For practicing meditation, the following physiological parameters are of interest:
- heart rate
- respiration rate
- alpha waves which correlates to inner peace
- beta waves
- theta waves
- gamma waves
- sleep duration
- sleep score
- etc.
– Gamma waves in the left prefrontal lobe are a very interesting parameter, they correlate with a scale which goes from depression to happiness, as Mathieu Ricard, PhD. explains:
“The left prefrontal activiation (Gamma power), the difference between the right and the left frontal lobe”:
“People with more Gamma wave activity on the right side of the prefrontal cortex are more:
depressed, withdrawn, they don t describe a lot of positive affect, if you suffer from depression, you go to the right side.
People with more Gamma wave activity on the left side of the prefrontal cortex:
have more tendancy to altruism, happiness, curiousity, etc. if you see a comic movie, you go to the left side, if you are happy, you go to the left side.”
With an experienced meditator like Mingyur Rhinpoche, Richard Davidsons group did not need any fancy post-processing of EEG data, the researchers could see Mingyurs Gamma waves by naked eye.
Is it possible to see and analyse Gamma waves in the left prefontal lobe of an experienced meditator by naked eye with a simple EEG device as well?