Autonomic Stability and Transcendental Meditation
Psychosomatic Medicine July 1, 1973 DOI: 10.1097/00006842-197307000-00008 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Controlled experimental study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 30 |
| Population | People who regularly practiced Transcendental Meditation and nonmeditating control subjects |
| Intervention | Transcendental Meditation |
| Topics | Meditation |
| Keywords | Habituation Audiology Skin conductance Transcendental meditation |
| Citations | 20 |
| Key findings | Meditators showed faster habituation of galvanic skin response to a loud tone and fewer spontaneous GSRs than controls. |
Abstract
Physiological indices of stress were found to be lower in people who regularly practiced Transcendental Meditation (N=14) than in nonmeditating control subjects (N=16). During normal waking (eyes open) a noxious loud tone (100 db, 0.5 sec, 3000 Hz) was presented to subjects a mean of once every 53 sec at irregular intervals. The stress reaction to each tone, as indicated by the galvanic skin response (GSR), was compared for the two groups. Habituation of the GSR to tones was faster for meditators than for controls, and meditators made fewer multiple responses during habituation, indicating greater stability in response to stress. In two other experiments, meditators were found to make fewer spontaneous GSR's than control subjects, both during meditation, as compared with rest (eyes closed), and while out of meditation with eyes open. Thus meditators were found to be more stable than controls on three autonomic indices: rate of GSR habituation, multiple responses, and spontaneous GSR.
Comparable studies
Other experimental studies on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| The benefits of being present: Mindfulness and its role in psychological well-being. Cancer patients (clinical intervention study) | 2003 | Mixed methods: scale development, correlational, quasi-experimental, laboratory, experience-sampling, and clinical intervention study | |
| Loving-kindness meditation increases social connectedness. | 2008 | Controlled laboratory experiment | |
| Mindfulness and mind-wandering: Finding convergence through opposing constructs. | 2012 | Two studies: correlational study and experimental study | |
| Mental Training Enhances Attentional Stability: Neural and Behavioral Evidence | 2009 | Experimental study | |
| Mindfulness meditation and substance use in an incarcerated population. Incarcerated population | 2006 | Quasi-experimental with treatment-as-usual control condition |
Citations in the library
Cited by 56
- Mindfulness training as a clinical intervention: A conceptual and empirical review. Clinical Psychology Science and Practice 2003
- Transcendental Meditation, mindfulness, and longevity: An experimental study with the elderly. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1989
- Meditation as an intervention in stress reactivity. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 1976
- The Physiology of Meditation and Mystical States of Consciousness Perspectives in biology and medicine March 1, 1976
- Coupling of respiration and attention via the locus coeruleus: Effects of meditation and pranayama Psychophysiology April 22, 2018
and 51 more in the library