Publication
Psychosomatic Medicine
36(2):p 115-120
Abstract
Oxygen consumption, carbon dioxide production, and respiratory rate are significantly decreased during the practice of a new, easily-learned relaxation technique. The elements of the technique are a mental device to prevent distracting thoughts, a passive attitude, decreased muscle tonus, and a quiet environment which is as free of visual and auditory stimuli as possible. Sitting quietly with the eyes either open or closed failed to produce the same changes. These physiologic changes are consistent with an integrated hypothalamic response resulting in hypothesized decreased sympathetic activity. This response has recently been termed the “relaxation response.”
Web and Email Links
Related Listings
Journal
Nature
Social-evaluative stressors—experiences in which people feel they could be judged negatively—pose a major threat to adolescent mental health1,2,3 and can cause young people to disengage from stressful pursuits, resulting in missed opportunities to acquire valuable skills. Here we show that replicable benefits for the stress responses of adolescents can be achieved with a short (around 30-min), scalable 'synergistic mindsets' intervention. This intervention, which is a self-administere […]
Journal
The Lancet
A wakeful hypometabolic state may be induced by simple, non-cultic mental techniques or by traditional meditational practices. The hypometabolic state seems to represent an integrated hypothalamic response ("relaxation response") which is consistent with a state of decreased sympathetic-nervous-system activity. A prospective investigation was designed to test whether regular elicitation of the relaxation response might lower blood-pressures in hypertensive patients who were maintained […]
Journal
Neuroreport
Meditation is a conscious mental process that induces a set of integrated physiologic changes termed the relaxation response. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to identify and characterize the brain regions that are active during a simple form of meditation. Significant (p<10(-7)) signal increases were observed in the group-averaged data in the dorsolateral prefrontal and parietal cortices, hippocampus/parahippocampus, temporal lobe, pregenual anterior cingulate […]