CHANGES IN PHYSIOLOGICAL AND BIOENERGETICAL MARKERS

1
CHANGES IN PHYSIOLOGICAL AND BIOENERGETICAL
MARKERS ASSOCIATED WITH STATIONARY MEDITATION
Shin Lin, Kaivalya Jay Vyas, Quoc
Nguyen, Sakya Uch, Antonios Michalos,
Enrico Gratton, Ramesh Srinivasan. Depts.
of Developmental Cell Biology, Biomedical
Engineering, Cognitive Sciences, and Susan
Samueli Center for Integrative Medicine,
University of California, Irvine, CA 92697-2300,
and Dept. of Physics, University of Illinois,
Urbana-Champaign, IL 61801-2982

INTRODUCTION Common meditation practices can be
classified as those carried out in a stationary
position (e.g., standing or sitting Qigong
meditation) and those involving body movement
(e.g., Tai Chi). The aim of this study is to
investigate changes in various physiological and
bioenergetic markers associated with stationary
meditation, and compare them with some of those
associated with moving meditation.
METHODS Subjects This study, approved by UCI
IRB protocol HS2002-2604, included subjects who
are UC Irvine students and staff between the age
of 18-35, and expert Tai Chi practitioners
between the age of 50-60. They are healthy and
free of any medications by self-report. Instrument
ation Cutaneous blood flow was measured with a
laser Doppler flowmetry instrument from Moor
(Figure 1). Biophoton (ultra-weak photon)
emission was measured with a single photon
counting system constructed in the laboratory
(Figure 2). Electroencephalography recording was
made with a Geodesic Sensor Net. Heart rate
variability was computed with fast Fourier
transformation software from electrocardiograms
recorded with a Holter monitor from Pre-Ideal
Co.
Figure 6. Oxygen consumption rate (red line) was
measured at the forehead transcranially by
photon migration spectroscopy (near infrared
spectroscopy) during sitting meditation. Note
steady decrease from to baseline value prior to
start of meditation at left edge of recording.
Figure 4. Biophoton emission from the palm was
measured before and after 20 minutes of slow
versus fast Tai Chi practice by a single subject.
Figure 7. Independent component analysis of
electroencephalogram recorded before, during, and
after two periods of sitting meditation (left
panel). The relative power of three classes of
brain waves at the brain region indicated on the
skull map on the upper right corner of left panel
was estimated from the analysis of the 3 states
indicated (right panel). Elevation of all three
kinds of waves during meditation indicate that
the subject was in a dual state of deep rest and
mental concentration.
Figure 1.
Figure 2.
RESULTS



Figure 5. Blood flow was monitored by laser
Doppler flowmetry continuously before, during and
after subjects practiced 20 minutes of meditation
in the sitting position. Values shown are
averages computed from recordings from each of
the three stages.

Figure 8. Heart rate variability analysis of
electrocardiograms recorded before (left panel)
and during (right panel) sitting meditation. Note
appearance of a high frequency peak at 0.3 Hz in
the fast Fourier transformation power spectrum
(right graph of right panel) computed from the
heart rate variability time series (left graph of
right panel) recorded during the meditation
period. This peak indicates elevation of
parasympathetic tone associated with a state of
deep rest.
CONCLUSION
The results of the different parts of this study
indicate that while stationary meditation is
effective in inducing a relaxed mental state, it
differs from the moving meditation of Tai Chi
because it leads to a lowered metabolic and
bioenergetic state.
Figure 3. The slow, soft, circular hand-arm
movements of Chen Style Single Hand Silk Reeling
exercise significantly increased cutaneous blood
flow in a subject compared to baseline (value at
left edge of recording) measured as Flux (top
panel) with laser Doppler flowmetry at the PC8
acupoint at the center of the palm. This
increase was due to elevation of the Speed
parameter (bottom panel) in the measurement
(Flux Speed x Concentration).
This work is supported by the Joseph and Sou-Lin
Lee Endowment for Chinese Medicine Research.
Figure 6. Biophoton emission (UPE) rate was
measured on subjects before and after 20 minutes
of sitting meditation.