The Winding Path

Many of us know how beneficial meditation can be, either through personal experience, or through the experiences of those close to us. I’ve certainly never met a long-term meditator who didn’t clearly show the benefits in their positive attitude and obvious good health.

Yet, as a recent report shows, as far as theraputic value is concerned, there isn’t much conclusive scientific evidence available. The report’s authors, Maria Ospina and Kenneth Bond, concluded that:

“Many uncertainties surround the practice of meditation. Scientific research on meditation practices does not appear to have a common theoretical perspective and is characterized by poor methodological quality. Firm conclusions on the effects of meditation practices in healthcare cannot be drawn based on the available evidence. Future research on meditation practices must be more rigorous in the design and execution of studies and in the analysis and reporting of results.”

Since meditation has ample anecdotal evidence, and the good word of a friend is often more than enough, what do we really need scientific evidence for?

Well, what about someone who has a history of drug abuse? You’d expect meditation of some form to be helpful, but what style of meditation? The report shows that the studies “were too dissimilar in type of meditation practice, comparison group, and data for common outcomes of interest to allow direct or indirect comparisons of the effectiveness of meditation practices for substance abuse.” Experiences with drug abuse are highly personal, as are experiences with meditation, so without a guideline a perfectly legitimate form of treatment is ignored by most western medical practitioners.

While alternative therapists are not ignoring meditation, individual therapists tend to favour a specific style, a style which may or may not be most suitable for an individual patient’s need. This applies not only to substance abuse, but for all forms of affliction.

So while those of us who are generally healthy can take our time exploring a variety of forms of meditation (which I highly recommend you do), many people don’t have such luxury, or the desire. But given the choice between a daily suffering and an effective method of supplemental treatment that requires little effort, I’m sure most people would choose meditation, even if it requires considerable time and patience.

More information can be found in today’s Science Daily review of the report.

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This entry was posted on Monday, July 2nd, 2007 at 2:31 pm and is filed under Meditation, Science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.