The Effectiveness of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Programme (MBSRP) and Sufi Meditation(SM) in the Treatment of Neurotic Anxiety among Females

The present study is designed to compare two different types of meditations ie Mindfulness meditation (MBSRP) and Sufi meditation(SM) in the treatment of neurotic anxiety among the female population, comprised of 200 participants upon whom Hamilton Anxiety Scale was administered. Based on their scores on HAS two groups of subjects each comprising of 50 subjects with high anxiety and 50 with low anxiety scores (N=100) were retained in the final study. Each group was further bifurcated resulting into four subgroups wherein, 25 (n=25) subjects derived from the high anxiety group (n=50) were randomly assigned to SM while remaining 25(n=25) subjects having high anxiety randomly assigned to MM group. The same procedure was adopted with low anxiety group. After completing the prescribed meditation Pre and Posttest measures on HAS for both groups were analyzed statistically through SPSS. The results show that MM group has higher mean on HAS as compared to SM group. The mean difference is 18.88 which is statistically significant at p< .001. Results accordingly depict SM as more effective in lowering anxiety, apparently because it matches the belief system of the Muslim population, providing a new avenue for future research.