Practicing the Transcendental Meditation technique reduces trait anxiety more effectively than treatment as usual and most active alternative treatments, with the largest benefits seen in people who initially have high anxiety. Across 16 studies involving 1,295 participants, the effect size compared to treatment as usual was d=-0.62. Individuals with initial anxiety in the 80th to 100th percentile—such as patients with chronic anxiety, veterans with PTSD, or prison inmates—showed larger reductions (d=-0.74 to -1.2), bringing their anxiety down to the 53rd to 62nd percentile range. Reductions appeared within two weeks and were sustained at three years. No adverse effects were reported.
People who regularly practiced Transcendental Meditation showed lower physiological stress responses than nonmeditators. In a test with 14 meditators and 16 controls, a loud tone (100 dB) was played at irregular intervals. Meditators habituated faster—their galvanic skin response (GSR) to the tone diminished more quickly—and they made fewer multiple responses, indicating greater autonomic stability. In two additional experiments, meditators also produced fewer spontaneous GSRs both during meditation (compared with rest) and while out of meditation with eyes open. The findings suggest that regular meditation practice is associated with more stable autonomic nervous system functioning under stress.