Long-term effects of Sahaja Yoga on emotional resilience/emotional reactivity

This study published in the International Journal of Neuroscience is the first to demonstrate that long-term practitioners of Meditation show reduced emotional reactivity and are more resilient to stressful events.

25 long-term meditators compared to controls showed reduced psychological, physiological and electrophysiological reactivity to stressful stimuli, providing for the first time neurophysiological data to support the hypothesis that Meditation leads to emotional balance  and greater emotional resilience to stressful life events.

The Yoga Meditators were compared to controls in their response to a stressful video-clip, in which some teenagers tortured a family and killed all of them one by one.

In a psychological self-rating scale, the Meditators compared to controls showed reduced subjective ratings of negative emotions elicited by the movie

They also showed reduced levels of an autonomic indicator of stress (skin potential levels).

At the brain level they showed reduced gamma activity over frontal brain regions compared to controls. Gamma   activity over frontal regions in controls is reflective of increased focused arousal in relation to the emotional involvement.

These findings provide pioneering neurophysiological evidence for the claim that long-term effects leads to greater emotional stability, reduced emotional reactivity and greater resilience to stressful stimuli.

References

Aftanas L, Golosheykin S. (2005): Impact of regular meditation practice on EEG activity at rest and during evoked negative emotions. International Journal of Neuroscience 115(6):893-909.