Effects of Breathing-Based Meditation on Earthquake-Affected Health Professionals.

On March 11, 2013, the Great East Japan Earthquake (magnitude 9) hit the northern part of Japan (Tohoku), killing more than 15 000 people and leaving long-lasting scars, including psychological damage among evacuees, some of whom were health professionals. Little is known about meditation efficacy on disaster-affected health professionals. The present study investigated the effects of breathing-based meditation on seminar participants who were health professionals who had survived the earthquake.

A Buddhist-based meditation practice for care and healing: an introduction and its application.

This paper outlines Buddhist-based meditation in terms of its spiritual, psychotherapeutic, physiological and neuroscientific perspectives. In the latter part of this paper, a pilot study is discussed, in which Japanese university students volunteered to practice meditation at home and complete questionnaires. T-tests were performed to compare with the non-meditated control group.