The Impact of Meditation on Mental Health among College Students: Gender Perspective

Abstract

Background: Psychological well-being is a crucial element of one’s total physical and mental state. Mental health refers to psychological and emotional well-being in which individuals can utilise their learning capacities, engage in constructive and productive activities within society, and successfully handle the typical challenges of daily life. Stress has become an integral part of human life in this modern era. Stress is considered to be any condition that perturbs the body’s homeostasis. Today, males and females are constantly under stress due to the need to balance home and workplace. Objective: Meditation seeks to achieve the whole and balanced growth of human potential. By establishing a solid scientific foundation for meditation, we intended to compare males and females to evaluate its impact on mental well-being. Method: Twenty-five male and twenty-five female participants were selected for the Meditational Group, and twenty-five males and twenty-five female participants were selected for the Non-Meditational Group. They were divided into two groups: the meditational group and the non-meditational group. A sample of 100 college-going students (aged 17–25 years) was selected purposefully from Bhagalpur city. Data were collected using the Pramod Kumar Mental Health Checklist, which is used to measure mental health. paired t-test is used for data analysis. Selected individuals from meditational group were subjected to 90 minutes of yoga classes once or twice a week for a month. Result: The results suggest a statistically significant difference (t-value 2.13 and significance level 0.05) in mental health between male students in the meditational group and female students in the meditational group. There is a significant disparity (t-value 2.08 and sig-level 0.05) in mental health between male students in the non-meditation group and female students in the non-meditation group. Conclusion: The results suggest a considerable disparity in mental health between male and female students in both groups – meditational and non-meditational group. Female adolescents had better mental health than their counterparts.