In our left-hemisphere
dominated society, in
which achieving and
succeeding are valued
over being, meditation offers us a method
of switching into the
right-hemisphere mode
of thinking, thereby re-addressing this
imbalance. Meditation
also elicits brain wave
changes
associated
with higher states of
consciousness than our
everyday, waking state,
and therefore provides
the key to unlocking the
innate potential of our
brains. By observing the
changes in brain activ-
ity underlying some of
the main features of
mystical experiences
elicited through meditation, we have therefore not only gained
a better understanding
of the involvement of
the brain in conveying mystical experiences and eliciting mystical states of awareness, but we have also
gained a more complete picture of the role
that meditation plays in
eliciting these changes
in brain activity, and
indeed, the role it plays
in optimising the performance of our brains.
INVESTIGATING THE EFFECT OF MEDITATION ON
MEASURABLE HEALTH OUTCOMES
The growing body of
evidence supporting
the role of meditation
in triggering mystical
experiences or mystical
states of awareness,
together with the evolv-
ing view of meditation
as a potential method of optimising brain
performance,
have
prompted researchers
to explore the effects
of meditation on the
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health and well-being
of the practitioner. This
research reveals that
meditation may play
an important role in
modern healthcare.