Meditation, Deep Relaxation, and Brain Waves

Horizontal Wavy Lines by So LeWitt

Last week I was very surprised that a number of people left comments for me, both here and on Facebook, saying either that they were practicing Yoga Nidra for their meditation practice or recommending that I practice Yoga Yidra for my meditation practice. My surprise was due to the fact that I have never thought of Yoga Nidra as a form of meditation, but rather as a form of deep relaxation. But, of course, I am not an expert on these matters, so I was left with a number of burning questions that I wanted to look into. One of the first people I turned to with these questions was Ram Rao. For those of you who don't know him, Ram is a neuroscientist as well as a yoga teacher. He also grew up in India, in a family of Vedic scholars, and learned to meditate from his grandfather. So I thought he would be a good person to consult about my confusion.

Fortunately, Ram responded enthusiastically to my questions with some long and thoughtful answers. But he surprised me by answering more as a neuroscientist than a traditional yoga practitioner. In fact, he said the following:

"I have tried to stay away from defining the terms since no two people will agree on how yoga nidra differs from meditation or classic meditation. Instead, have addressed it using the brain wave patterns. There is no judgement between those states of relaxation when we consider the brain."

Luckily, I happen to be newly interested in brain waves. That's because the very last post that Ram wrote for Yoga for Healthy Aging was Yoga and Brain Waves and he wrote in that post about how aging affects our brain waves:

"However, as we age, the synchronicity with which these brainwaves function is lost. Sleep is also compromised in adulthood, which further aggravates the random behavior of the brainwaves, which partly explains why older adults are so forgetful. According to latest research studies, both delta and theta waves are out of sync in older people, which interrupt communication between the hippocampus-prefrontal cortex areas of our brains that are responsible for short and long-term memories."

He then went on to discuss how yoga affects our brain waves, helping with anxiety, depression, attention, focus, and task performance. That exciting news was part of my motivation for starting my meditation project!

Now here are Ram's answers to my specific questions. For background on the various brain waves he talks about, see Yoga and Brain Waves.

Nina: Is Yoga Nidra a guided meditation? Or is it a guided relaxation? 

Ram: The expression ‘meditation and relaxation’ are loose terms and can be used interchangeably. In fact, what we all refer to as “meditation” is in reality some form of relaxation or stillness. As long as we lead a main-stream life (family, jobs, money, stress, etc), the practice that we call meditation is actually relaxation. Meditation in its true form is practiced only by saints, sages, and individuals who are detached from the daily rhythms of the mundane world. So in my opinion all forms of stillness that ‘we’ practice are relaxation techniques. 

Relaxation includes activities like listening to music, walking in the woods, or simply resting. These activities happen naturally and do not require guidance or training. In contrast, Yoga Nidra is a lying-down form of deep relaxation that uses the whole body as a focus of awareness. It is best done with voice guidance to prevent distraction or falling asleep. If you do it correctly you are probably treading the fine line between sleeping and waking (semi-conscious state). This is the state characterized by reduction in beta waves and increase in alpha waves. As the person goes deeper into the relaxation phase, the alpha waves are taken over by the theta waves and from there onwards by the delta waves (the most restorative state). Imagine being in a comatose state but with awareness, a state of deep surrender—if you the achieve the deep state but are still conscious of your limbs, organs, muscles, etc, it would indicate a state of deep conscious relaxation and happens both in Yoga Nidra and what we call as meditation. 

Nina: And what is the difference between a guided meditation and a guided relaxation? 

Ram: Again, meditation and relaxation can be used interchangeably as both are different forms of stillness. In both situations the brain wave patterns are similar. While there is no single study to compare both simultaneously, independent studies confirm that in both meditation and Yoga Nidra the theta and delta brain waves are predominant. 

Nina: Also, what is the difference between practicing a guided meditation vs. classic meditation (where it is all internal)? 

Ram: We, the people of the “mainstream world,” go in and out of the two living states (beta/alpha state to theta/delta state). Our goal is to achieve the theta and delta brain wave state either from a guided or non-guided meditation/relaxation practice. For most of us practicing some form of meditation but who are also involved in life’s daily dramas, we are probably in a ~70% beta/alpha state and ~30% theta/delta state. Classic meditation is observed only among the people that are not guided by the dramas of world and daily living. Every second or minute of their life is in a theta/delta state. 

Nina: I can’t get over the idea that a guided meditation feels like cheating, and that at least some of the time you should do without the outside voice (unless all you want is quieting/relaxing). 

Ram: Think of two groups of people in two separate rooms. One group is being guided into a deep relaxed state (meditation) and the other group is also in a deep relaxed state without guidance. If these people are linked to the EEG machine, the machine does not discriminate between guided and non-guided meditators. It will only record and generate the same wave pattern irrespective of how it was achieved. Guided meditation is required for beginners and intermediates, and once an individual knows how to reach that theta/delta state, it will probably make him/her more independent.

I got some very different answers to these same questions from other folks, and I'll be sharing them later on. But for now Ram has made me rethink my prejudices regarding guided meditations and relaxation practices. 

by Nina Zolotow

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