(Abstract)
Tea meditation stimulates changes in the autonomic nervous system. That is to say, it restrains the sympathetic nervous system while activating the parasympathetic nervous system. Through these processes, our bodies maintain a stable condi...
(Abstract)
Tea meditation stimulates changes in the autonomic nervous system. That is to say, it restrains the sympathetic nervous system while activating the parasympathetic nervous system. Through these processes, our bodies maintain a stable condition. Long-standing stress weakens the immune system, having a bad influenceon our mental health. For that reason, we, as a modern human beings living under the influence of stress, have a growing need for controlling stress properly. Therefore, a tea meditation that enables the improvement of the immune system against stress by controlling the autonomic nervous system can be a method for managing stress.
This study was designed toidentify the positive effects of tea meditation on resolving the psychological pain of modern human beings caused by stress. After making an assumption that psychological pain is mostly caused by stress, this study predicted that psychological health would be improved by properly controlling stress by stimulating the activity of the autonomic nervous system through tea meditation. Accordingly, this study aims to identify the tea meditation’s positive effect on psychological health empirically associated with anxiety and stress.
The research group consists of people who have experienced tea meditation, whereas the control group consists of people who have never experienced any kind of meditation at all. Given that tea meditation is not yet popularized among people, there were some difficulties in composing the research group. As for measuring the mental health condition of participants, this study utilized a scale that can measure psychological anxiety, and that of patterns and degrees of stress.
As a result of the measuring of psychological anxiety, this study failed to verify the hypothesis that tea meditation has positive effects on mental health, which can be interpreted from the STAI test, which has failed to measure anxiety sensitively within the normal range. However, from the results of analyzing the stress measurement of participants, it was recognized that the autonomic nervous system can be changed through tea meditation. In other words, the analysis indicated that the immune ability against stress was improved by controlling the autonomic nervous system through tea meditation. It also suggests that tea meditation can have a positive influence not only on physical health in terms of improvement of immune ability, but also on mental health in terms of stress reduction.
The results of this study indicate that tea meditation can weigh significantly on modern human beings’lives. The improvements in terms of physical and mental health can have a positive influence on the improvement of the quality of life and relationships with other people as well. As tea meditation is a kind of practice for everybody, from people who have physical disease to people who have excessive mental stress, as well as for ordinary people, it can be applied in other situations, such as hospitals, rehabilitation institutions, welfare centers, etc., let alone in daily life. Hence, this study tries to serve as a platform for publicizing the value of tea meditation.
In conclusion, this study points out the following rules for tea meditation for mental health:
First, make it a rule to practice tea meditation on a regular basis; otherwise it does not work as effectively as a medicinal treatment. In other words, on a long-term and steady basis of practice it would be more effective for mental health. For example, setting an exact duration and numbers of time in a week is helpful for practice.
Second, Increase your belief in tea meditation. A lot of research results show that the more belief in the meditation people have the more improvement they show. As seen in the case study analysis which utilized the measuring tool of stress, if people practice tea meditation with belief, the resistance against stress would be raised, without exception.
Third, generalize tea meditation practice. This means you should applytea meditation to all aspects of life, from stressful situations to psychologically shocking situations, as well as ordinary daily life.