Meditation might make you more alert

Meditation passes science test

Need to chill out and pay attention, too? Just five days of training in a Chinese meditation technique can help.

Previous studies have suggested that various forms of meditation can improve attention and reduce stress, but there have been few randomized controlled trials -- the best way of testing a treatment's effectiveness.

So a team led by Yi-Yuan Tang of the Dalian University of Technology in northeast China teamed up with psychologist Michael Posner of the University of Oregon, Eugene, to put a meditative technique called integrated body-mind training to a controlled test. The team randomly assigned 80 students to 20 minutes per day of practice, either in how to relax the body's muscle groups or in integrated body-mind training.

After five days, those trained in integrated body-mind training scored better on tests of attention and mood. They also produced lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol when asked to perform some difficult mental arithmetic.

Other researchers are intrigued, but say it is unclear whether these positive effects are transient. Another question is whether longer periods of training would produce bigger or more profound cognitive changes.

"The real goodies come with long-term practice," suggests Roger Walsh, a psychiatrist who studies meditation at the University of California, Irvine.