1. CHANGES IN PHYSIOLOGICAL AND BIOENERGETICAL MARKERS ASSOCIATED WITH STATIONARY MEDITATION Shin Lin* §¶, Kaivalya Jay Vyas* §¶, Quoc Nguyen* §¶, Sakya Uch* §¶, Antonios Michalos #, Enrico Gratton §, & Ramesh Srinivasan +§. Depts. of Developmental & Cell Biology*, Biomedical Engineering §, Cognitive Sciences +, and Susan Samueli Center for Integrative Medicine ¶, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697-2300, and Dept. of Physics, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL 61801-2982 # INTRODUCTION Common meditation practices can be classified as those carried out in a stationary position (e.g., standing or sitting Qigong meditation) and those involving body movement (e.g., Tai Chi). The aim of this study is to investigate changes in various physiological and bioenergetic markers associated with stationary meditation, and compare them with some of those associated with moving meditation. METHODS Subjects This study, approved by UCI IRB protocol HS#2002-2604, included subjects who are UC Irvine students and staff between the age of 18-35, and expert Tai Chi practitioners between the age of 50- 60. They are healthy and free of any medications by self-report. Instrumentation Cutaneous blood flow was measured with a laser Doppler flowmetry instrument from Moor (Figure 1). Biophoton (ultra-weak photon) emission was measured with a single photon counting system constructed in the laboratory (Figure 2). Electroencephalography recording was made with a Geodesic Sensor Net. Heart rate variability was computed with fast Fourier transformation software from electrocardiograms recorded with a Holter monitor from Pre-Ideal Co. CONCLUSION RESULTS This work is supported by the Joseph and Sou-Lin Lee Endowment for Chinese Medicine Research. The results of the different parts of this study indicate that while stationary meditation is effective in inducing a relaxed mental state, it differs from the moving meditation of Tai Chi because it leads to a lowered metabolic and bioenergetic state. Figure 3. The slow, soft, circular hand-arm movements of Chen Style Single Hand Silk Reeling exercise significantly increased cutaneous blood flow in a subject compared to baseline (value at left edge of recording) measured as “Flux” (top panel) with laser Doppler flowmetry at the PC8 acupoint at the center of the palm. This increase was due to elevation of the “Speed” parameter (bottom panel) in the measurement (“Flux” = “Speed” x “Concentration”). Figure 4. Biophoton emission from the palm was measured before and after 20 minutes of slow versus fast Tai Chi practice by a single subject. Figure 5. Blood flow was monitored by laser Doppler flowmetry continuously before, during and after subjects practiced 20 minutes of meditation in the sitting position. Values shown are averages computed from recordings from each of the three stages. Figure 1. Figure 2. Figure 6. Biophoton emission (UPE) rate was measured on subjects before and after 20 minutes of sitting meditation. Figure 6. Oxygen consumption rate (red line) was measured at the forehead transcranially by photon migration spectroscopy (near infrared spectroscopy) during sitting meditation. Note steady decrease from to baseline value prior to start of meditation at left edge of recording. Figure 8. Heart rate variability analysis of electrocardiograms recorded before (left panel) and during (right panel) sitting meditation. Note appearance of a high frequency peak at ~0.3 Hz in the fast Fourier transformation power spectrum (right graph of right panel) computed from the heart rate variability time series (left graph of right panel) recorded during the meditation period. This peak indicates elevation of parasympathetic tone associated with a state of deep rest. Figure 7. Independent component analysis of electroencephalogram recorded before, during, and after two periods of sitting meditation (left panel). The relative power of three classes of brain waves at the brain region indicated on the skull map on the upper right corner of left panel was estimated from the analysis of the 3 states indicated (right panel). Elevation of all three kinds of waves during meditation indicate that the subject was in a dual state of deep rest and mental concentration.