The effects of spiritual and secular mindfulness meditation practices on preventing anxiety
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Abstract
Mindfulness is defined as the way someone observes their current surroundings. Previous studies have shown that higher levels of mindfulness have been linked to a decrease in anxiety, as well as many other benefits. The purpose of this study is to test both secular and spiritual meditation to find if one has a significant impact on anxiety over the other. We hypothesized that secular meditation will be more effective at preventing anxiety than the religious meditation and nature noises. Participants were randomly assigned to listen to either a secular mediation, spiritual mediation, or nature sounds, completed a stressful task to raise their state anxiety, and then reported their state mindfulness and state anxiety. Results indicate there was no significant difference amongst any of the groups in their ability to prevent anxiety. This implies that both spiritual and secular based mindfulness meditation training are viable for use in preventing anxiety. However, the differences between these groups should be investigated more in-depth.