Mindfulness Mandalas: a technique to Reduce State Anxiety in University Students of Karachi

Abstract

The cuirent study aims to reduce the levels of state anxiety among university students of Karachi by using mindfulness mandala technique. Furthermore, a comparison has been made with other drawing activity to check which technique was effective in reducing state anxiety. It was hypothesized that the use of Mindfulness Mandala technique would alleviate State Anxiety among t e university students of Karachi. In addition, it was also hypothesized that I ! Mindfulness Mandala technique would be more effective than the other drawing activity in reducing State Anxiety among the university students of Karachi. For this purpose a sample of 80 students, aged 18-25 was recruited from Bahria University through convenient sampling. The sample has been randomly divided into two groups having 40 participants per group. One group got the opportunity to perform Mandala activity and the second group performed other drawing activity. Data has been gathered using the consent form, a personal information form and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) (Speilberger, 1977). The results were analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) using paired ttest and independent t-test. Findings showed that the results for effectiveness of Mandala are significant which shows that the Mandala intervention was effective in reducing State Anxiety as evident by the mean scores (t=0.00, PO.05). While Mandala Intervention is more effective than a Other Drawing Activity, did not lead to a significant difference (*=0.263, PO.05). Overall, the study validates the effectiveness of Mindfulness Mandala in reducing State Anxiety in university students of Karachi.