Mental Conditioning and Health: A Cultural and Neurophysiological Study

Stanford University, Stanford CA

Investigators

Abstract

Does mental conditioning, such as that fostered by some religious practices, affect the mental habits and physical health of those who participate? The answer to this question is unclear. For example, some research has suggested that meditation changes human attention and alters the body's immune response, blood pressure, and other physiological markers. Other research has found that active church going may improve one's health. Weekly church attendance has been found in some studies to add two years on average to the length of the congregant's life. However, critics point out that the reported improved health could result simply from relaxation (in the case of meditation) and social support (in the case of church going), and have nothing to do with the religious contexts in which these practices take place. To help resolve this debate, anthropologist Tanya Marie Luhrmann will use scientific measures to examine the effects of religion-based training on cognitive performance. Dr. Luhrmann and her team will focus on one group of religious practitioners who train for intensive prayer practice. The researchers will collect data from this population by combining intensive and repeated interviewing with a neuroscience evaluation using a tested EEG neurophysiological protocol. They will collect data from both highly experienced practitioners and novices to see whether those who are more experienced perform differently. Findings from the research will help health researchers better understand if there is a neurophysiological basis to reported experiences of mental cultivation and whether training affects these experiences. Findings also will contribute to social science theory about the interactive effects of human culture and biology. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.