Can Meditation Reverse Memory Loss?

Can Meditation Reverse Memory Loss?
Study Shows Improvement on Memory Tests After Practicing Meditation for 8 Weeks
By Kathleen Doheny
WebMD Health News
Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD
Mar 3, 2010 — Meditation can increase blood flow in the brain and improve memory, according to researchers who tested a specific kind of meditation and found the improvement after just eight weeks.
The 15 participants, ages 52 to 77, all had memory problems at the start, says Dharma Singh Khalsa, MD, one of the researchers and the medical director of the Alzheimer’s Research and Prevention Foundation in Tucson, Ariz.
For eight weeks, the participants engaged in a meditation at home known as Kirtan Kriya, which originated from the Kundalini yoga tradition.
“It only takes 12 minutes [a day,] it’s easy to learn, it doesn’t cost anything, and it has no side effects,” Khalsa tells WebMD. The technique, he says, “reverses memory loss in people with memory problems.”
The study findings are published online in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.
The researchers first gave all 15 participants cognitive tests and took brain images to measure blood flow.
The participants learned the Kirtan Kriya technique. It involves the repetition of four sounds — SA, TA, NA, MA. While saying the sounds, the person meditating also touches their thumb to their index finger, and middle, fourth, and fifth fingers. They perform it out loud for two minutes, in a whisper for two minutes, in silence for four minutes, a whisper for two more minutes, and out loud for two minutes.
The participants were asked to do the meditation each day for eight weeks and were sent home with a meditation CD.
A comparison group of five people with memory loss got the same imaging tests and were asked to listen to two Mozart violin concertos each day for eight weeks for the same 12 minutes a day.
Improvements in Memory
Participants were asked to keep daily logs and came back after eight weeks for repeat testing and scans.
At the study start, of the 15 in the meditation group, seven had mild age-associated memory impairment, five had mild cognitive impairment, a worse problem, and three had moderate impairment of memory with a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. One who had Alzheimer’s was not included in the final analysis because of inability to do the meditation at the follow-up.
Of the five in the music group, two had mild cognitive impairment and three had age-associated memory impairment.
Among the findings:
• Cerebral blood flow was increased in the meditating group in the frontal lobe and parietal lobes, both areas involved in retrieving memories.
• Cerebral blood flow increases occurred in different areas of the brain in the music group, but not significantly.
• The meditation group improved performance on a test that measures cognition by asking people to name as many animals as they can in one minute.
• The meditation group also improved on three other tests that gauge general memory, attention, and cognition.
• The music group didn’t have significant improvement in cognition.
• Based on the results, Khalsa hopes the practice may help keep some people’s mild memory problems from progressing to more severe problems, but acknowledges that once memory becomes too impaired, meditation may not be possible for the person to do.
• Why does it seem to help? ”I use the analogy of going to the gym and lifting weights for eight weeks,” Khalsa says. “You’re definitely stronger. I think we see this in the brain. It’s like training the brain. You are somehow improving the chemical milieu of the brain. Blood flow improves the anatomy of the brain and it functions better,” he says.
http://www.webmd.com/alzheimers/news/20100303/can-meditation-reverse-memory-loss?page=2

Two Facets of Eggshell

If an outside force breaks our eggshell

If an outside force breaks our eggshell, our life and entity will end. However, if we undertake to break the suffocating shell, new life will begin.

ਫੂਟੋ ਆਂਡਾ ਭਰਮ ਕਾ ਮਨਹਿ ਭਇਓ ਪਰਗਾਸੁ ॥
Fūto āʼndā bẖaram kā manėh bẖaio pargās.
The egg of doubt has burst; my mind has been enlightened.
- -   Guru Arjan Dev in, Guru Grant, p. 1002

The Harmony of Science with Sikh Religion

Science, religion, and culture are three forces that affect our world most. The future course of human history will depend on the understanding between these disciplines. It is no exaggeration to say that the future course of human destiny will depend upon the choice of our generation to recognize the strength of relations between all three of them. Discussions on these relationships are necessary as new generations and world intellectuals will be attracted to those religions that are genuinely dynamic and progressive. Particularly, they are in peace with science and inject progressive evolution in cultures. 

MS Science and Religion by hlal

What is true of the world is also true of Sikh society. Science and religion co-mingle well in Sikh society. This essay touches on this co-mingling. To read more click on:

Ageing: Spiritual Perspective

Ageing: Spiritual Perspective
http://www.sikhchic.com/people/old_age_from_youths_narrow_prism
The currently popular view of ageing is rather myopic. Our youth culture of the myopic view constantly reminds us of our advancing chronological age. Birthdays and yearly reoccurring holidays for most people are nothing but occasions to highlight their aging and wrinkles.
To ward against this depressive psychology, the Sikh Way launched the culture of gratitude, that is, appreciation of the spiritual nature of the passing years as assets. It highlights life-giving gifts that are continuously being bestowed upon us by the life itself.
Certainly, we Sikhs consider life as a divine gift and most precious of all gifts. There can be so much written on the life gifts that they compel me to think that there may be as many reasons for our thankfulness.
We consider the birthdays as gifts as they allow us to experience advancing pleasure of divine creation, in contrast to the western cultures that often take advantage of these occasions as exploitation of gift exchanges. The expression of gratitude for the gift of life is a present itself. As we grow older and amass wisdom and wealth, we gain a rich perspective.
A considerable amount of research, based on the foundational assumption of a finite human life span, now focuses on the concept of life span independent of yearly calendars of events. It envisions life expectancy that is spiritually rich and free of dependence on a calendar. It is rather a healthy life expectancy, an active life expectancy, a disability-free life expectancy, an altruistic life span, a functional life expectancy, and a purposeful life expectancy. A life that is a gift to enjoy and that is an opportunity to fulfill life’s fundamental objectives.
The yearly thankfulness or gratitude should inculcate appreciation of the years that are gifted to us as the number of years that we can expect to live in reasonably good health, with none or only minor disabling health conditions, and with ability to wisely use the time and resources available. That number may or may not decline with approaching New Year or a new birthday depending on how one lives one’s life.
Guru Amar Das wrote in the Guru Granth on page 1418 that people oriented towards the divine wisdom actually do not experience age as others do. According to him, Gurmukẖ budẖė kaḏė nāhī jinĥā anṯar suraṯ gi¬ān, the guru oriented or those oriented to the divine wisdom as taught in the Guru Granth never become old or senile; within them resides the ever youthful intuitive understanding and spiritual wisdom.
Then the faith people like Sikhs may continue to celebrate the premise that they will continue to experience divine presence and divine hukam (defined as the sacred blue prints of life drawn by Infinite Wisdom). Year after year, they may go on with sharing the bliss of creativity endowed upon them through the Infinite (vahe) Wisdom (guru). Their life and the years are worth living and worth celebrating.
The introspection of chronological aging thus leads us to a solemn declaration that we will endeavor further to building inner bridges to reality. This way we may empower our own potential as well as promote others to shift the global mind towards eternal reality.
Harbans Lal
Arlington, Texas
Japji08@yahoo.com

(Dr. Bhai Harbans Lal is Emeritus Professor and Chairman, Department of Pharmacology and Neurosciences, the University of North Texas Health Science Center, and recipient of Doctor of Literature (honoris causa) from Guru Nanak Dev University. His writings on Sikh subjects appear regularly in many books and Sikh journals).

Hello world!

Welcome to Guru Granth Wisdom at  WordPress.com. This blog will post collection of the writings of Dr. Bhai Harbans Lal and his friends in scholarly circles that are based on the doctrines supported by the world scripture known as Sri Guru Guru Granth Sahib. The target is to post over 300 essays and notes in a few months.