Mindfulness Meditation Effectiveness Essay

The Effectiveness of Mindfulness Meditation and Adult Coloring on Anxiety and Mood Over the 20th century Americans have experienced a surge in levels of anxiety and neuroticism (Twenge, 2000). These phenomena are particularly well documented among college students. Specifically, a meta-analysis of college students found a strong correlation between self-reported anxiety and time, such that students in the late 20th century were much more anxious than students in the mid 20th century (Twenge, 2000). In fact, mean self-reports of anxiety have risen nearly an entire standard deviation in 40 years (Twenge, 2000). The degree of increased prevalence of anxiety among college students makes it important to determine positive, effective methods of coping with anxiety that are easily accessible and affordable. Thus, the goal of the current study is to compare the effectiveness of two popular coping techniques (mindfulness meditation, adult coloring) in decreasing
self-reported anxiety.
One effective method for coping with stress and anxiety is mindfulness meditation. Stemming from Buddhist traditions and meditation techniques, mindfulness meditation involves an individual spending time in a quiet, resting state while emphasizing his or her own experiences at the moment (Erberth & Sedlmer, 2012). For example, when an individual’s thoughts stray off task during mindfulness meditation, he or she attempts to refocus on the present by concentrating on his or her breathing and bodily experiences. Importantly, there are thousands of free mindfulness meditation tracks available online; therefore, this method of coping is easily available for college students.
In addition to being easily available, there are a number of benefits related to mindfulness meditation.
In fact, a meta-analysis of studies using healthy adults found evidence that mindfulness meditation has a significant nonspecific effect when compared to an inactive control group (Chiesa & Serretti, 2009). More specifically, mindfulness meditation decreases depressive symptoms and rumination while increasing mindfulness, emotion regulation, self-control (Chambers, Lo, & Allen, 2008; Costa & Barnhofer, 2016; Tang, Tang, & Posner, 2016). Thus, mindfulness meditation improves psychological well-being (Krygier et al., 2013). In addition to the psychological benefits, there are several physiological benefits to using mindfulness meditation. For example, mindfulness meditation has been associated with decreased blood pressure and cardiovascular reactivity (Chen, Yang, Wang, Zhang, 2013; Steffen & Larson, 2015). Overall, mindfulness meditation has shown to be a positive means of coping with stress and
anxiety. Another coping technique that has recently experienced an explosion in popularity is adult coloring. Surprisingly, as estimated 12 million adult coloring books were sold in 2015 alone (Halzack, 2016). Despite being marketed as effective in reducing stress, there is very little research to support this claim. In fact, a majority of research on coloring involves the creation of participants’ own mandala instead of coloring a pre-designed form (Babouckina & Robbins, 2015; Henderson, Rosen, & Mascaro, 2007; Pisark & Larson, 2007). However, early studies on the benefits of coloring pre-designed mandala form have found that coloring decreases state anxiety and negative affect in participants (Curry & Kasser, 2005; Muthard & Gilbertson, 2016; van der Vennet & Serice, 2012).
One theory that explains the reported benefits of adult coloring argues that coloring puts participants in a meditative state similar to mindfulness meditation thereby providing participants with stress relief (Curry & Kasser, 2005). Both forms of coping require deep concentration and are thought to provide a soothing experience (Curry & Kasser, 2005). Although there are similarities between mindfulness meditation and adult coloring, there has never been a comparison of the two coping methods on reducing stress and anxiety. If mindfulness meditation and adult coloring produce a similar state in individuals, there should be comparable benefits received from both.
To address this possibility, the current study used a one-way, between-subjects design with a repeated measure in which participants were randomly assigned to either the meditation or coloring condition. Participants were asked to complete several questionnaires, perform a mental stressor task, and participate in a coping task. In order to determine the effectiveness of the coping technique, participants’ self-reported negative affect and anxiety levels at three different times throughout the procedure. If Curry and Kasser’s (2005) theory is accurate, participants who color should receive equal amounts of stress relief as participants who meditate. In addition, similar trends in emotion and mindfulness should be present in both conditions. Therefore, I hypothesized mindfulness meditation and adult coloring would be equally effective at reducing anxiety and negative affect.