Consciousness-Based Education - Maharishi University of ...

TRANSCEnDENTAL MEDITATION PROGRAM and CORRECTIONS(Dhanaraj & Singh, 1977; Dillbeck & Branson, 1981; Wallace, Benson,& Wilson, 1971).Within the large body of research on the effects of the TranscendentalMeditation program, over 350 studies, there are a number of resultswhich indicate that the practice gives rise to greater physiological andpsychological integration outside the period of meditation. Amongthese effects are changes which have potential relevance to criminalrehabilitation, such as levels of cortisol (a stress hormone), stress tolerance,EEG coherence, moral reasoning, and field independence.Cortisol is a hormone which is found to be increased during periodsof stress; the body responds to acute and chronic stress with increasedadrenocortical levels in the circulation (Selye, 1976). During the practiceof the Transcendental Meditation technique, in contrast to a periodof eyes-closed relaxation, the level of cortisol in the blood is found tosignificantly decrease (Bevan, 1980; Bevan, Young, Wellby, Nenadovic,& Dickens, 1976; Jevning, Wilson, & Davison, 1978; Jevning, Wilson,VanderLaan, & Levine, 1977).In addition to reduced cortisol there are other indications ofincreased resistance to stress among Transcendental Meditation programparticipants. For example, Transcendental Meditation programparticipants have been found to have faster habituation to a stressfulstimulus than control subjects, as measured by skin resistance response;they have also been found to have fewer spontaneous galvanic skinresponses than prospective meditators (Berker, 1977; Orme-Johnson,1973; Smith, 1977; Wilcox, 1977). The above findings are indicationsof increased flexibility and stability of the autonomic nervous system,and arousal of the autonomic system is a key feature of stressful physiologicalreactions. The additional indications of increased resistance tostress include decreased insomnia (Fuson, in press; Miskiman, 1977)and decreased anxiety (Davies, 1977; Dillbeck, 1977). A recent metaanalysisof over 100 studies on the effects of various meditation andrelaxation techniques on anxiety has shown that the TranscendentalMeditation technique has an effect size that is approximately twice asgreat as other relaxation or meditation procedures (Eppley, Abrams,& Shear, 1991); effect size is defined as the number of standard deviationsof difference between experimental and control groups (Glass,McGaw, & Smith, 1981).269