The Effects of Meditation on Twin Hearts on P300 Values: A Repeated Measures Comparison of Nonmeditators and the Experienced.

The Meditation on Twin Hearts (MTH) is a core meditation in both Pranic Healing and modern Arhatic Yoga practices. This guided meditation includes components of lovingkindness, open awareness, and self-healing imagery. The changes in peak latency and peak amplitude of P300 auditory event-related potentials were studied before and after listening to the MTH. Subjects were 12 nonmeditators compared with 12 meditators with at least 1000 h of experience with MTH. Between- and within-group comparisons were examined from electrode sites FZ, CZ, and PZ. When compared with nonmeditators at baseline, experienced meditators demonstrated a significantly shorter latency at sites FZ and CZ. Immediately following the MTH, inexperienced meditators showed significant increases in amplitude at sites FZ, CZ, and PZ, whereas experienced meditators showed no significant changes. All variables for both groups showed changes in the direction of more efficient cognitive processing immediately following the MTH. The present study supports the idea that a lovingkindness/compassion meditation results in immediate cognitive improvements in meditation naïve subjects. It also suggests that long-term meditation results in more pronounced and stable improvements.