The Effects of the Transcendental Meditation Program on Anxiety, Neuroticism, and Psychoticism

Seventeen students who practiced the Transcendental Meditation technique regularly and 13 who had learned Transcendental Meditation but did not practice it regularly were given the !PAT Anxiety Scale and the Psychoticism, Neuroticism, Extroversion, and Lie scales of the PENL before and 3-4 months after starting the Transcendental Meditation program. It was hypothesized that anxiety, neuroticism, and psychoticism would decline significantly more among the regular meditators than among the irregular meditators. Analyses of covariance showed that neuroticism did decline significantly more among the meditators than the irregular meditators (p <.OJ). There was a similar trend of greater decreases for the meditating group in anxiety (p = .07) and psychoticism (p = .05 ), although these differences in changes over the 3-4 month period only approached significance. No changes were observed on the Lie scale or the Extroversion scale of the PENL. In general, the Transcendental Meditation program appeared to bring about an improvement in psychological health, including a reduction in anxiety, within a few months.