Effectiveness of Mantras as Stress Buster – A Review

Meditation has served as a traditional technique to transform consciousness and gain higher insight by focusing attention and introspectively observing one's own mental process. The Concentrative, Mindfulness meditation techniques are been practiced by the people. A mantra is a short, fixed word or phrase that can be defined as a powerful spiritual formula for the highest power we can conceive of whether we call it God, or ultimate reality, or self within. Mantras are ancient and found in both West and East. The practicing of silent repetition of mantras has been applied in our modern day living as innovative form of stress management. Mantra repetition involves frequent repetition throughout the day and night. To experience maximal benefit, mantra should be repeated silently everyday: while walking, waiting or falling in asleep etc.. Meditation is often considered to be an alternative and complementary medicine which can be used to treat peoples with stress- related mental and physical disorders. In this paper we review some of the studies conducted on effectiveness of mantras as stress buster. 'Research Scholar, Karpagam University, Coimbatore, India E-mail: jawharali@gmail.com, Dean, Faculty Of Engineering, Karpagam University Coimbatore, India. E-mail: hemacr@yahoo.com