Meditation changes temperatures:
Mind controls body in extreme experiments
By William J. Cromie
Gazette Staff

Source: http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2002/04.18/09-tummo.html


In a monastery in northern India, thinly clad Tibetan monks sat quietly in a room where the temperature was a chilly 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Using a yoga technique known as g Tum-mo, they entered a state of deep meditation. Other monks soaked 3-by-6-foot sheets in cold water (49 degrees) and placed them over the meditators' shoulders. For untrained people, such frigid wrappings would produce uncontrolled shivering.

If body temperatures continue to drop under these conditions, death can result. But it was not long before steam began rising from the sheets. As a result of body heat produced by the monks during meditation, the sheets dried in about an hour.

Attendants removed the sheets, then covered the meditators with a second chilled, wet wrapping. Each monk was required to dry three sheets over a period of several hours.

Why would anyone do this? Herbert Benson, who has been studying g Tum-mo for 20 years, answers that "Buddhists feel the reality we live in is not the ultimate one. There's another reality we can tap into that's unaffected by our emotions, by our everyday world. Buddhists believe this state of mind can be achieved by doing good for others and by meditation. The heat they generate during the process is just a by-product of g Tum-mo meditation."

Benson is an associate professor of medicine at the Harvard Medical School and president of the Mind/Body Medical Institute at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. He firmly believes that studying advanced forms of meditation "can uncover capacities that will help us to better treat stress-related illnesses."

Benson developed the "relaxation response," which he describes as "a physiological state opposite to stress." It is characterized by decreases in metabolism, breathing rate, heart rate, and blood pressure. He and others have amassed evidence that it can help those suffering from illnesses caused or exacerbated by stress. Benson and colleagues use it to treat anxiety, mild and moderate depression, high blood pressure, heartbeat irregularities, excessive anger, insomnia, and even infertility. His team also uses this type of simple meditation to calm those who have been traumatized by the deaths of others, or by diagnoses of cancer or other painful, life-threatening illnesses.

"More than 60 percent of visits to physicians in the United States are due to stress-related problems, most of which are poorly treated by drugs, surgery, or other medical procedures," Benson maintains.

The Mind/Body Medical Institute is now training people to use the relaxation response to help people working at Ground Zero in New York City, where two airplanes toppled the World Trade Center Towers last Sept. 11. Facilities have been set up at nearby St. Paul's Chapel to aid people still working on clearing wreckage and bodies. Anyone else who feels stressed by those terrible events can also obtain help at the chapel. "We are training the trainers who work there," Benson says.

The relaxation response involves repeating a word, sound, phrase, or short prayer while disregarding intrusive thoughts. "If such an easy-to-master practice can bring about the remarkable changes we observe," Benson notes. "I want to investigate what advanced forms of meditation can do to help the mind control physical processes once thought to be uncontrollable."

Breathtaking results
Some Westerners practice g Tum-mo, but it often takes years to reach states like those achieved by Buddhist monks. In trying to find groups he could study, Benson met Westerners who claimed to have mastered such advanced techniques, but who were, in his words, "fraudulent."

Benson decided that he needed to locate a religious setting, where advanced mediation is traditionally practiced. His opportunity came in 1979 when the Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of Tibet, visited Harvard University. "His Holiness agreed to help me," recalls Benson. That visit was the beginning of a long friendship and several expeditions to northern India where many Tibetan monks live in exile.

During visits to remote monasteries in the 1980s, Benson and his team studied monks living in the Himalayan Mountains who could, by g Tum-mo meditation, raise the temperatures of their fingers and toes by as much as 17 degrees. It has yet to be determined how the monks are able to generate such heat.

The researchers also made measurements on practitioners of other forms of advanced meditation in Sikkim, India. They were astonished to find that these monks could lower their metabolism by 64 percent. "It was an astounding, breathtaking [no pun intended] result," Benson exclaims.

To put that decrease in perspective, metabolism, or oxygen consumption, drops only 10-15 percent in sleep and about 17 percent during simple meditation. Benson believes that such a capability could be useful for space travel. Travelers might use meditation to ease stress and oxygen consumption on long flights to other planets.

In 1985, the meditation team made a video of monks drying cold, wet sheets with body heat. They also documented monks spending a winter night on a rocky ledge 15,000 feet high in the Himalayas. The sleep-out took place in February on the night of the winter full moon when temperatures reached zero degrees F. Wearing only woolen or cotton shawls, the monks promptly fell asleep on the rocky ledge, They did not huddle together and the video shows no evidence of shivering. They slept until dawn then walked back to their monastery.

Overcoming obstacles
Working in isolated monasteries in the foothills of the Himalayas proved extremely difficult. Some religious leaders keep their meditative procedures a closely guarded secret. Medical measuring devices require electrical power and wall outlets are not always available. In addition, trying to meditate while strangers attempt to measure your rectal temperature is not something most monks are happy to do.

To avoid these problems, Instructor in Psychology Sara Lazar, a Benson colleague, used functional magnetic resonance imaging to scan the brains of meditators at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. The subjects were males, aged 22-45, who had practiced a form of advanced mediation called Kundalini daily for at least four years. In these experiments, the obstacles of cold and isolation were replaced by the difficulties of trying to meditate in a cramped, noisy machine. However, the results, published in the May 15, 2000, issue of the journal NeuroReport, turned out to be significant.


Herbert Benson, who developed a simple relaxation technique to reduce stress, enjoys a quiet moment at a placid stream near his office in Boston. He directs a study of advanced meditation to uncover capabilities that may help treat stress-related illnesses. (Staff photo by Kris Snibbe)

"Lazar found a marked decrease in blood flow to the entire brain," Benson explains. "At the same time, certain areas of the brain became more active, specifically those that control attention and autonomic functions like blood pressure and metabolism. In short, she showed the value of using this method to record changes in the brain's activity during meditation."

The biggest obstruction in further studies, whether in India or Boston, has always been money. Research proceeded slowly and intermittently until February 2001, when Benson's team received a $1.25 million grant from Loel Guinness, via the beer magnate's Kalpa Foundation, established to study extraordinary human capacities.

The funds enabled researchers to bring three monks experienced in g Tum-mo to a Guinness estate in Normandy, France, last July. The monks then practiced for 100 days to reach their full meditative capacity. An eye infection sidelined one of the monks, but the other two proved able to dry frigid, wet sheets while wearing sensors that recorded changes in heat production and metabolism.

Although the team obtained valuable data, Benson concludes that "the room was not cold enough to do the tests properly." His team will try again this coming winter with six monks. They will start practice in late summer and should be ready during the coldest part of winter.

Benson feels sure these attempts to understand advanced mediation will lead to better treatments for stress-related illnesses. "My hope," he says, "is that self-care will stand equal with medical drugs, surgery, and other therapies that are now used to alleviate mental and physical suffering. Along with nutrition and exercise, mind/body approaches can be part of self-care practices that could save millions of dollars annually in medical costs."

Meditation... Here the heart/May give a useful lesson to the head. - Cowper


What do the doubters think to this bad boy article?

and remember best beloved, every time you dismiss Chi, a Faerie dies.....

Fascinating - thanks for posting it Pete!

Just to let you guys know there's more of this kind of stuff to do with the work being done on The Intention Experiment and a book called The Field.

(Mule, I love the way you tend to talk about fairies whenever someone mentions chi!)

Not long after I started yoga and regular meditation, I noticed I had better pain control without actively focusing on trying to have that. Simply, one day when I stubbed my toe really hard, I realised I actually felt no pain whatsoever; my toe wasn't numb, I could feel it absolutely normally.

I think doubters may tend to say that its just mind control over the body, but something more changes when you start serious meditation and training of the mind.

Jolly good

The mind controls the body and can unlock many strengths. I remeber once hearing about a friend who was working under a car and it collapsed on him and his other friend tried to lift the car upo by the wheelarch after his second attempt he did it. He said he just knew he had to lift it and when he did the second time he said he just did it....... Another example is my other wife in when she was giving birth, she kept pushing and then all of a sudden she said her mind was telling her she has to do it.....

A good example of mind control over body, if the mind goes into a deep positive or meditative state then I believe many things can be achieved.......

"Tumo" is actually a Tibetan word that refers to form(s) of what the Chinese call "qigong." The drying of wet sheets in cold temperatures was once (and may still be)practiced by tumo practitioners in the mountains of Tibet during the winter. Now THAT'S cold!!! In fact, they used to hold contests to see who could dry out the most sheets in a given period of time...

Many cultures all over the world have ideas of body control. Especially many indigenous groups I have heard tales of aboriginies doing some of the same.

Native Americans use many types of body control, everything from withstanding cold, to extreme warmth as well as pain control. What Warrior WC is pointing out is a bit of body control, but is similar to what Native American Shamanism may term as "Tapping into the primal self" they can be combined but are two different thoughts and training methods.

There are many things that science cannot fathom, but our brain can do. For example watch any of these videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUsjkTz_-M4 (Part 1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBbjWqRr7SU&feature=related (Part 2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVWNjkvMN3E&feature=related (Part 3) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVg-rFoX3a8&feature=related (Part 4)

This is all the discovery channels pushing the limits series on the brain. Very interesting, espcecially parts about some of the ideas how the brain controls and dilates time etc. Which means, to me at least, meditation can lead to unlocking some marvelous doors of the mind.

Excellent article - stand-out point for me was that there was much evidence of genuine physiological phenomena manifested by people who had dedicated years of their lives to practice and who had a sound philosophical base for what they were doing, whereas the people who made claims about 'chi powers' turned out to be fraudulent. No surprises there for me.

In my experience, this stuff is definitely not magic, it is pushing the limits of human potential through long practice and correct mind (meditation/samhadi)based on sound living principles and a stable moral base... But if you're looking to shoot fireballs from your palms, heal broken limbs or throw people without touching them - forget it!

Qi is just a term for a combination of mental and physiological factors and their effect on the person and their interface with the rest of reality... in my experience, of course.

CHI can be transferred from person to person. This energy has a definate spiritual connection, not just a brain function. Our brains might be able to send signals to our body but our bodies need the energy from elsewhere.

Chi, Ki, energy whatever you wanna call it is a movement of life, but there is also a deeper side which we all strive for but do not understand. Humans achieve such amazing tasks with training and commitment but its through an understanding of harmony with mind, body, spirit and universe. These monks have spent life times seeking this knowledge, they understand and they do not use scientific methods and super enhanced training methods with body boosting formulas.

Its truely amazing and we as humans all have this potential, we just might not unlock it this time around ...

See I think you all hit it perfect.

Most frauds obtain these "powers" after a weekend course (really I have seen some that claim such!) but the thing is, it really is training and even more than training for many a lifestyle. They literally spend decades upon decades of training, some of them for 12+ hours per day. If you applied yourself into any one area for that kind of time you are bound to make some progress.

For all of you interested I suggest you look into the book "The Field" by Mctaggert I believe...cannot remember the author atm. But it puts forth interesting studies that have been carried out including Quantum Physics. Quantum physics currently has some of the most interesting ideas out there and when looked at from meditation/Qi perspective it sounds suspiciously like some meditation and "esoteric" ideas.

Though, many will say that "Qi Believers" are looking to grasp onto anything that science is coming up with to support Qi. When truth is Qi was defined as some form of "Energy" thousands of years ago by the Chinese, well before any ideas of Energy existed in the west. That is somewhat my ideas for Qi, Qi -does- exist in the forms of much of our modern ideas of energy i.e. chemical reactions/bonding etc. Now we just have Scientific terms to describe what the ancient chinese had observed.

After all as one of my Chem teachers pointed out: "Even below the idea of chemicals is the 'Energetic' bonds of these chemicals. Which quite frankly is energy, which could be labeled as Qi."

Taoquan wrote:
See I think you all hit it perfect.

For all of you interested I suggest you look into the book "The Field" by Mctaggert I believe...cannot remember the author atm. But it puts forth interesting studies that have been carried out including Quantum Physics. Quantum physics currently has some of the most interesting ideas out there and when looked at from meditation/Qi perspective it sounds suspiciously like some meditation and "esoteric" ideas.

Think its Lynne McTaggart - if this is your kind of thing, you might also like 'The Intention Experiment.'

After all as one of my Chem teachers pointed out: "Even below the idea of chemicals is the 'Energetic' bonds of these chemicals. Which quite frankly is energy, which could be labeled as Qi."

Good point!

After studying Qigong and western ideas of anatomy, physiology, biology, biochem etc. I have somewhat developed my own ideas about Qi based on what my teacher said above.

If we are to take the ideogram for Qi, it literally shows a pot of rice, cooking over a fire, producing steam (to the ancient chinese). So Qi in essence is not just "food cooking" but the entire "energetic" action of it. This includes all the chemical transfomations taking place in a typical cooking process.

So to me I like to keep the translation of Qi simple, and state it literally means Energy. Not vital force, vital breath, etc. but those do come into play...

I personally think that Modern Science has already "found" Qi, by ways of Thermodynamics, Chemical bonds, Magnetism, and Bioenergy etc. As these all have an "energetic" basis, and as I have often mentioned, to the Chinese and TRUE Qigong masters, there is not just -one- kind of Qi, but each thing has its own unique Qi.

To me this corresponds to the scientific idea that chemical bonds will react and connect differently etc. Let's take for example the five elements and lets take the Fire Element. In Chinese Qigong the Fire element obviously exhibits all the western known ideas of Fire (it is hot, it burns and changes other elements, it leaps, it moves etc.). To Chinese Qigong teachers (again not the new age folks that preach "Qi is all around us..ooooo" this Fire energy exhibits and elicits a different response in the physical body than say Earth energy.

If we are to look at this from a Scientific standpoint it is obvious to see there is an entirely different chemical reaction (and bonding) taking place between the two examples above. Now if we add into the mix that each fire will burn differently (based on the chemcials it consumes) and Earth maybe different (again based on soil, sand, clay, rock etc.) They will have a different chemical make up. To the ancient Chinese they would also say this is different Qi, but its base is still fire, or earth.

This same example can be used for any other type of energy we have this day and age. Let's take the physical body, we know from modern science when the body is ill it produces numerous other hormones, WBCs (White blood cells), anti-inflammatories etc. To a Qigong healer, the body's Qi would feel "Chaotic" or "Excessive" b/c there is so much literal energy going on. This energy is produced by the body to resolve the illness, and radiates down to a cellular level.

I see this happening when cells do their exchange and open their cell walls to allow hormones etc. in. This is usually an exchange of Ions and Cations (if I remember right) which is basically different "energetic" charges.

Now, for me to take this a "Step further" because we all have this basis for different "energies" that are reacting around us, in theory (and for me personally it is NOT theory) why can't the human body/mind feel it? I mean feel this energy as in Qigong etc.? To me modern man has become (to an extent) too reliant on machines to do this work and is failing to -feel- what is going on. This is not a bad thing, but a different way of looking at it.

This whole idea has opened up other doors for theories I have on why things like Acupuncture, Qigong etc. work. That I will have to elaborate on later. :)