity of congestive heart failure." The results of this study indicate that transcendental meditation can be effective in improving the functional capacity and quality of life of congestive heart failure patients" said Ravishankar Jayadevappa, PhD, lead author and Research Assistant Professor in Penn's Division of Geriatric Medicine. "These results also suggest long-term improvements in survival in these individuals." The study appears in the Winter 2007 issue of Ethnicity & Disease.
This study was sponsored by the National Institutes of Health-National Centre for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, in a collaboration between the University of Pennsylvania with the Institute for Natural Medicine and Prevention at Maharishi University of Management.
Pain Management
65 percent of the patients who spent 10 weeks in Jon Kabat-Zinn's Stress Reduction Clinic reported that their pain was reduced by one-third or more. This study was published in the April 1982 issue of General Hospital Psychiatry.
Research shows meditation can help relieve many arthritis symptoms, such as pain, anxiety, stress and depression, as well as relieve the fatigue and insomnia associated with fibromyalgia. Arthritis Foundation.
Meditation reduces cortisol, the stress hormone, which is found in very high levels with people in pain. As referenced by DK Singh M.D. in his book, Meditation as Medicine.
"We're decreasing their bodily pain, decreasing the intensity of their pain and we're increasing the quality of their life" Dr Jackie Gardner-Nix, (who runs a meditation programme at Sunnybrook and St Michael's hospitals in Toronto).
Twelve healthy long-term meditators who had been practising Transcendental Meditation for 30 years showed a 40-50% lower brain response to pain compared to 12 healthy controls, reported by a latest NeuroReport journal article, published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins August 2006. Further, when the 12 controls then learned and practised Transcendental Meditation for 5 months, their brain responses to pain also decreased by a comparable 40-50%. According to Orme-Johnson, lead author of this research, "Prior research indicates that Transcendental Meditation creates a more balanced outlook on life and greater equanimity in reacting to stress. This study suggests that this is not just an attitudinal change, but a fundamental change in how the brain functions".
Improved Mental Function, Intelligence & Memory
Significant performance improvements in memory and cognition were shown by students instructed in meditation, as compared with students randomly allocated a routine of 'eyes closed' rest twice a day and those who did not have any change to their routine.
Memory and Cognition 1982.
Intelligence increased significantly in University students who regularly practised meditation over a 2-year period. Personality and Individual Differences 1991 and Perceptual and Motor Skills 1986.
Results showed that the practice of meditation techniques develops greater field independence (which is associated with a greater ability to assimilate and structure experience, greater organisation of mind and cognitive clarity, improved memory and greater creative expression). This improvement in meditators is remarkable because it was previously thought that these basic perceptual abilities do not improve beyond early adulthood.
Perceptual Motor Skills.
A study using the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (measuring figural and verbal creativity) in a control group and in a group that subsequently learned meditation, showed five months later that the meditation group scored significantly higher on figural originality, flexibility and verbal fluency. Journal of Creative Behaviour.
Depression
In the 1990s British psychiatrist John Teasdale became intrigued with mindfulness meditation, a Buddhist practice in which you sit quietly and observe whatever thoughts and perceptions arise in your consciousness, but without judging them. He and colleagues showed that mindfulness training halves the rate at which people treated for depression relapse. Newsweek 2007
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
This is an extract taken from additudemag.com from an interview with psychiatrist L Zylowska MD who heads the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Centre's ADHD programme.
"We just completed a study involving 25 adults and eight adolescents, half of whom had the combined (both inattentive and hyperactive) form of ADHD, and the results were very promising. We observed significant improvements in both inattention and hyperactivity. In cognitive tests, the participants got better at staying focused, even when different things were competing for their attention. Many of them also felt less anxious and depressed by the end of study. Researchers have shown that, compared with people who don't meditate, long-time meditators have different EEG and MRI patterns, particularly in the brain's frontal region-the region that is involved with AD/HD. Another study found a rise in the level of the neurotransmitter dopamine during meditative states. Lowered levels of dopamine have been found regularly in people with ADHD.
Respiratory Conditions
Asthma, emphysema and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) all restrict breathing and raise fears of suffocation, which in turn makes breathing even more difficult. Studies show that when people with these respiratory conditions learn breath meditation, they have fewer respiratory crises.
Improved mental function in older age
A study by neuroscientist Sara Lazar Ph.D (who leads Meditation research at Harvard Medical School) showed that the part of the brain known as the cerebral cortex (critical in decision making and working memory) was thicker in people who meditated for as little as 40 minutes a day, compared with people who did not. It is possible that meditation may protect against age-related thinning of this part of the brain.
The structural changes were found in areas of the brain that are important for sensory, cognitive and emotional processing. Jeremy Gray, assistant professor of psychology at Yale and co-author of the study led by Sara Lazar, said "What is most fascinating to me is the suggestion that meditation practice can change anyone's grey matter. The study participants were people with jobs and families. They just meditated on average 40 minutes each day, you don't have to be a monk.
Magnetic resonance imaging showed that regular practice of meditation is associated with increased thickness in a subset of cortical regions related to sensory, auditory, visual and internal perception, such as heart rate or breathing. The researchers also found that regular meditation practice may slow age-related thinning of the frontal cortex. November issue of NeuroReport.
The hormones cortisol and adrenaline, which are over produced under stress "accelerate the ageing process and is a major risk factor not only in Alzheimer's disease but also in the far more common condition of age-associated memory disorder". D S Khalsa M.D. Meditation as Medicine 2001.
Cancer Management
Meditation and other approaches to deep relaxation help centre people so they can figure out how they'd like to handle the illness and proceed with life. An Australian psychiatrist who uses meditation with cancer patients, studied seventy-three patients who had attended at least twenty sessions of intensive meditation, and wrote: "Nearly all such patients can expect significant reduction of anxiety and depression, together with much less discomfort and pain. There is reason to expect a 10 percent chance of quite remarkable slowing of the rate of growth of the tumour, and a 50 percent chance of greatly improved quality of life.
Long-term meditators experience 80 percent less heart disease and 50 percent less cancer than nonmeditators.
Meditation as Medicine 2001 D S Khalsa and C Stuath
Reduced Hospitalisation
In a study reported in Psychosomatic Medicine 1987, a study was compiled from health insurance statistics on over 2,000 people who had practised meditation for a five or more years period. This study found that the meditators consistently underwent less than half of any hospitalisation undertaken by other groups and this factored in those of comparable age, gender and profession. This difference increased in older-age brackets and the meditators had fewer incidents of illness in seventeen medical treatment categories, including 87% less hospitalisation for heart disease and 55% less for cancer. Finally, the meditators consistently had more than 50% fewer doctor visits than did other groups.
Multiple Sclerosis
Extensive research on the benefits of meditation has shown significant improvements in-patients with cancer, diabetes, asthma, psoriasis, headache, multiple sclerosis, and other ailments. University of Massachusetts Medical School Centre for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care and Society.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Chant and Be Happy - Mantra meditation workshop
Everyone wants to be happy. Some of us seek happiness through family, career or social life. Others look for it in politics, arts, academia, natural healthy living or many other activities. All of these endeavors represent our endless quest for satisfaction and pleasure. However, the basic problem in our search for happiness is that all of these sources of pleasure are limited and temporary. Mantra meditation enables us to expand our pleasure beyond present limitations. Through the mystical power of transcendental sound, inner happiness can be experienced instantly and directly because it operates beyond the boundaries of time and space and emanates from the core of our being.
Mantra meditation is a process for reviving our original, pure consciousness through the medium of transcendental sound. In this workshop, Devamrita Swami, an Urban Monk who has practiced Mantra meditation for nearly 40 years, will explain to us how to use these sound vibrations to attain extraordinary states of happiness. Mantra meditation is a very simple process that can be easily adopted by anyone. This workshop will enable participants to experience the uplifting power of sublime sound through chanting and singing timeless Sanskrit mantras. Our voices will be accompanied by eastern instruments like the mrdnga drum, karatals (hand cymbals), and harmonium.
Mantra meditation is a process for reviving our original, pure consciousness through the medium of transcendental sound. In this workshop, Devamrita Swami, an Urban Monk who has practiced Mantra meditation for nearly 40 years, will explain to us how to use these sound vibrations to attain extraordinary states of happiness. Mantra meditation is a very simple process that can be easily adopted by anyone. This workshop will enable participants to experience the uplifting power of sublime sound through chanting and singing timeless Sanskrit mantras. Our voices will be accompanied by eastern instruments like the mrdnga drum, karatals (hand cymbals), and harmonium.
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