Schools in Perú have not typically been the sites of research on meditation or its possible role in student health or primary and secondary education outcomes. This retrospective observational study seeks to begin redressing this evidentiary shortfall by confirming results from an earlier, smaller-scale study of 91 students in Huay-Huay, with a specific focus on the practice of Transcendental Meditation at Peruvian schools, some in remote locations with indigenous students. Five hundred and twenty primary and secondary students at four schools in Lima, Cusco, Puno, and Ventanilla were asked to rate their experience of meditation and its relation to four factors using a paper-and-pencil questionnaire: physical health; cognitive health; emotional health; and school performance. An average of 66% of students agreed they had benefited from practice of Transcendental Meditation in each area ...

A paucity of data in school children generally, and in non-Western schools specifically, related to health, school performance, and practice of meditation necessitated this study. The fact that almost no prior research of this type has been conducted in Latin America makes the present investigation especially worthwhile. This mostly quantitative study was carried out with 91 randomly selected school children, ranging in age from 11 to 16 years, in a remote Peruvian town in the central Andean mountains called Huay-Huay. Using a 47-question, paper-and-pencil instrument to ask students about their experience with meditation in four categories (i.e., physical health, cognitive health, emotional health, and school performance), this observational study considered whether or not the practice of meditation had a self-reported impact on student personal health and academic life, and if so to wha...

La escasez de datos en los niños en edad escolar en general, y en las escuelas no occidentales específicamente, relacionados con la salud, el rendimiento escolar y la práctica de la meditación, requirió este estudio. El hecho de que casi ninguna investigación previa de este tipo se haya realizado en América Latina hace que la presente investigación sea especialmente valiosa. Este estudio, en su mayoría cuantitativo, se llevó a cabo con 91 escolares seleccionados al azar, con edades comprendidas entre los 11 y los 16 años, en un remoto pueblo peruano en las montañas centrales de los Andes llamado Huay-Huay. Utilizando un instrumento de papel y lápiz de 47 preguntas para preguntar a los estudiantes sobre su experiencia con la meditación en cuatro categorías (es decir, salud física, salud cognitiva, salud emocional y desempeño escolar), este estudio observacional consideró...

A paucity of data in school children generally, and in non-Western schools specifically, related to health, school performance, and practice of meditation necessitated this study. The fact that almost no prior research of this type has been conducted in Latin America makes the present investigation especially worthwhile. This mostly quantitative study was carried out with 91 randomly selected school children, ranging in age from 11 to 16 years, in a remote Peruvian town in the central Andean mountains called Huay-Huay. Using a 47-question, paper-and-pencil instrument to ask students about their experience with meditation in four categories (i.e., physical health, cognitive health, emotional health, and school performance), this observational study considered whether or not the practice of meditation had a self-reported impact on student personal health and academic life, and if so to wha...

Most of the literature that has emerged about the impacts of home isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic suggests it causes mildly to acutely adverse psychosocial and physiological responses, particularly in children. Such responses relate to the separation children experience from their normal routine, including loneliness, anxiety, and depression, and adversities associated with school performance. In this case study, we explore the intersection between three phenomena in Perú: (1) practice of Transcendental Meditation by school students at a (2) provincial school during (3) home isolation. The study conducted semi-structured interviews at a school in Puno with seven students, three parents, and two teachers. A proto-theoretical model of stress, the stress response, and outcomes in three psychosocial categories—cognitive, affective, and conative—guide the research. Findings sugges...

The specific, as well as holistic, effects of practicing the Transcendental Meditation technique have been thoroughly documented. Findings associated with the practice have included a range of physiological, psychological and sociological benefits, but have also encompassed measures of general health, well-being and human development. However, few if any indigenous test instruments have been used to gather these data. In Perú, a test instrument called Test de Autoevaluación de Meditación Transcendental (i.e., Self-Assessment Test of Transcendental Meditation) designed to measure benefits of Transcendental Meditation in school children and adolescents has been deployed with some degree of success. The test was designed about 25 years ago to measure physical health, cognitive health, emotional health, and school performance, and has been completed by about 50,000 primary and secondary s...