Meditation and the Human
Mind/Body
Navadeep Khanal
Hanover College
Introduction

Physical and mental fatigue can make a person
prone to illness.

Regular exercise, good nutrition, sanitation and
good sleep and relaxation help keep mind and
body healthy and less prone to illnesses.

Meditation is one of the many ways to relax body
and mind
Past Research
Benefits of meditation

improvement in
mental and physical
health
 feeling good about
oneself and others
 relief from stress and
anxiety

alleviation of pain
 greater sense of selfactualization
 self-directedness
-Kelly, 1996
Past Research... What happens in the
body
Body reaches a heightened restful state while at the same time
the brain became calm but remained in a state of
heightened alertness.
Heightend restful state,
– lowered heart rate and pulse, slow and calm breathing, and relaxed
muscles, -Orme-Johnson (1987, 1995)
Heightened alertness.
– EEG recordings show high activity of alpha and beta waves Persinger’s (1984, 1993)
Past Research... What happens in the
body...

Decrease in the concentration of arterial and blood lactate
levels 4 times faster than in sleep Wallace and Benson(1970, 1971,1972)

Blood lactate level goes up with increased physical activity
and stress and normally go down with rest and sleep
Bloomfield, et.al., 1975.


Body metabolic rate down 16% in about 1 hour of
meditation
5 – 10 % decrease after 6 – 7 hours of sleep.
General State of the Mind

it is restless

cluttered by thoughts, desires, memories

randomly moves from one thought to another

hard to focus the mind especially when you want
it to be still/calm
What happens in the mind...
(Pertaining to the techniques used in this study)

With lots of practice, the minds stops reacting to
thoughts, memories and desires and follows
constructive actions

With this training one starts to act constructively
rather than react to life-situations

When the mind is calm, so is the body
Hypothesis
People who practice meditation on a
regular basis for at least a month will
experience better physical health, will feel
better about their lives, will have a higher
sense of self esteem and feel better oriented
in life.
Participants

11 college students

7 females, 4 males

between the ages of 17 and 22 years

3 females and 2 males in the meditation group

4 females and 2 males in the control group
Material

3 meditative techniques
– awareness of sitting
– awareness of breathing
– awareness of body

4 part before-after Questionnaire
– basic health questions
– self-esteem inventory
– life satisfaction scale
– social adjustment scale
Procedure

Filled questionnaire (before)

meditation group trained in 3 techniques of
meditation for 6 weeks

Filled questionnaire (after)
Results

Pretest ANOVA showed no difference between
participants in the meditation group and the
control group

Repeated Measure Analysis of life-satisfaction
showed significant difference between the
meditation group (M = 28.4) and the control group
(M = 24.3), p < .05 after 6 weeks of meditation.
Results 2

Within subject test showed a significant difference
in the means of the meditation group before
meditation (M = 25.4) and after meditation (M =
28.4), p >.05.

Within subject test for the control group showed
no significant difference in the means before
meditation (M = 24.6) and after meditation (M =
24.3).
Results 3

There was no significant difference between the
meditation and conrtol group in health, selfesteem and life orientation.

There was a growing difference in the means in
life orientation between and within groups
however it was not significant.
Discussion

Suggestion that meditation allows the person to
look within oneself in relation to oneself, others
and their sorrounding helping them to find
satisfaction within their own lives.

There was also some suggestion that people can
orientation of their lives better by this inward
search.
Limitations

Time period was very small
– Change through meditation not a short term process

Very few participants
– difficult process
– time consuming
– frustrating at times
– some self-selection bias