| Abstract: |
Meditation is a practice of contemplation which is available and is currently under investigation in the impacts of conscious and subconscious processing of emotions. This experiment has explored the hypothesis of whether an eight-week mindfulness meditation program alters subconscious patterns of emotion as reflected by psychophysiological and implicit-association indices. Sixty healthy adults (22-45 years) of Raipur, India were recruited using purposive sampling and randomly assigned to an experimental group (n= 30), who received daily 30-minute mindfulness sessions, and a waitlist control group (n= 30). Psychological measurements were made on DASS-21 and Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire; physiological measures were salivary cortisol, heart-rate variability (RMSSD) and EEG alpha theta power; subconscious emotional bias measured on an emotional Implicit Association Test (IAT D-score). The hypothesis was that meditation would decrease implicit negative affect and physiological reactivity of stress. Paired-sample t-tests and ANCOVA showed a significant decrease in salivary cortisol, IAT D-scores and DASS-21 anxiety, and high RMSSD and frontal alpha power after interventions. These results indicate that a programmatic approach to meditation can reorganize automatic, non-conscious emotional schemas via a combination of autonomic, endocrine and cortical mechanisms, justifying the inclusion of meditation in evidence-based mental-health programs. The consequences are carried to preventive psychiatry and school-based programs of well-being. |
