Effect of Meditation on Student's SAT Score

One of the most stressful moments in a student’s academic career will be taking the SAT. The SAT is a standardized exam that is used to measure a student’s academic skill set, which is submitted to colleges and universities for admission. This one exam judges a student’s potential academic success and compares it to that of other applicants. It is important that one does well in the hope that their academic achievement surpasses that of their peers, so that they may be admitted to the University of their choosing. However, the importance of this exam can cause such an overwhelming amount of anxiety and stress that it could inhibit one’s ability to do well. Anxiety is a gateway that leads to poor academic performance as a result of having issues with focusing, being concerned with having the capability to do well, and being preoccupied with one’s own self-interest and negative notions (Beauchemin, Hutchins, Patterson, 2008).

A vast amount of research has shown that stress is decreasing student’s cognitive function, which is negatively affecting student’s ability to learn and retain new information (Wendt et al., 2015). Students all over the world have at one point in time described feeling high levels of stress due to the high expectations of doing well on the SAT or in school in general. Psychological distress which is defined as having the manifestation of anxiety, depression, anger, and or hostility; which is associated with poor social functioning, poor daily living, and poor physical and mental health in students (Wendt et al., 2015). This type of anxiety is a state of mind that arises because of the unknown of the future; which creates an inner conflict and strain since there is no way of knowing for certain if one will be prepared for the exam to come (Jadhav Havalappanavar, 2009). The SAT’s purpose is not being met due to lower cognitive functioning. In order to gain an accurate measure of students’ academic knowledge, anxiety needs to be decreased. Anxiety is acting as a confounding variable that is negatively impacting the SAT’s ability to receive an accurate measure of a student’s potential. Consequently robbing students of their chance for acceptance into a university.

Anxiety can be placed into one of two categories, state and trait anxiety. State anxiety is a situational anxiety that develops through a challenging action or specific situation (Jadhav Havalappanavar, 2009). For example, a student feeling anxious about an upcoming exam; the state of this anxiety will only occur while the stressor is present. Once the stressor has passed, it will alleviate itself. Trait anxiety is the chronic and long lasting effect of anxiety (Jadhav Havalappanavar, 2009). An example of trait anxiety is the disorder known as generalized anxiety disorder, also referred to as GAD. This illness is defined as a persistent and excessive form an anxiousness that can occur for any number of reasons.

To deal with these forms of anxiety there is a need for a coping mechanism that channels negative notions into achieving academic success. A curriculum with the capacity to significantly diminish stress and promote an increase in brain functioning has an important contribution for education; as a means to accomplish the education systems primary goal of encouraging learning in students (Wendt et al., 2015). According to Lazarus (1993), coping is an effort to manage cognitive and behavioral efforts, and adapt to psychological stress as it is developed and changed over time. A continuous sense of anxiety has been linked with a shortage of coping skills (Toneatto Nguyen, 2007). Psychological distress is a specific affiliation between a person and their surroundings that is evaluated by the need to improve ones welfare (Beck, 1986). It is important to identify the variable that is causing stress, and define it from a course of action standpoint. In this instance, the variable that is causing the stress is anxiety, which is being produced by the desire to do well on the SAT. The goal is to diminish stress with a course of action that will lessen the unwanted stressor or produce a more positive emotion.

Meditation is a form of emotion-based coping that diminishes the severity of a stressor even though the conditions of their connection have not changed (Lazarus, 1993). For instance, students who take the SAT would not be avoiding the stressor, but would emotionally be coping with the anxiety that is being produced. Therefore lessening its effects through meditation. Research shows that self-reflection is capable of producing long-term results in regulating ones emotions associated with good mental health; as long as the continuation of meditation is implemented into one’s lifestyle (Menezes Buzarro, 2015). Meditation is well known for having many advantages, including physical and mental improvement (Khubalkar Maharaj, 2009). For instance, some of the mental effects are feeling calm, relaxed, and an overall reduction in anxiety. An example of some of the physical effects would include reduced physiological stimulation, a decrease in oxygen intake, pulse rate, and pain tolerance (Khubalkar Maharaj, 2009).

No specific amount of time dedicated towards meditating can discern how long anxiety symptoms with stay at bay or when anxiety symptoms will return; however, the amount of time spent meditating does predict how deep in thought one can enter (Toneatto Nguyen, 2007). To receive significant results Jadhav and Havalappanavar (2009) suggest a minimum of forty days of implementing a meditation program is necessary to bring about a positive advancement in a participants wellbeing. Davis and Hayes (2011) proposes that eight weeks of mindfulness mediation could alter the way the brain processes emotions. Thus resulting in a decline in overall strain has been correlated with the shrinkage of gray matter density in the amygdala, thus showing positive effects on stress (Zeidan, Johnon, Gordon Goolkasian, 2010). Brain scans revealed that the amygdala may be linked to processing emotions differently with the use of mindfulness training; it is allowing a shift in one’s ability to regulate and selectively discern between ones own emotions (Davis Hayes, 2011). Allowing a participant to clear their mind, and alleviate emotions such as anxiety. However, Tang et al. (2007) states that changes in braining functioning could become apparent in as little as five days with IBMT (integrative meditation); which would lead to a development in attention and cognition skills in reaction to stress. IMBT is the combination of relaxing the mind and body, implementing sequenced breathing and guided meditation; which is all brought together with music to blend the techniques into a single instance in order to gain a greater internal consciousness (Menezes Buzarro, 2015).

This leads to the question; do different forms of meditation produce different results? Different forms of mediation focus on various techniques to achieve concentration. For example, focusing on an item or a present moment, relaxing the body, breathing exercises, visualization, and mindfulness can help expedite success within a meditative state (Tang et al., 2007). All forms of meditation, although they may exhibit different techniques, have a synonymous goal to improve cognition and control stress. Students who have implemented meditation in their daily routine have scored considerably higher in standardized exams, have higher graduation rates, less anxiety and depression, and have an increase in overall student wellbeing (Wendt et al., 2015).

The purpose of meditation is for the psyche to generate a mind over matter state of restful attentiveness that will improve brain function (Wendt et al., 2015). The goal of transcendental meditation is to promote academic achievement in school and healthy human development; this type of meditation comes with a wide array of advantages including an increase in physical and mental health, a decrease in distress, an increase in social and emotional learning abilities, and enhanced self-awareness (Wendt et al., 2015). According to Wendt et al. (2015), students who implemented transcendental meditation reported improvement in their sleep, self-assurance, happiness, and mental health. These changes were further confirmed through comparing participants within the meditation group. Participants who mediated more frequently were more receptive during class time, they were better able to concentrate, and had a lower stress reactivity (Wendt et al., 2015). This study’s results suggest that mediation could have an overall improvement on a student’s life outside of the classroom and could improve a student’s wellbeing in other aspects of their lives.

Beauchemin et al. (2008) proposed that students with learning disabilities could also greatly benefit from the implementation of meditation into their routine due to the higher levels of school related stress that is associated with their academic adversities. Meditation promotes the mind and body to sustain stress and strain through calming ones inner self. It is a straightforward and effortless approach that allows the mind to experience a broader degree of the thinking process until the mind surpasses and experiences the source of deliberation; it is the easiest form to achieve to self-awareness (Wendt et al., 2015). This allows the student a degree of relaxation that allows room to concentrate on a task while also removing all anxiety from the equation. In the case of students with learning disabilities, they achieved self-awareness, tranquility, and self-fulfillment that resulted in a significant improvement in their academic performance (Beauchemin et al., 2008).

Mindfulness if defined as having the capacity to be aware of ones own self-involvement without judgment (Davis Hayes, 2011). This form of meditation has exhibited an improved ability to sustain attention during a performance task and have an overall better aptitude in memory (Davis Hayes, 2011). This type of reflection would best be suited towards retaining new information, such as in an SAT prep course with the goal of academic achievement.

Mindfulness mediation has shown an overall improvement on decreasing symptoms of anxiety in subjects who are clinically diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. Meditating is a holistic alternative for those who suffer from this disorder and require a substitute to ingesting medication. Participants were less likely to contemplate over unfavorable concepts about their performance, and treated themselves with more kindness, and understanding (Hoge et al., 2013). Subjects were put through tasks that were made elicit stress, however, those who mediated experienced an increase in resilience and a decrease in reinitiating stress (Hoge et al., 2013). There was proof that there was personal growth, participants had an increase in positive self-respect and had a clear and obvious decrease in anxiety symptoms overall (Hoge et al., 2013). Concluding that mindfulness meditation had an effect on lowering anxiety symptoms in subjects with diagnosed generalized anxiety disorder and an overall improvement in their mental health.

The question still remains, could mediation help students perform better on the SAT compared to those who do not. My hypothesis for this experiment is that the students who meditate before the exam will do better than the participants who do not meditate. The ideal participant for this study would have no previous mediation experience, because it is disputed that those who mediate on a regular basis tend to have a more positive lifestyle and attitude that could potential skew the results to a more positive outcome (Khubalkar Maharaj, 2009). The experimental and control group would both attend an SAT preparatory course that would prepare the participants for the academic portion of the exam. However, only the experimental group would mediate in the hopes that it will lower anxiety and any other negative thoughts that could potentially distract the participant from achieving academic success. This experiment will solely rely on the participant’s cognitive ability to concentrate by implementing meditation, it should alleviate the confounding variable of anxiety. The notion is, if students are thoroughly prepared for the exam and are also given a coping skill that will allow for them to manage their psychological stress, the hope is they will achieve a higher level of academic success than that of their peers who do not possess the same coping mechanism.