WHETHER MANTRAS UTTERED SHOW REACTION ON BODY AND MIND
Mantras can positively impact both the mind and body through various
mechanisms. Regular mantra practice can lead to reduced stress, improved
focus, emotional balance, and even physical benefits like lower blood
pressure and better sleep. These effects stem from the vibrational
frequencies of mantras, the regulated breathing patterns during chanting,
and the meditative state they can induce.
Stress Reduction:
Mantras can activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which promotes
relaxation and reduces the production of stress hormones like cortisol.
Improved Focus and Concentration:
The repetitive nature of chanting helps train the mind to focus, leading to
improved concentration and reduced mental clutter.
Emotional Balance:
Mantra practice can help regulate emotions, reduce negative feelings like
anger and sadness, and promote a sense of calm and well-being.
Increased Mindfulness:
Chanting can bring individuals into the present moment, enhancing
mindfulness and reducing overthinking.
Positive Mood:
Studies suggest that chanting can lead to positive changes in brain
activity, potentially improving mood and reducing symptoms of anxiety and
depression.
Physical Benefits:
Lower Blood Pressure:
Chanting, particularly the sound "om," has been shown to reduce blood
pressure and heart rate.
Improved Sleep:
Mantra chanting can help regulate breathing and promote relaxation, which
may improve sleep quality.
Physical Relaxation:
The synchronized breath and rhythm associated with chanting can induce
physical relaxation and reduce muscle tension.
Enhanced Lung Capacity:
Deep, rhythmic breathing during chanting can improve breathing and lung
capacity.
Spiritual Benefits:
Connection to Inner Self:
Mantra practice can be a gateway to deeper self-awareness and a sense of
connection to one's inner wisdom.
Spiritual Awakening:
Some believe that mantras can facilitate spiritual awakening and a
connection with a higher power or universal energy.
Enhanced Meditation:
Chanting can be a powerful tool for entering a meditative state, allowing
for deeper self-reflection and spiritual exploration.
How Mantras Work:
Sound Vibrations:
Mantras create specific sound frequencies that can soothe the nervous
system and promote relaxation.
Rhythmic Breathing:
Chanting necessitates deep, regular breathing patterns, which can have a
calming and balancing effect on the body and mind.
Repetition and Mindfulness:
The repetitive nature of chanting, coupled with focused attention, can
induce a meditative state, leading to increased presence and a sense of
groundedness.
In essence, mantras offer a holistic approach to well-being, impacting
mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual aspects of life.
2 NATIONAL RESEARCH
Mantra meditation (MM) is one of the simplest and most effective meditative
practices suitable for both novice and skillful meditators. It has
attracted a significant number of practitioners for various health benefits
or for spiritual inspiration. The scope of this review article focuses on
the examination of the health benefits of practicing MM without considering
the motivation by spiritual rewarding or cultivation. Through the
examination, we attempt to confirm and to add scientific evidence on the
benefits of mental and physical health to the practitioners. We review a
large number of the recent studies of MM for understanding the mechanism in
yielding medical benefits and for analyzing the quantitative evidence of
the trial outcomes. The review covers four important areas: stress,
anxiety, hypertension, and immunity, with the hope to evoke more studies to
refine the current evidence and to encourage more studies in other
promising areas. Furthermore, the review gives more attention or discussion
on more recent, original, and stronger studies. The discussion can include
the strong or weak points of the reviewed studies. The review discovers
evidence that MM can provide various degrees of beneficial effects on the
four areas considered. Studies with larger participants, superior quality,
and a few others are recommended to draw firm conclusions. Several
promising research areas and directions are also suggested.
In 2012, the US National Center for Health Statistics conducted an NHIS
Adult Alternative Medicine Supplement Survey with nationwide valid samples
from 32,876 households, consisting of 34,525 adults. The 2012 Survey data
disclosed that 1.6% of the valid respondents had practiced MM in the
previous 12 months, which represents 3.6 million adults in the USA. This is
a significant number of adults practicing MM in the USA. Furthermore, the
prevalence of practicing MM in the Eastern world could be even higher since
most meditation techniques, including MM, originate in Eastern spiritual or
religious traditions.
The term mantra originates from Sanskrit and means an instrument of mind or
thought. It is a sacred utterance consisting of syllables, words, or verses
to form a sacred symbol, spiritual figure, or magic incantation. A mantra
is a central feature in MM, which employs a repeated mantra as the focus of
meditation to distinguish itself from other forms of meditation. MM is a
range of techniques to achieve a meditative state by repeating a mantra, in
which mantra repetition no longer consciously occurs and instead, the mind
reaches a near-empty state without thought or bothering by anxiety or
attachments. The mantras adopted in MM are relatively short and can be only
one syllable, such as “Om” or “Ham,” known as seed syllables. In general,
mantras can be chanted silently, softly, or loudly with active or passive
breathing. Many scientific studies have found evidence to suggest that MM
should be a nonpharmacological strategy to foster positive mental and
physical health among the general population. Consequently, the purpose of
the present article is to review more recent studies and to find more
medical evidence of the benefits of practicing MM. Moreover, the evidence
presented is not meant to be a comprehensive one but rather to focus on
providing evidence in four important health areas, including stress,
anxiety, hypertension, and immunity, to illustrate the versatility and
delicacy of the health benefits obtained from practicing MM.
During MM, the body and mind can enter a state of profound rest. Heart and
respiration rates typically decrease during meditation. However, the heart
rate can also speed up during meditation in response to the introduction of
stimuli perceived as stressful. Moreover, Credidio found that, by
practicing Clinically Standardized Meditation (CSM), meditators showed
significantly greater frontalis electromyographic (EMG) decreases and
peripheral skin temperature increases than did a group practicing
Biofeedback. Lehrer, et al. showed that participants practicing CSM
meditation, compared with those practicing progressive relaxation or with
controls, displayed greater cardiac deceleration, more frontal EEG alpha,
and fewer symptoms of cognitive anxiety than those in the other groups.
They concluded that CSM prepares people to cope with stress. Here, CSM was
developed by Carrington by reciting a mantra loudly, slowly, and
rhythmically to make MM flexible enough to be more suitable for clinical
purposes.[6] Biofeedback is the process of using electronic instruments to
gain awareness of many physiological functions of one's body with the
intention to control these functions to improve one's health. Biofeedback
has been used for the treatment of headaches and migraines. PR is based on
the premise that muscle tension is the body's psychological response to
anxiety-provoking thoughts and can be released by tensing and relaxing
specific muscle groups. In the electronic instruments used in the above
studies, EMG is a measure of muscle electrical activities in response to a
nerve's stimulation and is a diagnostic procedure to assess the health of
muscles and the nerve cells that control them. EEG alpha is neural
oscillations in the frequency range of 8–12 Hz produced by EEG, which is
the abbreviation of electroencephalogram. It is a method to measure voltage
fluctuations (brain waves) resulting from ionic current within the neurons
of the surface layer of the brain.
In 2009, Travis et al. applied EEG to investigate the effects of
Transcendental Meditation (TM) on brain functioning. They found that TM
practice decreased the effects of previous stressful experiences and made
an individual function better in stressful situations. Furthermore, their
results indicated that lower sleepiness and faster habituation rates were
negatively correlated with higher scores on the Brain Integration Scale,
which is also negatively correlated with anxiety. Here, TM is one of the
popular MM techniques developed in modern times. It involves passive
breathing with no specific breath patterns. Without any strenuous effort,
meditators mentally (silently) repeat the mantra.
In 2010, Elder et al. evaluated the effects of TM on
psychological distress and burnout among 40 school teachers and support
staff at a therapeutic school for students with severe behavioral problems
in Vermont. The 40 participants were randomly assigned to either the
wait-list control group or the TM practicing group, in which TM was
practiced twice daily for approximately 20 min for 4 months. Outcome
measures, including perceived stress, depression, and burnout, were
assessed after 4-month TM. Self-assessment based on the 5-point Perceived
Stress Scale (PSS) was used to evaluate participants' stress. Without much
explanation of their data obtained, Elder et al. indicated a significant
improvement in the main outcomes, including stress, resulting from
practicing TM compared with controls. They further concluded that the TM
was effective in reducing psychological distress in teachers and support
staff working for students with severe behavioral problems.
In 2020, Avvenuti et al. combined psychometric questionnaires and
functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the potential
brain modifications underlying the psychological effects of TM. The 19
participants in the testing group were asked to complete two 20-min TM
sessions daily, while 15 volunteers were in the control group. Both groups
were evaluated before and after the 3-month TM program. The results
indicated that only the TM testing group showed a decrease in perceived
anxiety and stress, which correlated negatively with the changes in
functional connectivity among the posterior cingulate cortex, precuneus,
and left superior parietal lobule. The findings also indicated that the
beneficial effects of TM may be attributed to functional brain changes that
take place after a short practice period of 3 months.[20] Here, fMRI uses
magnetic resonance imaging to measure brain activity by detecting changes
associated with blood flow and provides the static image of the whole
target region.
By measuring the galvanic skin response (GSR) of twenty healthy
female college students in 2012, Das and Anand studied the effect of 3-day
Om MM on the stress level change.[21] Each day, the participants perform
15-min loud Om meditation and 15-min prayer. The pretest GSR reading was
388.82 + 353.64 kilo-Ohms (Mean + Standard Deviation), while the posttest
reaching was 817.53 + 449.83 kilo-Ohms. Johnson and Lubin indicated that
stress relaxation is accompanied by high skin resistance, which reaches its
maximum during sleep Thus, Das and Anand's GSR results suggest that
practicing loud Om MM and praying increases the GSR value and hence
decreases the stress level of the meditation participants. Here, GSR is a
transient response or change in certain electrical properties of the skin
associated with the sweat gland activity and elicited by any stimulus. As
stress levels change, variations in the electrical resistance of the skin
are detected by GSR sensors. The activity of the sweat glands in response
to sympathetic nervous stimulation results in an increase in the level of
conductance.
In 2021, Gupta et al. studied the effectiveness of MM to combat stress
and its effects with 30 healthy participants recruited from local
undergraduate medical students in Jaipur, India.[24] Participants were
subjected to a computer game stressor. In addition to the self-reporting
measure based on PSS, the measures of the heart rate variability (HRV) and
GSR were also taken before and after the 6-week 20-min daily MM. An
interim-testing measure was also performed after the 3rd week of the 6-week
study. The results indicated that a 3-week MM was long enough to have
beneficial effects for participants under moderate or high stressed mind.
Gupta et al. believed that the positive or favorable effects were
attributed to a shift of sympathovagal balance to parasympathetic dominance
However, an MM study reported by Schoormans and Nyklíček in 2011
revealed no significant difference between the MM group and the mindfulness
group on self-reported stress.[25] Furthermore, in 2021, Matko et al.
studied the effects of four meditation conditions on the changes of stress
in 42 healthy participants, where these four conditions were (1) MM alone,
(2) MM plus physical yoga, (3) MM plus ethical education, and (4) MM plus
yoga and ethical education. Results indicated that the participants in the
MM-alone condition showed no sizable decrease in self-reported stress
measures, while there was a tendency for the combined conditions, i.e.,
combining MM with other practices, to decrease stress.
Based on the above reviews, in addition to using self-reported measures,
many MM studies adopted electronic measurements, including those from the
EMG, EEG, fMRI, GSR Sensor, and HRV Monitor, to quantify the stress state.
Using electronic measures can be more objective to minimize the subjective
responses from participants and should be encouraged. At least, electronic
instruments should be considered useful tools to obtain repeatable or
reliable data to complement the self-reported data. In self-reported
measures, the PSS was the most frequently used metric. The other metrics or
questionnaires include the Index of Clinical Stress.
Overall, the vast majority of the MM studies reported significant stress
relief by practicing MM, which should be a good candidate for combating
stress and its effects for a wide range of people.
In 2014, Goyal et al. performed a meta-analysis of the efficacy of
meditation for psychological well-being based on screened, well-qualified
studies. With insufficient consistent data available, MM was ranked by
Goyal et al. as no effect on anxiety with low-strength evidence, which is
also consistent with the earlier findings by Smith and Holmes indicating
that MM is not an effective method for reducing anxiety.
In 2020, Rankhambe and Pande studied the influence of Om MM on the anxiety
levels of a total of 100 bus drivers who were randomly divided into two
groups; the testing group and the control group. The testing group
practiced Om MM for 20 min daily for 6 days/week for 4 weeks, while the
control group did not involve in any meditation practice. The Hamilton
anxiety rating scale was used to evaluate anxiety levels before and after
the 4-week duration. The self-reported outcome of the testing group showed
that the anxiety levels were significantly reduced after practicing 4-week
Om MM, while the changes of the anxiety scores of controls were
insignificant.
Research has shown MM to be correlated with decreased blood pressure (BP)
in both pharmacologically treated and untreated hypertensive meditators. In
2013, as reported by Brook et al., TM has been recommended to the American
Heart Association in its Scientific Statement as Class IIb (Benefit > Risk,
additional studies and data would be helpful or needed) and Level of
Evidence B (Recommendation that procedure or treatment is useful/effective
and evidence from single randomized trial or nonrandomized studies)
In 2015, Steinhubl et al. used an electrocardiogram (ECG) to examine the
neurological and cardiovascular responses of 40 normotensive participants
recruited in the USA through a week-long silent MM. All participants wore a
noninvasive continuous BP monitor. The monitoring records indicated that
the mean arterial BP fell 2%–3% (2–3 mmHg) persistently during meditation,
which was slightly larger than that of Nidich et al.
Based on the above studies cited, the effects of TM on hypertension were
all positive. Thus, the Heart Association's recommendation should be
endorsed. However, the magnitudes of BP reductions were various for
different groups of participants. To make MM a reliable and effective
therapy for hypertension, better-quality systematic research with larger
sample sizes in this area should be encouraged.
Increasing Immunity
In 2014, Infante et al. studied the effect of TM on immunity by comparing
the immune cells of the 19 participants in the TM group with the 16
participants in the control group).[49] The TM group regularly practiced
either TM technique, while the control group had no meditation experience.
The immune cells measured included the total leukocytes, granulocytes,
lymphocytes, and monocytes, which were counted by an automated quantitative
hematology analyzer. The lymphocytes subsets were also measured by flow
cytometry. All measurements were taken from each participant after an
overnight fast. The TM group had higher values than the control group in
B-lymphocytes (52% higher), natural killer cells (68% higher), and
CD3+CD4-CD8+lymphocytes (20% higher), whereas CD3+CD4+CD8-lymphocytes
showed low levels (20% lower) in the TM group. No significant differences
were observed in total leukocytes, granulocytes, monocytes, and total
lymphocytes). Here, CD3+CD4+CD8 denote the lymphocyte surface antigens,
where CD3 was used to identify T-cells, CD4 for helper T-cells, and CD8 for
cytotoxic T-cells.
TM seems to have a significant effect on immune cells. Although the B-cells
and natural killer cells were higher in the TM group, the data of T-cells
were inconsistent. Thus, the effect of TM on the immune cells reported by
Infante et al. became somewhat inconclusive. More research is recommended,
especially to have a better way to distinguish the testing group from the
control group with a controlled TM period.
In 2016, Torkamani et al. conducted a 10-month study with 30 healthy
participants to evaluate the effect of loud MM on the change of Salivary
immunoglobulin A (s-IgA). The participants were all women and recruited
from yoga clubs in Shiraz, Iran. Here, s-IgA is an antibody found in body
fluids that prevent microorganisms' adhesion to the epithelial cells in
gastrointestinal and respiratory tracts, thus helping the body to
counteract the pathogens ingested, inhaled, or adhered to the body surface.
The 30 participants were randomly and evenly divided into the testing and
the control group. The testing group did group MM by repeating the mantra “Hoo”
with a loud voice for about 20 min, while the control group participants
were left passive. The mantra “Hoo,” is one of God's names in Iranian
theosophy. [KR DON’T WE HAVE HREEM HOOM…] Saliva samples were collected
from both groups at four interventions, i.e., at pretest (8:30 am), after
the tutorial session (9:20 am), after 20-min MM (9:50 am), and 1-h later
time (10:50 am). The s-IgA level was evaluated using an enzyme-linked
immunosorbent assay test. The mean s-IgA concentrations of the samples
taken after MM 1 h later from the testing group were 96.3 μg/m, which was
77.3% higher than the value, i.e., 54.3 μg/ml, taken at pretest time. The
corresponding change of the s-IgA level of the control group is from 53.5
μg/ml to 66.2 μg/ml, a 23.7% increase, which is 3.26 times lower than that
of the testing group. This difference is statistically significant. Since
the s-IgA level is a type of antibody found in body fluids, the higher the
s-IgA level, the better the body's immune system. This study indicated that
performing MM even for a single-20 min session can have a positive
influence on the ant-body fluid, s-IgA, and can improve the immune states
of the meditators. Finally, the influences of MM on the quality of life are
worthwhile to study because the purpose of health improvement is always to
increase the quality of life. The traits of stress, anxiety, hypertension,
and immunity considered in this article are all having the goal of
improving the quality of life.
A mantra's power comes from the fundamental truth of the cosmic and
human orders, known as “rta”, and is expressed verbally. These facts are
not merely made up; rather, they are profoundly ingrained in human
consciousness and go beyond the scope of the mind. Mantras have the power
to attain great wisdom and understanding in this space. The electrical
condition of the human brain in different psychological circumstances can
be acquired by electroencephalogram (EEG). Any changed in the mindset is
expected to be reflected in the EEG signal. EEG is of two types:
non-invasive and invasive process [7]. In non- invasive EEG, electrode cap
is implanted on the brain scalp. EEG is a useful technique used for
widespread academic research in the diagnosis of epileptic seizure, sleep
disorders, coma and other mental disorders which involve abundance or lack
of neural activity in certain parts of the brain.
*Do you know, the University of New York has taken copyrights for the
translation of Yoga Vasishta in English? It is a very exciting book.*
How many of you have seen the movie Matrix and Inception? Do you know what
the source of these movies is? How many of you don’t know? It is Yoga
Vasishta!
The story, the essence, the philosophy, the basis of these movies is Yoga
Vasishta.
When Sri Rama was a youth like you, he was very depressed. He was worried
about this nation, the country, and he got so depressed. His Guru,
Vasishta, gave him some advice, and the book which contains this knowledge
is called Yoga Vasishta. It is an absolutely thrilling and exciting book to
read.
Please give me a scientific definition of God.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: God is the substratum of creation, from which
everything has come, into which everything goes.
GOD is ‘Generator’, ‘Operator’ and ‘Destroyer’, that principle is called
GOD. Brahma (generator), Vishnu (operator) and Mahesh (destroyer), but
there is only one parmatma (God). Atom, the quantum field itself, you can
call as God; the field in which everything has happened. It is that one
thing that forms itself into many. If you want to hear in an artist’s
words, then ‘Love is God, and God is Love’.
How does one come out of the cycle of birth and death?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Why do you want to come out of it? Because you find
it miserable, right? But when life is blissful, then you coming back to the
planet will help a lot of people on this planet in the future. So why
shouldn’t you come back?
Suppose I come back next time, wouldn’t you like to comeback with me, and
have a lot of fun here? We can have a lot of fun! Life is all fun.
‘Ananda dhi khilbi bhootani jayanti’, the whole world is made out of bliss.
We have come to play here. Take life as leela or play.
This is the greatest gift of India to the world; we said, ‘Life is a game’;
‘Life is a play’. It is not a struggle. When you think of life as a
struggle, you are miserable.
Just see, on a football ground, you will find people falling and fighting
over one little ball. If you see it all as a struggle, you wonder why they
are struggling so much. Just give one ball to each one of the players, let
them kick it in the goal, and sit in the goal if they want to! However, if
you see all this as a play, then it is fun! Someone is pushing the ball
from here, someone is kicking it there. The whole thing is a game. There is
fun.
In the same way, you see life as leela, as a game, not as a struggle. This
answers most of the philosophical questions that the world poses.
What is the difference between quantum physics and spirituality?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: It is the meeting point. Vedanta begins where
Quantum Physics ends.
In this age of technology, why is a Guru important?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: What is the need to ask this question? If the
question has arisen, then there is a need for an answer, and there is a
need for a person to answer it. Whoever answers that question, he becomes
the Guru!
Yoga was Indian concept; mantras are; meditation is; words are; YOGA
VASISHTAM IS. Then we don’t adopt? K Rajaram IRS 8825
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