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Addiction and Chemical Dependency

The following studies have evaluated meditation's effectiveness in treating various types of addictions and drug use:

Gelderloos et al. (1991) The researchers reviewed twenty-four studies on the benefits of TM in treating and preventing misuse of chemical substances.  All the studies showed positive effects of the TM program.  The authors speculate that the results of these studies and other studies indicate the TM program simultaneously addresses several factors underlying chemical dependence providing not only immediate relief from distress but also long-range improvements in well-being, self-esteem, personal empowerment, and other areas of psychophysiological health. Psychological and physical mechanisms that might be involved in the effects of TM on substance usage are discussed.

Royer-Bounouar (1989) This study examined the effect of practice of the TM technique on smoking behavior during a period of twenty months.  Of 7,070 subjects who attended introductory lectures on the TM technique, 13% learned the TM technique and 87% did not.  When quit and decrease rates were combined, it was found that 90% of those who practiced TM twice each day had quit or decreased smoking by the end of the study vs 71% for the once each day TM meditators, 55% for those who were irregular or no longer practiced TM, and 33% for the non-TM group.

Klajner et al. (1984) This survey reviewed the efficacy of relaxation training as a treatment for alcohol and drug abuse.  The authors concluded that the anxiety that precipitates substance abuse is limited in interpersonal-stress situations involving diminished perceived personal control over the stressor, and that alcohol and other drugs are often consumed for their euphoric rather than tranquilizing effects.  Consequently, the empirical support for the effectiveness of relaxation training as a treatment for substance abuse in general is equivocal.  As well, the existing outcome studies suffer from numerous methodological and conceptual inadequacies.  In cases of demonstrated effectiveness, increased perceived control is a more plausible explanation than is decreased anxiety.

Marlatt et al. (1984) In this study, potential subjects were recruited by administering a Drinking Habits Questionnaire to 1,200 undergraduate students at the University of Washington.  One hundred thirty males who qualified as high-volume drinkers were invited to attend a meeting at which the purpose of the study was presented.  Forty-four agreed to participate and forty-one of them completed the treatment phase of the study, which was divided into three phases: a baseline period of two weeks, a treatment period of six weeks, and a follow-up period of seven weeks.  After baseline- period laboratory tests for taste rating and personality testing using the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, the subjects were randomly divided into four groups: meditation (ten), progressive relaxation (eight), attention-placebo control (bibliotherapy) (nine), and no-treatment control (fourteen).  The results showed that the regular practice of a relaxation technique (all three of the above) led to a significant decline in alcohol consumption for subjects who were heavy social drinkers.  Of all the personality measures administered, only locus of control showed a significant change (toward the internal side of the scale for all three relaxation groups).  Although all three relaxation procedures were equally effective, the meditation group subjects continued the practice more faithfully during the follow-up period, and the authors concluded that meditation is a more intrinsically reinforcing or satisfying procedure than the other techniques.

Wong et al. (1981) In this study, a non-self-selected sample of 200 chemically dependent people was instructed in the practice of meditation as part of an ongoing rehabilitation program, and compared with a noninstructed control group, both at the termination of training and six months later.  Differences established upon termination were no longer evident in the instructed group after six months.  Subjects who reported continuing at least minimal meditative practices, however, showed improvements in social adjustment, work performance, and use of drugs and alcohol when compared with nonpractitioners.  These differences were more pronounced than those established for ongoing Alcoholics Anonymous members.

Parker and Gilbert (1978) The authors investigated the effects of progressive relaxation training and meditation on generalized arousal in alcoholics.  Thirty subjects were selected from an in-patient alcohol treatment unit of a Veterans Administration hospital, and randomly assigned to progressive relaxation training, meditation, or a quiet-rest control group.  The groups met three times per week for three weeks.  The measures of arousal employed were state-anxiety tests (Spielberger, Gorsuch, and Lushene), systolic and diastolic blood pressure, heart rate, and spontaneous GSR.  These measures of generalized arousal were collected once each week at a specified time for all subjects.  Of the measures taken, only systolic and diastolic blood pressure was significantly different across the groups.  Although the progressive relaxation and meditation training groups remained approximately the same on the systolic blood pressure measures across trials, the quiet-rest group increased significantly prior to the second measurement period.  On the diastolic measures across trials, the quiet-rest group again increased significantly prior to the second measurement period, while the progressive relaxation and meditation groups showed significant decreases before the end of the training period.  The authors believe that the therapeutic potential of this finding is significant, since level of anxiety at the point of discharge from an in-patient substance-abuse program may be related to rehabilitation success rates.

Anderson (1977) In this study, a population of 115 admitted heroin users in the military was studied.  Most were weekend users and none were physiologically addicted.  After the subjects spent five to seven days in a ward for detoxification, eighty-nine were returned to duty and twenty-six discharged for repeated drug abuse.  All of the subjects volunteered to participate in a study, where they were taught TM and asked to practice for fifteen to twenty minutes twice each day.  Of the eighty-nine subjects who returned to duty, none continued TM and all continued some form of drug abuse almost immediately.  Of the twenty-six subjects who returned to civilian life, two returned questionnaires, and they indicated that they were continuing to meditate and refraining from drug use.

Winquist (1977) In this study, a questionnaire requesting information on amount and type of drug use before and after beginning the practice of TM was distributed to 525 subjects attending an advanced course on TM.  Of 143 subjects who had been regular users of marijuana, hallucinogens, or "hard drugs" before beginning TM, 119 had discontinued all drug use and twenty-two had reduced drug use 50% or more, while only two continued regular drug use.

Brautigam (1977) In this study, ten experimental and ten control subjects matched for past drug use were monitored for drug consumption over a three-month period.  Subjects in the experimental group, who were instructed in the TM technique, showed a marked decrease in drug usage, while the control subjects maintained a high usage level.  Psychological tests administered to both groups indicated that the meditators showed increased self-acceptance, increased satisfaction, increased ability to adjust, and decreased anxiety in comparison to the nonmeditating controls.  The meditating group expressed increased joyfulness and fulfillment, moreover, as well as improved mental and physical well-being.

Lazar et al. (1977) In this study, an anxiety test and a questionnaire concerning drug use, cigarette smoking, and alcohol consumption were administered once to a control group of twenty-four a few days before they received instruction in TM and to experimental groups before and again either four weeks (N=13), eight weeks (N=9), or twelve weeks (N=14) after instruction in TM.  The meditators sharply and significantly decreased their use of drugs, their use of marijuana, their cigarette smoking, and their alcohol consumption.  Analysis suggested an initial rapid decrement in drug use followed by a continuing but more gradual decline.  Those subjects who meditated regularly showed substantially greater reductions in anxiety and drug use than those who were irregular in their practice.  The subjects' decreased anxiety was correlated with their decreased use of drugs.

Katz (1977) In this study, a drug history questionnaire was distributed to 269 high school and college students who had decided to learn the TM technique and to a control group of 198 subjects matched by age and sex.  After the experimental group received instruction in the TM technique, identical questionnaires were administered three times to both groups at two-month intervals.  Subjects practicing the TM technique significantly decreased their use of marijuana, hashish, wine, beer, and hard liquor in comparison with the control group.  Fewer TM subjects who were initially nonusers of marijuana and hashish subsequently began the use of these drugs than did nonmeditating subjects who were initially nonusers.  Subjects regularly practicing TM decreased their use of marijuana, hashish, wine, beer, and hard liquor to a greater degree than did subjects who practiced the TM technique irregularly.

Schenkluhn and Geisler (1977) A longitudinal study of seventy-six subjects at a drug rehabilitation center in Germany confirmed the positive results of several previous retrospective studies concerning the influence of the TM program on drug abuse.  A significant reduction in drug abuse in various categories was observed among those participating in the TM program.

Shafii et al. (1975) The authors of this study surveyed the frequency of alcohol use in 126 individuals identified as practitioners of TM and a matched control group of ninety.  No control subjects reported discontinuation of beer and wine use, while 40% of the subjects who had meditated for more than two years reported discontinuation within the first six months.  After twenty-five to thirty-nine months of meditation, this figure increased to 60%. In addition, 54% of this group, versus 1% of the control group, had stopped drinking hard liquor.

Shafii et al. (1974) In this study, the effect of TM on subjects' use of marijuana was analyzed using a questionnaire survey.  While only 15% of a nonmeditating control group had decreased or stopped their use of marijuana during the preceding three months, one-half to three-quarters of the meditators (depending on the length of time since their initiation) had decreased or stopped their use during the first three months after their introduction to meditation.  The authors found that the longer a person had practiced meditation the more likely it was that he or she had decreased or stopped the use of marijuana.

Marcus (1974) After summarizing research concerned with TM and drugs, Marcus argued that the release of stress and tension in the nervous system and the physical and mental well-being produced thereby are apparently responsible for the very encouraging reduction in drug abuse among meditators.

Benson and Wallace (1972b) In this study, questionnaires given to 1,862 subjects who had practiced TM for at least three months revealed that since they had started TM these subjects used and sold fewer drugs and tended to discourage others from doing so.  They had decreased their consumption of "hard" alcoholic beverages, moreover, and smoked fewer cigarettes.  The magnitude of these changes increased with the length of time that the subject had practiced TM.

West (1979b) pointed out a number of methodological problems associated with studies of meditation and addiction, suggesting that since many of the studies involved TM, whose practitioners are required to abstain from nonprescribed drugs for fifteen days prior to learning the technique, the samples in these studies have been biased.  For those who take up TM may have a predisposition to reduce their drug usage anyway.  And since many such studies use retrospective questionnaires administered during TM training courses at TM centers, subjects are exposed to social pressure to give up (or not admit) drug usage.  Shapiro and Giber (1978) felt that research studies using retrospective sampling in the form of questionnaires were subject to three possible problems: subjects' reports on a paper-and-pencil questionnaire may be inadvertently inaccurate, subjects' memory may be faulty, and subjects may try to deceive the experimenters to gain experimenter approval.  In addition, since the questionnaires were given only to long-term meditators and not to the 30% who dropped out, there may have been a subject selection bias.  Shapiro and Giber (1978) pointed out that more recent studies, because of methodological problems in retrospective sampling, have employed longitudinal designs.  Although this method is an improvement, it is not definitive because other methodological problems exist, including self-reporting without concurrent validity, combination treatments, lack of control for demand characteristics, expectation effects, and subjects' motivation.  Furthermore, the studies often suffer from a lack of clear theoretical rationale between the independent and the dependent variables.

Maliszewski (1978) investigated the relationship between meditation and an organism's need for stimulation using the sensation-seeking scale, the kinesthetic after-effects test, and the magnitude estimation task for auditory intensities.  This investigation tested the hypothesis that meditators may reduce stress and the intake of substances that stimulate the organism physically and psychologically.  He found that no significant changes in need for stimultion were observed over time between beginning meditators and nonmeditators.

For other studies examining the relationship between meditation and chemical dependency, see: O’Connell (1991), Clements et al. (1988), Delmonte and Kenny (1987), Delmonte (1986), Murphy et al. (1986), Towers (1986), Delmonte and Kenny (1985), Ganguli (1985), Cohen (1984), Jewell (1984), Matheson (1982), Neurnberger (1977), Parker (1977), and Ottens (1975).

Sleep

Zen Buddhism and other traditions clearly differentiate various degrees of wakefulness, in both ordinary activity and meditation (though they did not have electroencephalographs to measure the differences between them), maintaining that awareness of them was crucial to spiritual growth.  The contemporary Zen Buddhist teacher Suzuki Roshi, for example, taught his students to sit through episodes of sleep that appeared during their meditation, holding the half-lotus position while maintaining as much awareness as they could until their drowsiness and dreaming "cleared up."  In one Vedantic classification, four states of consciousness were distinguished: jagrat, the ordinary waking state, swapna, dreaming, sushupti, dreamless sleep, and turiya, union with the Brahman.  And in some schools, such as Gurdjieff's, ordinary consciousness itself was regarded as a form of sleep from which we must awake to achieve true awareness.

In the contemporary studies we review below, drowsiness or light sleep has been compared with meditation.  In some of them, the difference is determined when skilled EEG researchers rate EEG records to identify which represent drowsiness and which represent meditation.

West (1980a) The author reviewed previous research on meditation and the EEG and concluded that, on the basis of existing EEG evidence, there is some reason for differentiating between meditation and drowsing.  He suggested that meditation is, psychophysiologically, a finely held hypnagogic state.  He felt, however, that more precisely formulated research was needed.

Banquet and Sailhan (1977) The authors analyzed the results of Banquet's (1973) study using computerized spectral analyses and qualitative reports, and found differences in EEG records between TM, various sleep stages, and wakefulness in meditators and controls.

Fenwick et al. (1977) A consultant neurophysiologist, when asked to allocate the EEG records of twenty-four subjects, correctly identified thirteen records and incorrectly identified eleven control records as meditation.  This result would have been expected by chance, and the authors concluded that there was no evidence that EEG changes were different from those observed in stage "onset" sleep.  The authors did report, however, that myoclonic jerks observed during meditation are different from those seen in normal drowsing, the former being repetitive, large, well-organized bodily movements, usually confined to a limb or the trunk, whereas in drowsing the jerks are usually single, stereotyped, and simple.  They also reported that four subjects displayed a significant increase in abnormal paroxysmal theta bursts during meditation.

Hebert and Lehmann (1977) The authors found that twenty-one out of seventy-eight advanced practitioners of meditation demonstrated intermittent prominent bursts of frontally dominant theta activity during meditation.  The subjects' reports suggested that these theta bursts were not related to sleep.  During relaxation and sleep onset, fifty-four nonmeditating controls showed no similar theta bursts.  The authors suggested that these theta bursts might be evidence of a state adjustment mechanism that comes into play during prolonged low-arousal states.  They hypothesized that this mechanism might prevent the drift into sleep by widespread, brief, rhythmic neural activation.

Elson et al. (1977) The authors reported that meditation may be the art of postponing the moment of sleep or freezing the hypnagogic process at later and later stages.  They studied eleven Ananda Marga meditators and eleven controls.  Six of the controls fell asleep despite a charge to remain in a state of relaxed wakefulness.  The meditators did not fall asleep, but entered a nondescending theta state, with the most advanced meditator showing the greatest predominance of theta brainwaves.

Miskiman (1977a, 1977b, 1977d) Subjects in control and experimental groups (N=5 for each group) were deprived of one night's sleep and, as an index of recovery, were tested for paradoxical (REM) sleep on the two following nights.  The experimental groups practiced the TM technique for twenty minutes twice a day, and the control group sat with eyes closed and rested for the same period.  Meditators showed a much lower total amount of paradoxical sleep on both nights following sleep deprivation and returned to their predeprivation level on the second recovery night, indicating a rapid elimination of fatigue through the practice of TM.

Pagano et al. (1976) The authors studied the EEGs of five experienced practitioners of TM and found that the subjects spent considerable parts of meditation sessions in sleep stages two, three, and four.  The time spent in each sleep stage varied both between sessions and between subjects.  In addition, the authors compared EEG records made during meditation with those made during naps taken at the same time of day.  The range of states observed during meditation did not support the view that meditation produces a single, unique state of consciousness.

Younger et al. (1975) The authors recorded EEGs and EOGs during TM for eight experienced subjects.  The records, scored blind, showed that all but two subjects spent considerable portions of their meditation periods in unambiguous physiological sleep.

Banquet and Sailhan (1974) The authors measured the EEG during TM for a group of fifteen meditators and a group of controls, and found significant differences in the amount of wakefulness between the meditation group and the control group as measured by the proportion of alpha to delta waves.  The meditators appeared to remain wakeful during meditation, while the controls drifted toward sleep during a comparable period of rest.

Otis (1974) The author recorded the EEGs of twenty-three TM meditators and twenty-one controls who received no training.  After learning TM, the TM group displayed significantly more sleep stage-one activity during meditation than they had displayed in a premeditation rest period, and significantly more than the controls.  There were no baseline differences between the groups prior to the TM group learning meditation.

Banquet (1973) The author studied twelve TM practitioners and twelve controls who were about to learn TM.  He found that subjects practicing TM had distinctive EEG changes, including slow high-amplitude alpha activity extending to anterior channels, theta activity different from sleep, rhythmic amplitude-modulated beta waves present over the whole scalp, and synchronization of anterior and posterior channels.

Fenwick et al. (1977) The author compared meditation and drowsing by having three experienced EEG researchers rate the records of twelve subjects.  The most experienced rater achieved the best score, with ten out of twelve records being correctly identified.  The least experienced rater correctly identified eight out of twelve records.  Overall, the success rate was twenty-seven correctly identified records and nine incorrectly identified records.  The raters identified one of the main differences as the relative stability of the alpha rhythm during meditation.  The author concluded that the success rate suggests there are clear differences between the EEG rcords of those meditating and those drowsing.

Sex Role Identification

D.H. Shapiro et al. (1982) assessed the impact of a three-month meditation retreat on fifteen respondents' self-perceived masculinity and femininity using the Bem Sex-role Inventory before and after the retreat.  As hypothesized, male and female subjects, who on pretest perceived themselves to be more stereotypically feminine than normative samples, on posttest reported a significant shift to even greater endorsement of feminine and less endorsement of masculine adjectives.

We may account for such shifts in attitude, among men at least, by assuming that meditation helps its practitioners accept a fuller range of their potentialities.  Such an increase in self-acceptance, perhaps, facilitates the development of attributes normally excluded by common stereotypes of masculinity.  Qualities such as surrender, empathy, and sensitivity, more often associated with women than men, have been cultivated in most contemplative traditions, some of which even hold up the androgyne as a symbol of spiritual perfection, e.g., in the legend of the Buddha's sixty-four attributes, of which half are male and half female, or in various Gnostic visions of Christ. [36] The ideal of completion through sexual biunity appears in Greek myth and Hindu-Buddhist imagery, and was highly developed during the Middle Ages by men and women in the Christian Monastic tradition. Both Anselm of Canterbury and the anchoress Julian of Norwich spoke of "mother Jesus."  In the last century, Mary Baker Eddy wrote of "Father-Mother God" at the same time that the Indian saint Sri Ramakrishna underwent the discipline of identifying with the feminine aspect of the divine. And Tantric ritual, ancient and modern, emphasizes the creation of male-female fullness, rather than seeking relief from it.