Page 151 - Demo

149Subjects who practiced the Transcendental Meditation (TM) technique were compared to non-meditating controls of similar age and demographics on how their autonomic nervous systems responded to a series of loud stressful tones. The loud tones were presented while the subjects were sitting quietly with eyes open (not meditating). The stress reaction to each tone was measured by the size (amplitude) of the skin resistance response, which is an aspect of the fi ght-orfl ight startle response, which is measured by sweat on the palms of the hands. The upper part of the chart (A) shows that the amplitude of the response to the loud tone gets smaller with repeated presentations of it, initially in a similar way for both groups. But then after about the 15th tone, the control group began showing a large startle response again. This is probably because their higher internal stress levels, as indicated by more spontaneous skin resistance responses, was intensifying how they interacted with the environment. In contrast, the TM group was more responsive to the tone when they fi rst heard it, but quite quickly became habituated to it.The lower part of the chart (B) shows the waveform of the skin resistance response to the fi rst loud tone. It can be seen that the TM group showed a much simpler response than the control group, which showed multiple secondary responses to the loud tone. This illustrates how the internal spontaneous stress responses of the control subjects were worsening how they responded to stress from the environment.The conclusion is that TM is a way to reduce one%u2019s internal stress in order to improve how one experiences stress coming from the environment. Skin Resistance Response to Stressful Stimuli(100 dB, 3000 Hz, .5 sec.)Improved Interaction with the Environment10 SEC. 10 SEC.SECONDARYRESPONSESMEDITATORSFaster Habituation of SkinResistance ResponsesMEDITATORS NON-MEDITATORSTMTMControlControlNUMBER OF STIMULUS PRESENTATIONSAMPLITUDE OF RESPONSEAB6543210 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45tm-022FASTER RECOVERY FROM STRESSReference: Orme-Johnson, D. W. (1973). Autonomic stability and Transcendental Meditation. Psychosomatic Medicine, 35(4), 341%u2013349.