Meditation is a form of self-hypnosis. Hypnosis despite it's innocent looks among show performers in circus, it's presentation in the media and mass stop smoking programs hypnosis can have some serious side effects. On of the harmful effects of this popular "therapy" is damage to the frontal lobe, located at the front of the brain, the largest of the four major lobes of the cerebral cortex. The connection between hypnosis and frontal lobe is not a surprise for those who are familiar with this technique.
Hypnosis, if everything goes according to plan, bypasses forehead, while helping the person to enter the state similar to state of trans. Dr. Freda Morris, former professor of medical psychology at UCLA, wrote several books on hypnosis.
According to her, hypnosis is a condition characterized by concentrating the mind on just one thing "like when
a bird is watching the snake. " While under hypnosis, the person does not pay attention to other events in her or his surroundings. Hypnotist can often produce such a state by first helping the person to remain silent and calm, free from all external interference. Then the hypnotist helps them to develop a new concentration "to a specific dot or point " Once they enter the hypnotic state, they are encouraged to follow the mind of a hypnotist. If the brain waves were measured by the EEG (electroencephalogram) during this process, we would see a person under the hypnosis is losing beta waves from the brain. This beta activity indicates alert thinking that includes dynamic frontal lobe activity.
However, in the state of hypnosis, the active alpha brain pattern is active, where we do not analyze critical upcoming information. Alpha waves are brain waves at a lower level frequency then beta waves. In that state, a person
will receive information and suggestions without any interpretation and without filtering through the frontal lobe. During the hypnotic conditions, people can receive various information, and can mentally records the tasks that the hypnotist want them to do. Indeed, their memory works well, emotions work fine, and they can laugh and cry. But as they continue to concentrate they do not analyze critical information that they receive through frontal lobe which is a center of evaluation and of morality.
People were given big frontal lobes with good reasons. It is dangerous to bypass and jeopardize this control part of the brain, even temporarily.
Today hypnosis has become very popular and exists in several different shapes and forms. Medical literature is full of examples of hypnosis used for psychiatric and / or behavior problems involving treating traumatic events from childhood to current problems with overeating or using nicotine. There are other more subtle forms of hypnosis: the eastern meditation or yoga is promoted to control stress, but Dr. Freda Morris points out that in
in many cases this is actually a technique of self-hypnosis. Therefore, such meditation could be really dangerous.
Literature:
Yoshida M, Yamamoto M, Nikaido T. Quercetin arrests human
leukemic T-cells in late G1 phase of the cell cycle. Cancer Res
1992 Dec 1;52(23):6676-6681.
Baylor NW, Fu T, et al. Inhibition of human T cell leukemia virus
by the plant flavonoid baicalin (7-glucuronic acid, 5,6-dihydroxyflavone).
J Infect Dis 1992 Mar;165(3): 433-437.
Hertog MG, Feskens EJ, et al. Dietary antioxidant flavonoids
and risk of coronary heart disease: the Zutphen Elderly Study.
Lancet 1993 Oct 23;342(8878):1007-1011.
Miniscalco A, Lundahl J, et al. Inhibition of dihydropyridine
metabolism in rat and human liver microsomes by flavonoids
found in grapefruit juice. J Pharmacol Exp Ther 1992
Jun;261(3):1195-1199.
Nguyen TD, Canada AT. Citrus flavonoids stimulate secretion by
human colonic T84 cells. J Nutr 1993 Feb;123(2):259-268.