著者
石塚 正一 田邉 信太郎
出版者
日本武道学会
雑誌
武道学研究 (ISSN:02879700)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.28, no.1, pp.23-32, 1995-07-31 (Released:2012-11-27)
参考文献数
20

In the field of Budo, mokusou (meditation) is a means of controlling mind and body as a part of the training regimen, and approximates meditative practices in Zen. During meditation, the budo practitioner maintains a prescribed posture, regulates his (or her) respiration, and controls activities of his consciousness. There can be no doubt that this psychosomatic control produces a special form of mental activity.In order to investigate brain wave activity during meditation, the brain waves of three kendo and three judo practitioners were monitored and recorded at 13 locations on the cranium (i. e., FZ, CZ, PZ, F3, F4, T3, T4, C3, C4, P3, P4, T5, and T6), in accordance with the 10-20 electrode system. The brain waves were processed by fast Fourier transformation for calculation of the power spectral values. In order to consolidate the immense amount of data, factor analysis (identification of factors, based on maximum likelihood, and EQUAMAX rotation) was performed to extract five factors (i. e., delta, theta, alpha-I, alpha-II, and beta). In addition, an analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed for scoring of the five factors for the purpose of comparing brain wave activity during meditation with that during rest. By this comparison we found a significant disparity in the cases of the theta and alpha-II factors. The brain wave activity represented by these factors was lower during meditation than during rest.Since meditation as practiced in budo is a training method akin to that employed in Zen, it was initially anticipated that the frequency of alpha waves monitored during it would be lower. However, investigation of the spectral distribution during meditation determined that the wave frequency tended to be higher rather than lower. This relative increase of the frequency of alpha-wave is a phenomenon that has been found in the brain wave patterns of masters of Qi-gong during Qi-gong practice. It is conceivable that this increase in frequency is caused by the high-order activity of the consciousness accompanying the process of conjuring up images during meditation.