Chapter 8: Meditation in Health: Definition, Operationalization, and Technique

In the last three decades, we have noted a growing change in the role of meditation in health. Previously understood as a procedure of an exclusively religious and/or philosophical nature, meditation has found, nowadays, an increasingly expressive position in the assistance and prevention of health problems.

In this chapter we will present the conceptual evolution that allows meditation to be understood as a well defined and gradually accepted technique in the medical-academic environment.

In order to speak about meditation, we must, first of all, understand exactly what meditation is all about, and this requires an adequate operational definition.

Over the years, a few definitions have been proposed, in an attempt to describe this method. In their now already classical texts, Benson and collaborators (1974) used the term “relaxation response” to refer to meditation; however, this term describes the physiological characteristics obtained from meditation, rather than the operational method used by the technique. West (1979) defined meditation as “…an exercise that usually consists of training the individual to focus his or her conscious attention on one single object, sound, concept or experience”; however, this definition seems limited to the passive concentrating techniques (which use the so-called “positive anchors”–see below), and excludes the “perceptive” modalities, as well as does not mention the necessary “logic relaxation”. Goleman (2004) defined the concept of meditation as “…a consistent attempt to achieve a specific position of attention … ”; however, this concept does not emphasize either the fact that it is a self-induced method, or the “logic relaxation”. Craven described meditation as something that involved “…relaxation, concentration, altered state of consciousness, ‘logic relaxation’, and attitude of self-observation … ”; however, this definition does not include the “perceptive” techniques (that use the so-called “negative anchors”–see below), and does not stress the fact that it is a self-induced exercise, and neither does it emphasize the importance of a practice of self-focusing. Davis (1998) presents meditation as “…a group of attention practices, that lead to an altered state of consciousness characterized by the expansion of consciousness, and impression of a ‘great presence’ and a more integrating ‘sensation of the I’…”; but his concept does not clearly indicate the existence of a stratagem of self-focusing, and does not address the need to avoid the sequences of thoughts in order the achieve the logic relaxation. Manocha (2000) considered that an authentic meditating technique would exist in face of “…a well-defined state of ‘consciousness with rare thoughts’, while focusing the attention onto the present moment and turning the attention away from the duel between the ‘immutable past’ and the ‘undetermined future’, thus reducing the unnecessary and unproductive basal ‘mental noise’ … ”; but this definition sticks much more to the effects than to the technical aspects of the method. Cardoso & Leite (2000), in their first clinical testing, defined meditation as a procedure that would present “ … a specific (clearly defined) technique and would involve an altered state of consciousness, with muscular relaxation at some point of the process, and “logic relaxation”; besides necessarily being a self-induced state, by using a “self-focusing” practice–called “anchor”–and by emphasizing non-sensorial self-perception … ”; but this definition, at that time, was still considered somewhat extensive, besides incorporating psychophysical effects along with operational variables. Bishop and collaborators (2004) considered that meditation presented two basic components: the first, the so-called “ … self-regulation of attention, involving sustained attention, ‘connected’ attention and the inhibition of the elaboration processes …”; the second, a “… quality to relate oneself with experience, with an orientation of curiosity, an openness to experience and acceptance … ”; but this definition is not sufficient to describe some types of “concentration” techniques.