The Effect of Meditation on Physical and Mental Health in Junior College Students: A Quasi-Experimental Study

Background: Physical stress andmental stress are increasingly common phenomenas in our rapidly changing and stressfulmod-ern society. Research has found meditation to produce positive and demonstrable stress reduction effects on brain and immune functions. This study is grounded in traditional Chine...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of Nursing Research 2009-12, Vol.17 (4), p.261-269
Main Authors: 楊克平(Yang, Ke-ping), 蘇惠明(Su, Whei-ming), 黃貞觀(Huang, Chen-kuan)
Format: Article
Language:Chinese
Subjects:
esearch, junior college students
meditation
MEDLINE
physical and mental health
quasi-experimental
SCIE
Scopus
SSCI
TSCI
TSSCI
專科學生
身心健康
靜心冥想
類實驗性研究
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Summary:Background: Physical stress andmental stress are increasingly common phenomenas in our rapidly changing and stressfulmod-ern society. Research has found meditation to produce positive and demonstrable stress reduction effects on brain and immune functions. This study is grounded in traditional Chinese philo-sophicalmores that teach a process summarized by the keynote activities of ‘‘calm, still, quiet, consider, and get’’ and the po-tential of this process to reduce stress in adolescents. Purpose: The purpose of this studywas to examine the effects ofmeditation on the physical andmental health of junior college students. Methods: This research employed a quasi-experimental de-sign. Participants included 242 freshmen from a junior college n Taiwan selected using a convenience sampling technique. Participants were then randomly separated into experimental n = 119) and control (n = 123) groups. The project duration was 18 weeks, during which the experimental group received 2 hours of meditation treatment per week, for a total of 36 hours. Both groups completed pretest and posttest Life Adap-tation Scale forms, which included questionnaires addressing nformation on physical and mental distress and positive and negative coping strategies. Data were analyzed using analysis of covariance. Results: Findings showed that the effect of the experiment treatment was significant when student physical and mental distress pretest scores were controlled. Physical and mental symptoms in the experimental group were lower than those n the control group. Conclusions: Meditation can help students to adapt to life stressors. This study also provides support for traditional Chinese wisdom, which promotes meditation as one way to mprove health.
ISSN:1682-3141