A prospective study was conducted to determine personality trait correlates of regularity of meditation practice and dropout over a 2-year follow-up period in outpatients referred for relaxation therapy. Patients were supervised on a monthly basis and classified as regular vs. irregular practitioners or dropouts at 3, 6, 12, and 24 months after they began meditating on a daily basis. Short-term...
The state effects of meditation appear to include decreased electrocortical arousal. There is also evidence that meditators more readily demonstrate alpha and theta activity than nonmeditators, even when not meditating. It is not clear whether prospective meditators as a group already possessed this characteristic, or whether the state effects of meditation practice eventually generalize to...
Forty nonmeditators and 12 experienced transcendental meditators were randomly assigned to four experimental cells devised to control for order and expectation effects. All 52 (female) subjects were continuously monitored on seven physiological measures during both meditation and rest. Each subject was her own control in an abab experimental paradigm comparing meditation to rest. Analyses of...