Dr. Miguel Farias - The Buddha Pill

The Buddha Pill – Highlighting the Shadow Side of Mindfulness and
Meditation with Dr. Miguel Farias

Aired Thursday, 4 April 2019, 7:00 PM ET

Mindfulness and meditation are practiced by millions of people
around the world and their benefits are being hailed by everyone
from neuroscientists, doctors, and mental health professionals to
parents and teachers. The popularity of mindfulness programs has
exploded, and they’re being offered in schools and prisons, in
workplaces and homes because, of course, everyone knows that
mindfulness and meditation can transform our lives and make us
happier, calmer, and better people… but is that always true?

While there’s little doubt that millions swear by meditation, which
is often advocated as a “magic pill,” there’s also a darker side to
these activities, for both meditation and mindfulness have been
known to have seldom-discussed negative side effects.

In his book, The Buddha Pill – Can Meditation Change Us? Dr. Miguel
Farias and his co-author Dr. Catherine Wikholm examine 40 years of
clinical studies on the effects of Transcendental and Mindfulness
and shares the results of their research on the effects of yoga
meditation on inmates within UK prisons.

Dr. Farias joins Sandie this week to discuss his research on
meditation and the science behind it, as well as some of the
questions raised in his book about the myths and limitations of
mindfulness and meditation. Topics include:

• What science can tell us about meditation and mindfulness – and
how accurate are those glowing statistics?
• Why some clinical research has been found to be rife with
problematic biases
• If meditation makes us nicer, more compassionate individuals why
do some individuals, including advanced meditators, still behave
like assholes?
• Do mindfulness and meditation work for everyone?
• The 7 myths and facts about meditation and mindfulness… and
more

Dr. Miguel Farias is an experimental psychologist and Founding
Diretor of the Brain, Belief & Behaviour Lab at Great Britain’s
Coventry University. He has pioneered brain research on the pain
alleviating effects of spirituality and the psychological benefits
of yoga and meditation, and is the lead editor of the forthcoming
Oxford Handbook of Meditation. His book, The Buddha Pill – Can
Meditation Change Us? co-authored with Dr. Catherine Wikholm, which
set the media and academic worlds alight when the first edition was
published in 2015, has now been updated with the latest
research.

Website: https://miguelfarias.co.uk