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Studies have shown meditation may boost the immune system

A funny thing happened to meditation on the way to the 21st century. It got demystified, and in the process became acceptable to mainstream America.

You won't hear people talking about Nirvana much with today's Westernized meditation, and there's hardly a crystal in sight. Instead scientists are studying Buddhist monks with electroencephalographs and magnetic resonance imaging. Health-care professionals are recommending meditation when drugs and other therapies don't work, and sometimes when they do — they may call it a "relaxation technique," to avoid the m-word.

Meditation, a discipline nearly as old as human life and a mainstay of Eastern spirituality, has gained reluctant acceptance as a treatment for everything from high blood pressure to attention-deficit disorder. By sitting quietly and concentrating on a word, breath or image, meditators can put themselves into a state of deep relaxation. Recent scientific studies have shown the process may boost the immune system, control pain and lower stress.

"Its effectiveness has been fairly well-established with controlled research," says Glenn Schiraldi, who is on the stress-management faculty of the University of Maryland, College Park Department of Public and Community Health. Schiraldi meditates 10 or 15 minutes every morning. "It creates changes in the body opposite in every way to stress, and it's intrinsically pleasant to do."

Gaining acceptance

Getting started "There are a thousand ways to meditate," says stress-management expert Glenn Schiraldi. You don't have to sit cross-legged or empty your mind of conscious thought. And there are a thousand different reasons to meditate, from connecting with your "true, happy nature" to getting in touch with the divine to simple relaxation. Whatever your reason, getting started is the easy part. Here's how: • Get some help. It might be a book or a tape or the Internet, but another person is best. "We all have misconceptions when we start out," says Chris Kreeger, a meditation instructor at the Shambhala Center in Baltimore. For instance, he says, "It's not about not having thoughts. It's more about not being attached to them." • Find a place to practice. It should be quiet, and you should be comfortable there. "Setting up a place cues us," says Baltimore psychologist Elaine Yamada, who deals with trauma survivors in her private practice. "It tells our bodies this is the time to be in that quiet way." • Make a commitment to practice on a daily basis, even if only for a few minutes. • Close or half close your eyes and pick a word or a phrase to say over and over. Its rhythm will help you focus. It could be in the form of a prayer if that appeals to you, such as one of Kreeger's suggestions, "Be still and know that I am God." Or it could be a syllable like "om." "Any phrase that resonates with you will do," says Yamada. • Or pay attention to your breath. Concentrate on the sensation of breathing to the exclusion of everything else. • Let any thoughts that intrude float away like a leaf on the river. With practice, distracting thoughts will subside. Need help? If you need more meditation help than you can get from a book or a video, the yoga classes at your gym probably include a little meditation practice. Some churches, Quaker meetings and yoga centers offer meditation classes. You can find other classes under "Meditation Instruction" in the Yellow Pages or on the Internet. — Elizabeth Large

"Meditation works," a cover story in Time magazine proclaimed this summer, detailing the scientific research that shows it can profoundly affect the body and actually reshape the brain. Millions of Americans seem to agree. As alternative medical treatments go, meditation seems to have the most clear-cut benefits, the kind that can be demonstrated in the lab (although the article also poked fun at the process, expressing the ambivalence many Americans still feel about it).

While it's true that meditation is being stripped of the mystical trappings that make Westerners uneasy — the chanting, incense and Sanskrit mantras (a repeated word or phrase to quiet the mind) — people who start practicing for health reasons often end up finding the spirituality of meditation on their own. Reaching Nirvana might be even better than, say, controlling migraines.

A few months ago, Bob Parrott, a 49-year-old car salesman who lives in Abingdon, Md., was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer. He started to meditate daily, using a bargain-table book he picked up at a book vendor as a guide. When he talks about the benefits of meditating, he doesn't mention pain or stress, or the fact that he's able to tolerate the radiation treatments better.

"The system has helped me live in the here and now," he says. "I'm not wearing any of my hats. I'm not a car salesman. Not a husband. Not a father. The discovery of a deeper self erases a lot of the fear of mortality."

The short-term positive effects of meditation on the nervous system have been generally accepted in the United States ever since the best seller "Relaxation Response" by a Harvard cardiologist, Herbert Benson, was published in 1975. The latest science suggests meditation can have long-term health benefits, maybe even life-extending ones. Sophisticated scans have shown it can actually rewire the brain.

An open mind

You don't need any special equipment to practice, although a whole industry has sprung up in the past few years selling cushions, clothes, audio and videotapes, books and focusing aids like meditation crystals. You don't have to wait for an appointment or worry about whether your health insurance will pay for it. And you don't have to be a New Age kook.

Lisa Sanders, a Towson, Md., graduate student whose field is human-resources development, has been practicing for the last three years. Three or four evenings a week she goes into her bedroom, puts on a compact disc of meditation music she bought at a store, sits with her legs crossed and meditates for 15 or 20 minutes.

"I relax, I get a new start on whatever I'm into, it calms me down," she says.

If scientists were recording the 23-year-old's EEGs as she focuses on her breathing, shuts out the outside world and enters a meditative state, they would find that the activity in the areas of her brain that process sensory information slows down. Conscious thought decreases and relaxation increases.

In a small but intriguing study, Richard Davidson, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, found that "mindfulness meditation" — focusing on the present moment and appreciating it fully — seems to increase activity in the area of the brain associated with lower anxiety and a more optimistic outlook in general, a result that lasts after the meditation practice ends. His research team also studied immune function by giving participants in the study flu shots. Two months later those who meditated had developed significantly more antibodies to the vaccine than the control group.

So why isn't everyone meditating? For one thing, it isn't easy. Getting your mind to focus on the present and become quiet isn't something Westerners are comfortable doing — oms or no oms. Meditating takes patience and perseverance. Buddhists call it "meditation practice" for a reason. To get good at it, you have to do it daily.

But meditation does have a major advantage over other alternative medicines. Doctors and hospitals are comfortable suggesting patients try it because the only downside is feeling foolish or getting bored. No one is sticking needles in patients or manipulating their spines. They aren't taking herbal supplements not regulated by the FDA. Even the sickest patients don't require supervision, just a little gentle instruction and an open mind.