Individual Trait Anxiety Levels Characterizing the Properties of Zen Meditation

During Zen meditation, people who have never meditated before show distinct brain and body changes depending on their baseline anxiety level. In 22 healthy adults, meditation increased slow alpha brain-wave coherence between the frontal lobes (linked to focused internal attention) and shifted autonomic activity toward relaxation (higher parasympathetic and lower sympathetic heart-rate-variability measures). However, individuals with lower trait anxiety experienced a stronger increase in frontal brain coherence, indicating deeper internalized attention, while those with higher trait anxiety showed a stronger shift toward relaxation. The findings suggest that a person's typical anxiety level shapes which aspect of meditation—focused attention or relaxation—predominates.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Meditation is a specific consciousness state in which deep relaxation and increased internalized attention coexist. There have been various neurophysiological studies on meditation. However, the personal predispositions/traits that characterize the properties of meditation have not been adequately studied. We analyzed changes in neurophysiological parameters [EEG coherence and autonomic nervous activity using heart rate variability (HRV) as an index] during Zen meditation, and evaluated the results in association with trait anxiety (assessed by Spielberger's State-Trait Anxiety Inventory) in 22 healthy adults who had not previously practiced any form of meditation. During meditation, in terms of mean values in all subjects, an increase in slow alpha interhemispheric EEG coherence in the frontal region, an increase in high-frequency (HF) power (as a parasympathetic index of HRV), and a decrease in the ratio of low-frequency to HF power (as a sympathetic index of HRV) were observed. Further evaluation of these changes in individuals showed a negative correlation between the percent change (with the control condition as the baseline) in slow alpha interhemispheric coherence reflecting internalized attention and the percent change in HF reflecting relaxation. The trait anxiety score was negatively correlated with the percent change in slow alpha interhemispheric coherence in the frontal region and was positively correlated with the percent change in HF. These results suggest that lower trait anxiety more readily induces meditation with a predominance of internalized attention, while higher trait anxiety more readily induces meditation with a predominance of relaxation.