Meditation to Reduce Stress and Improve Quality of Life: A Feasibility Study

Stress is a ubiquitous problem and a mediator of symptoms for a variety of medical conditions. Most medical diagnoses, procedures, and physician visits are associated with considerable stress. Excessive stress is associated with adverse medical outcomes, unhealthy coping mechanisms, symptoms of anxiety and depression, and overall a poor quality of life. No specific pharmacologic treatment is available for treating stress. Further, it is often difficult or impossible to change the reality of circumstances causing stress in an individual. Thus increasing individual coping mechanisms and ability of a person to handle stress, rather than changing the stressors itself, might be a more feasible approach towards reducing stress.

Meditation is a widely used and increasingly popular intervention that positively affects the individual at cognitive, physical, emotional, behavioral, and spiritual levels. A practice of meditation has been shown to reduce symptoms of stress and improve overall quality of life. Several meditation programs exist, however most are limited by considerable expense, need for elaborate training, lack of widespread availability, or incorporation of ideas and practices unique to a particular culture.