Using Meditation to Resist Infection

Among other things that OTO members will study and practice are meditation, concentration and various yogas. Eariler this year NPR’s “Fresh Air” program (produced in Philly, dontcha know!) interviewed authorth Jo Marchant about her book Cure which, among other matters looked into how distraction could be used to nullify pain. She went on to investigate placebo effect, hypnosis, meditation, prayer and conditioning.  Among other concepts she examines are these:

“The basic idea [of mindful meditation] is that you try to focus on the present moment rather than worrying about the past or the future. … There have been hundreds of studies on mindfulness now, and there’s very good evidence that it reduces stress and anxiety, and that it reduces symptoms such as chronic pain and fatigue. So that’s very well shown now in the analysis of lots of different studies, and that’s in healthy people but also in people with depression or people with serious illness. What there’s less research on is whether that feeds through into benefits for the immune system and sort of more physical health benefits, if you like.

“There is some evidence suggesting that mindfulness meditation can make us more resistant to infection and that’s everything from winter colds to slowing the progression of HIV and that it gives people a better response, for example, than flu vaccine. There was another study suggesting that people with psoriasis responded better to their medication when they also had mindfulness training. ”

Read the whole article here:

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/01/26/464372009/how-meditation-placebos-and-virtual-reality-help-power-mind-over-body

Thanks to Soror Hypatia for the tip!