A new study is under way at Emory testing the value of meditation in helping people cope with stress. The Compassion and Attention Longitudinal Meditation Study (CALM) will help scientists determine how people’s bodies, minds and hearts respond to stress, and which specific meditation practices are better at turning down those responses.

“Anything that affects the normal functioning and integrity of the body tends to activate a part of the immune system that’s called inflammation,” says Charles Raison, associate professor in Emory’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and principal investigator of the study.

“Inflammation includes processes that the immune system uses to deal with virus or bacteria, or anything foreign and dangerous,” says Raison, clinical director of the Emory Mind-Body Program. …