I have come across a few news paper articles this week regarding the negative side effects of meditation, namely the Guardian and the Mail!
it says 60% of people who have been on a meditation retreat had suffered at least one negative side effect, and one in 14 have suffered ''profound adverse effects'' according to Miguel Farias head of the Brain, Belief and behaviour research group at Coventry University, and Catherine Wikholme, a researcher in clinical psychology at the University of Surrey. Miguel Farias goes on to say that it's a scandal that no rigorous statistical studies have been done in to the negative side effects of meditation.
does that mean that you have to have a really healthy strong ego before you start to do meditation? or if there are already flaws in your ego before you start, will it only amplify these negative traits? or maybe they don't have access to a good teacher? or is it none of these and that anyone who practice it are open to these dangers also?
there was a British study on inmates at 7 prisons measuring the effect of yoga and meditation on prisoners, it's findings were published in a book called ''The Buddha Pill'' can meditation change you?
maybe not a good all round area to pick your test subjects but this is what they found out, it did improve there psychological distress and improved there overall mood, but they found that they were just as aggressive as when they started the programme. so it did improve there own personal mood then!
They did something similar with psychopaths, and found out it only made them more efficient at manipulating people and did not cure or curb there behaviour, so maybe a healthy ego has a better chance of having no negative side effects....what do you all think?
