Meditation as an intervention in stress reactivity.

Meditation may help manage stress by inducing a low-arousal state that inhibits the autonomic activation typical of the stress response. If the temporary effects of meditation become lasting traits, its significance as a daily stress intervention could be major. Experienced meditators practicing transcendental meditation showed a stress reactivity pattern that contrasts with that of chronically anxious individuals, particularly in faster stress recovery and lower state and trait anxiety levels.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Meditation may have clinical application in stress-related disorders or it may alleviate the adverse effects of normal daily stress, depending on the resiliency of demonstrated state effects. The significance of meditation as a stress intervention appropriate for daily life might prove major if these meditation state effects carry over and transform the meditator in a more permanent way, becoming traits. Meditation shares with certain relaxation procedures the induction of a generalized low arousal pattern of responses characterized by sympathetic inhibition, which may prove to inhibit the autonomic activation seen in the stress response. Subjects in the meditation condition were asked to do transcendental meditation if they were from the experienced meditator group, and the controls were instructed in a simple meditation technique modeled on transcendental meditation. The stress reactivity pattern found in meditators is in partial contrast to that of chronically anxious individuals, particularly the meditators' rapid stress recovery and lower state and trait anxiety levels.