Physiological anxiety responses in transcendental meditators and nonmeditators.
In Exp. I, the spontaneous GSR of seven Transcendental Meditators and seven nonmeditators was measured in a sequence of five conditions: stress (shock avoidance)--rest--meditation (meditators) or rest/eyes closed (nonmeditators)--stress (shock avoidance)--rest. In Exp. II, the spontaneous GSR of a similar group of subjects was measured in a sequence of three conditions: rest--meditation or rest/eyes closed--rest. Analysis of variance did not yield significant differences between meditators and nonmeditators although analysis did verify that the shock-avoidance task effectively produced anxiety. It was concluded that Transcendental Meditation is not an effective means of reducing autonomic responses to stress under the present testing conditions.
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001007:Anxiety / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001341:Autonomic Nervous System / Q000502:physiology; D001362:Avoidance Learning / Q000502:physiology; D005712:Galvanic Skin Response; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D012064:Relaxation Therapy; D012146:Rest; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000503:physiopathology*