中国科学院心理健康重点实验室知识库

冥想是源于东方的自我调节技术。近年来，冥想的某些分支，例如瑜伽、正念等，日益受到西方心理学界和神经科学界的关注。冥想能够改变传统心理学认为难于改变的认知与行为特质，并且能够对某些比较严重的心理与精神疾患实行有效的干预。冥想还能引起相应的脑功能与形态的可塑性改变，进一步证实了其作用的客观性。

冥想是探索生命的内在世界的技术。它涉及对自身生理状态和周边环境状况的微细变化的感知与注意，并由此开启与提升相应的感觉、知觉和注意能力，从而实现对自我内心思维和情绪活动的深入了解。这一过程，一方面可以揭示内心活动的深层根源，从而帮助解决情感与认知方面的心理症结，缓解心理健康问题；另一方面，可以提高个人对自我与他人、与社会、与世界之间关系的准确认识，从而在根本上消除未来发生心理健康问题的源泉。进一步的冥想，可以使练习者了解自己内心的宽广性及其所蕴涵的巨大的潜在创造性，从而获得平静的内心状况和健康丰富的人生体验。因此，冥想有助于从生理、心理、认知、社会、伦理等多个角度，全面促进练习者的健康。 

现有的研究从一定程度上，部分地证明了冥想的效果及其存在的内在机制。进一步的研究将更为深入地阐明它的心理神经生物学原理。 

Meditation is a group of self-monitoring techniques, primarily developed in Eastern cultures. Some types of medication, e.g., yoga and mindfulness, have got increasing attention from western psychology and neuroscience. Meditation is capable of modifying some cognitive and behavioral traits that was previously considered unalterable in traditional psychology. It can also effectively treat some severe psychological and psychiatric problems. Studies have shown that meditation can evoke functional as well as morphological plasticity in the brain, further confirming the objectiveness of the effects.

Meditation is aimed to explore the inner world of life. They very often involve concentration on  and perception of subtle changes of personal physiology as well as surrounding environment. This, in turn, enlightens and elevates corresponding abilities of sensation, cognition, and attention.

Training of meditation thus manifests a deeper understanding of personal thinking and emotional activities. Benefaction of this procedure includes: 1) a reveal of deep-layer psychological activities, which helps to solve psychological problems of the affective and cognitive aspect; 2) an improvement of personal understanding of the relationship between the self and others, the society, or the world, which eliminates future problems of mental health from their very root; and 3) an understanding of the broadness of the inner world, as well as the potentially huge creativity it implied, hence to help the practitioner to gain a peaceful mind, as well as a healthy and prosperous life experience. In summary, meditation promotes psychological well-being from almost every aspect of the modern health concept.

The current studies on meditation, to a certain extent, verified part of its effect as well as the underlying mechanisms. Further studies will be required to reveal more deeply the psycho-neurobiological principles of meditation.