Roger Walsh

Roger Walsh is a professor of psychiatry, philosophy, and anthropology at the University of California at Irvine. In the following viewpoint, Walsh asserts that meditation, although the subject of little scientific research, appears to reduce stress and enhance well-being. Reducing stress through meditation, Walsh suggests, can improve some health problems, including high blood pressure, asthma, migraine, and high cholesterol.

As you read, consider the following questions:

1. What types of experiences can emerge during meditation, according to Walsh?
2. According to Walsh, how can meditation affect the cardiovascular system?
3. What psychological disorders does meditation alleviate, according to the author"

Meditation has been practiced for some 4000 years and perhaps even longer. Yet for most of that time, research consisted solely of personal, subjective experimentation by practitioners. Objective scientific research in the West began only in the twentieth century. Initial experiments tested claims of...