Sociological Benefits Of Meditation
The various benefits derived from simple meditation techniques and practices, such as improved health and wellbeing, improved relationships (personal and work), improved cognitive function (e.g. better memory function) and improved self confidence and self awareness all greatly benefit the individual. However, the bigger picture is that all of these individual benefits also provide a wider sociological benefit - people who are healthier, happier, calmer and more self confident bring these qualities into everyday life and this starts to benefit others.
There are other, less direct, sociological benefits. For example, meditation practices help with anti-social behaviour and behavioural problems. They can also help with addiction and dependency issues. Furthermore, there is research to show that meditation practices introduced into prisons, for example, help not only improve the behaviour and wellbeing of prisoners, but also help reduce recidivism rates. There is even research which indicates that when a certain proportion of a local population develops and maintains a regular meditation practice, the crime rate within that area reduces. All of these potential benefits extend outwards and can help improve generally the society we are all integrally connected to and all are worthy of further research and implementation.
Decreased Cigarette, Alcohol, and Drug Abuse - A statistical meta-analysis of 198 independent treatment outcomes found that meditation produced a significantly larger reduction in tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drug use than either standard substance abuse treatments (including counselling and pharmacological treatments) or prevention programs. Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly 1987 and International Journal of the Addictions 1991.
Effective rehabilitation of maximum security prisoners - Transcendental Meditation has proved its success as a rehabilitation programme in maximum security prisons throughout the world. These studies demonstrate that through this programme inmates show reduced hostility and aggression, reduced stress and anxiety, improved behaviour, improved health, and improved mental health. Most important, in comparison to other rehabilitation programmes, reconviction rates are reduced by 40%. Journal of Criminal Justice 1987, International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice 1987.
New research suggests the ancient Indian art of Vipassana meditation could help to improve discipline and co-operation among prisoners. Vipassana is a type of "mindfulness" meditation that brings enhanced self-awareness. The technique has been employed in several prisons in India, the US and New Zealand with "remarkable success", researchers reported at the Royal College of Psychiatrists annual conference. It has now been tried on an experimental basis in the UK's Lancaster prison with similar success. Inmates practising the technique became more disciplined and co-operative, said prison staff. In addition, inmates became less prone to depression and hostility, suggesting the technique could play a role in the treatment of mental illness. The institutional cost involved in running the training courses is minimal, costing less than alternative ways of modifying behaviour, he added. Vipassana was also readily accepted by the inmates, and several hundred police officers and prison staff have since voluntarily learned the technique for their personal development. © Health Media Ltd 2001.
A study published in the journal Psychology, Crime and Law, showed that in 1988 the crime rate in Merseyside was significantly reduced compared to 1987 and previous years, as a result of a group of people in Skelmersdale and others in Liverpool practising Transcendental Meditation. Overall, during the six-year period of the study, crime in Merseyside fell by 15% while crime in the rest of the country rose by 45%. Psychology, Crime and Law 1996.
Conflict - The Lebanon study
One of the most well-known, and best controlled studies of the peace-creating effects of group meditation occurred during the Lebanese civil war in the early 1980s. With Israeli troops heavily involved, the situation around Beirut and the Chouf mountains was rapidly creating a middle-eastern powder keg. Into this arena in 1983, Drs. Charles Alexander and John Davies at Harvard University, in collaboration with Maharishi University of Management researchers, brought 200 experienced meditators, setting up a group base in Jerusalem along with local Israeli meditators, for a period of two months. In addition, a smaller group was formed in Lebanon, containing both Muslim and Christian meditators, and five other larger groups were established at various distances from Lebanon, ranging from 2,000 in Yugoslavia to 8,000 in the US, at intervals over a 2¼ year period.
"The Lebanese participants were heavily at risk doing this," says Davies, co-director of the Partners in Conflict and Partners in Peacebuilding Projects at the Center for International Development and Conflict Management at the University of Maryland. "If their fellow countrymen had known that Muslims and Christians were talking with each other, let alone meditating in harmony, they would have been killed."
The results were highly significant. After controlling statistically for weather changes, Lebanese and Muslim, Christian and Jewish holidays, police activity, fluctuation in group sizes, and other variant influences, during the course of the study violence in Lebanon decreased between 40 to 80 percent each time a meditating group was in place, depending upon the measure and statistical approach used. This pattern was replicated seven consecutive times between 1983 and 1985. During the period each of the seven groups was in place, the average number of people killed during the war per day dropped from twelve to three, a decrease of more than 70%; war-related injuries fell by 68%; the intensity level of conflict dropped by 48%; and co-operation among antagonists increased by 66%. And the effects didn't stop there. Violent crime incidents, auto accidents and fires in both Lebanon and Israel also decreased significantly during each of the studies. In 1988, Alexander and Davies' meticulous findings on the very first study in 1983 were published in the prestigious Journal of Conflict Resolution.
Taken from Waging Peace by Cate Montana