Study On The Effect Of Meridian-following Meditation On Anxiety Emotion And Its Mechanism

BACKGROUND:Dealing with anxiety has always been an important topic in psychology.Meridian-following meditation is a kind of meditation training method with Chinese characteristics that combines traditional Chinese medicine theory of the taiyang bladder channel of foot with Western meditation techniques to help practitioners improve their emotions.OBJECTIVES:This study is for verifying the emotional regulation function of meridian-following meditation,observing the emotional regulation of four-week meridian-following meditation training on college students who were anxious,and explore its effective mechanism.METHODS:The college students with Self-rating Anxiety Scale(SAS)score greater than 50 were randomly divided into the training group and the control group.The final effective trainees are 35 in the training group and 30 in the control group.The training group received four weeks of meditation training twice a day.Each training lasts 20 minutes.The control group did not undergo meditation training.There was a pre-test performed before the start of the training.After two weeks of training,the mid-test was performed.After another two weeks of training is the final test.Time interval,sequence and content of the test group and the training group were the same.Each test included the Self-rating Anxiety Scale(SAS),Self-rating Depression Scale(SDS),State of Anxiety Inquiry(S-AI)and Emotional Picture Evaluation.Multi-channel physiological recorder was used to monitor the baseline,stress situation,and the physiological data(heart rate,heart rate variability,and galvanic skin response)before,during,and after meridian-following meditation.For the control group,meridian-following meditation is replaced by close eye rest.RESULTS:1.There was no statistical difference between the training group and the control group in terms of age,gender,pre-test SAS score,pre-test SDS score,pre-test first S-AI score,and pre-test emotional picture evaluation(P>0.05).2.After two weeks and four weeks of training,the SAS scores of the training group were lower than pre-test,with extremely significant statistical difference(P<0.001).And they were lower than the control group,with very significant statistical difference(P<0.01).3.After two and four weeks of training,the SDS scores of the training group were lower than pre-test,with extremely significant statistical difference(P<0.001).And they were lower than the control group,with significant statistical difference(P<0.05,P<0.01).4.During the three experiments,the S-AI scores of the training group showed extremely significant decline(P<0.001),and the S-AI score of the training group after each experimental intervention were lower than those of the control group,and the difference was very significant(P<0.01,P<0.01,P<0.001).The total anxiety change of training group during the whole study period was also greater than that of the control group,and the difference was extremely significant(P<0.001).5.Comparing to the control group,the evaluation of the positive picture potency of the training group was significantly lower(P<0.01),and the training group's evaluation of the negative picture potency was significantly higher(P<0.001).There was no significant change in the evaluation of the neutral picture potency between the two groups(P>0.05),and there was no significant change in the evaluation of arousal of the three groups of pictures(P>0.05).This shows that meridian-following meditation can make people's evaluation of positive and negative stimulate tend to be neutral.6.In the pre-test,there was no significant change in the heart rate of the training group after intervention(P>0.05).During the middle and final test,the training group experienced a significant decrease in heart rate(P<0.05)compared with the control group.Moreover,the difference in heart rate increase during the stress period of the training group has an extremely significant downward trend(P<0.001).This shows that meridian-following meditation can help people adjust their heart rate,and adapt to the passion better.7.The LF/HF changes in the training group were not significant in the three experiments(P>0.05).There was no significant difference between the two groups in the pre-test,mid-test and final-test baseline LF/HF(P>0.05).There was no significant difference in the LF/HF values between the pre-test and the middle test.(P>0.05),the LF/HF of the final test training group was lower than that of the control group LF/HF,which had significant statistical difference(P<0.01),indicating that the LF/HF changes in the stress period of the training group were stable.In the control group,the stress period LF/HF was significantly higher than that of the pre-test.8.In the pretest,galvanic skin response of the training group was significantly lower than the baseline after intervention(P<0.01),and the galvanic skin response declined in the training group was significantly higher than that in the control group(P<0.05).There was no significant difference in the changes in galvanic skin response between the two groups(P>0.05).It shows that meridian-following meditation can reduce the galvanic skin response better,but the effect is unstable.CONCLUSION:Meridian-following meditation can effectively reduce the anxiety and depression of college students,and it can also make people's positive and negative emotion more peaceful.By adjusting heart rate,it can help alleviate anxiety symptoms,and the effect has certain persistent.The meridian-following meditation training can effectively reduce the galvanic skin response,but the effect is not stable enough,and the regulation of heart rate variability is not obvious enough,but it can help maintain the balance of sympathetic nerve and vagus nerve to a certain degree,especially under stress.It can help maintain autonomic balance,counteract the increased anxiety caused by stress,and help relieve anxiety.Therefore,through meridian-following meditation,it can effectively alleviate negative emotions,improve the quality of life of anxious people,and give a relaxing effect.This method can be applied to psychotherapy as an effective self-training technique,and has the value of further research.