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Oxygen Consumption
Herbert Benson, then at the Harvard Medical School, joined physiologist Robert Keith Wallace, Ph.D and others in the early 1970s in studying the physiology of people practicing TM. In 1975 he reported on this early research in the first of his several bestselling health and wellness books, The Relaxation Response. Benson saw that there was a coordinated deep restfulness during certain forms of meditation. Although people who meditate knew that the body can become unusually quiet, it was striking scientific news that meditation is producing significantly deeper rest than sleep. This is determined by measuring how much oxygen is consumed. In sleep, oxygen consumption gradually decreases about eight percent over four or five hours. In meditation, it drops 10 to 20 percent in the first three minutes (Benson 1975:64).
The amount of oxygen an animal consumes changes moment from moment, being controlled by a complex process of the body called metabolism. We can indirectly affect metabolism by changing the level of physical activity—resting, running, eating, sleeping, or meditating—but we cannot control it directly. We don’t lower our oxygen consumption when holding the breath, because the tissues go right on consuming oxygen from the bloodstream according to their need and at approximately the same rate. So, this significant lowering of the consumption of oxygen in meditation implies a deep, complex, and organized shift in what the body is up to. It is especially significant considering that most meditators have no idea it is happening.
Benson’s original work on oxygen consumption has held up well. In 1996 Murphy and Donovan reported that over 40 studies have shown reduction of oxygen and carbon dioxide elimination. They report that oxygen consumption has been reduced by 55% and carbon dioxide elimination by 50%, and that breath rates have been seen as low as one breath per minute.
Recalling the mapping of the Naturals in the first two talks (Chapters 6 and 7), we could predict that only some methods of meditation would produce these changes. And that is true. Citing 45 studies between 1957 and 1991, Murphy and Donovan observed that, "Such quieting of the organism, however, happens for the most part in quiet meditation of the TM or zazen type, not in active, high-arousal practices such as Ananda Marga Yoga" (1996:69). In my terms, it happens with the Naturals.
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