| Maharishi University of Management |
October 3, 2001
PRESS RELEASE
Students' Intelligence and Creativity Improved
by Transcendental Meditation Technique
Findings from Three Randomized Experiments Reported in the Leading Journal on Intelligence
At a time when U.S. schools make you think of metal detectors, falling test scores and attention deficit disorder, imagine students closing their eyes to meditate for 15 minutes twice daily, and then, as a result, showing more intelligence and creativity, less anxiety, and increased alertness and ability to focus.
An article in the September/October issue of Intelligence reports on three randomized studies that found these results in students who learned the Transcendental Meditation technique, an age-old practice for developing mental potential.
We found increases in creativity and intelligence that you don't typically expect to see," said principal investigator and coauthor So Kam Tim of Hong Kong, who conducted the experiments to earn his doctoral degree in psychology at Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa. "Many researchers feel that it's not possible to significantly improve basic cognitive ability once a person reaches adolescence, but our findings challenge that theory."
Dr. So's research was designed to determine whether different meditation procedures and rest could affect several types of cognitive processes. "We compared the Transcendental Meditation technique, contemplative meditation and napping, which some believe produce similar effects," said Dr. So. "Our findings showed that these three have significantly different effects on cognitive function."
Significant improvement on seven measures of cognitive function
Dr. So used seven standardized tests to measure a wide range of cognitive, emotional and perceptual functions of 362 students participating in the three studies at schools in Taiwan. In one study, conducted at a private high school, 154 seniors (78 boys, 76 girls) from four classes were randomly assigned to the TM program or to a napping group. In the second study at a national junior high school, 87 girls were randomized by class to either a TM group or a no-treatment control group, and were also compared to 41 girls in a third class who learned contemplative meditation from the Chinese tradition. The third study consisted of 99 boys in two classes at a vocational training school who were randomly assigned by class to either a TM group or no-treatment control.
The results of the three studies, which ranged from six months to one year, showed that taken together the TM groups had significant improvement on all seven measurements compared to the no-treatment and napping control groups. Contemplative meditation showed a significant result in two categories, and napping had no effect.