There is widespread agreement in the literature that meditation reduces sympathetic activation and increases parasympathetic activation of the ANS, that is, it reduces physiological arousal thereby triggering a characteristic spectrum of simultaneous physiological changes: reduced respiratory rate (RR), reduced heart rate (HR), reduced blood pressure (BP), reduced electrodermal activity (EDA) and increased skin temperature (ST). Many studies of non-meditative practices such as relaxation, listening to music and sitting quietly have demonstrated the same pattern, leading to the assumption that meditation can be defined merely as a method of rest or relaxation — no different to other methods.
The significance of my research is that it has challenged current thinking by demonstrating that Sahaja Yoga meditators manifest changes that in some part are opposite to that which one would expect to see in participants who simply undergo rest/relaxation. Specifically, while the “relaxation” explanatory paradigm for meditation predicts that meditators’ ST should increase, this study found that it decreases and that this decrease correlates with the degree of mental silence reported by the meditator. A review of the literature indicates that this pattern of changes is difficult to mimic consciously. The observations in this study correspond closely with other studies on Sahaja Yoga meditation reported in the “grey literature”. Taken together these findings suggest that the mental silence experience may be associated with a relatively unique pattern of physiological activity.