Physiological Anxiety Responses in Transcendental Meditators and Nonmeditators

Abstract

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.