SCIENTIFIC STUDIES
Science Behind Yoga
What is the science behind yoga? In the West, our medical community is increasingly investigating this topic.
There is something powerful that needs to be investigated: this is what our scientific culture believes about yoga as an aid in medical therapy (more and more studies are published by prestigious scientific magazines).
The US cellular biologist Bruce Lipton, Dr. Herbert Benson, cardiologist and founder of the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine in Boston and his pupil Dr. John Denninger, Dr. Dharma Singh, Director of the Alzheimer’s Research & Prevention Foundation, Tucson, Arizona, Dr. Elisabeth Blackburn, the President of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, California, Sat Bir Khalsa, an assistant professor at Harvard, Michael de Mannicor, a psychologist who is the director of the Yoga Institute, are a few members of the international scientific community who deeply studied these disciplines and bear record.
Dr. Herbert Benson and his pupil John Denninger are among the most illustrious pioneers in studies on the powerful physiological effects of meditation, that Dr. Benson has called “Relaxation Response“. Dr. Dharma Singh in collaboration with many American Universities has studied the link between meditation, memory and brain for 20 years. Dr. Franco Berrino deepens these studies in Italy and showed how certain Kundalini Yoga meditations inhibit inflammatory genes and activate the ones that strengthen the immune system. The Nobel laureate Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn has shown that meditation itself stimulates telomerase, the enzyme of rejuvenation.
Experimental evidence of the effectiveness of Meditation training for management education
An international project has been led in 2010 on four multinational groups to evaluate the impact on a training approach based on Meditation on managers’ decisions and affect concerning Corporate Social Responsibility.
| Market | Type of intervention | Scope of intervention | N. of partecipants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pharma | 1 shot controlled | 1 country: manager across all functions | 10 |
| IT-1 | 1 shot controlled | 6 countries worldwide: all CSR professionals |
8 |
| IT-2 | 2 samples, 2 step (crossover) between them | 10 European countries: learning professionals | 44 |
| Natural Resources |
3 samples, 1 shot Passive and active control | 1 country: young ‘high-potential’ managers | 31 |
| Total | 93 |
Evidence – change %
The effects of Kundalini meditation on the brain: a medical/scientific study
Before: the dimples in the frontal area indicate a lack of blood flow, the thalamus cannot be seen and the rear area is lumpy and asymmetrical.
After: the dimples have disappeared indicating better blood flow, the rear area is “fuller” and symmetrical and the thalamus (which controls the appetite, sleep cycles, emotional tone and sentimental attachments) can be seen clearly.
