Can Coloring Mandalas Reduce Anxiety?

1 Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association, 22(2) pp. 81-85 AATA, Inc. 200581 AbstractThis study examined the effectiveness of different types ofart activities in the reduction of anxiety. After undergoing abrief anxiety-induction, 84 undergraduate students were ran-domly assigned to color a mandala, to color a plaid form, orto color on a blank piece of paper. Results demonstrated thatanxiety levels declined approximately the same for the man-dala- and plaid- Coloring groups and that both of these groupsexperienced more reduction in anxiety than did the unstruc-tured- Coloring group. These findings suggest that structuredcoloring of a reasonably complex geometric pattern mayinduce a meditative state that benefits individuals sufferingfrom anxiety. IntroductionThe experience of anxiety is common to all humansand, for many, can lead to problems such as phobias, panicdisorder, or generalized anxiety disorder.

2 Indeed, anxietydisorders are the most common class of all psychologicaldisorders (Kessler et al., 1994), and anxiety levels haveincreased significantly over the last half of the 20th centu-ry (Twenge, 2000). As such, it is important to develop avariety of effective means to help people decrease present study examined a method of decreasinganxiety called Coloring therapy (Belchamber, 1997) thatcombines elements of art therapy and meditation. The ba-sic idea of Coloring therapy is that when individuals colorcomplex geometric forms, they are provided an opportu-nity to suspend their inner dialogue and to deeply en-gage in an activity that removes them from the flow ofnegative thoughts and emotions that can sometimes dom-inate their lives. Belchamber recommends that individualscolor Mandalas , which are symmetrical figures that havelong been used as meditative objects in spiritual traditions(Cornell University Program of Computer Graphics, 2002;Jung, 1959).

3 Coloring the symmetrical form of the mandala withits repeating patterns and complexity purportedly helps todraw individuals into a state similar to meditation. Al-though, to our knowledge, Coloring therapy has not beenempirically tested or widely discussed in scholarly dis-course, other research suggests that it may indeed holdpromise as an effective tool for alleviating anxiety, as itcombines elements of art therapy ( , Coloring a form) andmeditation ( , deeply concentrating on an experience thatis soothing).Several authors have documented the effectiveness ofart therapy in the treatment of anxiety. Grossman (1981),for example, held that art therapy can help to organize andcalm the inner chaos that is anxiety because one isallowed to make sense of the confusion of daily life and tocommunicate without having to find the perfect , Christenfeld and Creager (1996) suggested thatnonspeaking therapies are best for individuals with anxietyas they help people avoid the self-consciousness that oftenaccompanies talking.

4 Other clinicians using art therapywith women in prison (Cronin, 1994), children in publicschools (Keve, 1995), and children of parental violence(Kozlowska & Hanney, 2001) have found similar benefi-cial results. Meditation, or the practice of calmly limiting atten-tion and thought through the use of mental exercises(Smith, 1975), has also proven beneficial for anxiety. Over40 studies have been conducted to examine the use of med-itation on the reduction of general anxiety (Taylor, 2002).Though some studies show no reduction in anxietythrough meditation (Boswell & Murray, 1979; Goldman,Domitor, & Murray, 1979), many others have concludedthat aspects of meditation can be effective (Arcari, 1997;Brown & Ryan, 2003; Flinton, 1998). For example, Kabat-Zinn et al. (1992) had 22 individuals with anxiety disor-ders go through a training session of mindfulness medita-tion; 20 of these people successfully decreased their work by Brown and Ryan (2003) has shown thatpeople who cultivate mindfulness, or awareness andattentiveness to the present moment, also experience lowerlevels of anxiety.

5 The Present StudyAlthough Coloring therapy does not encompass all ele-ments of either art therapy or meditation, it may helpencourage a state of deep engagement brought aboutthrough artistic expression and thus may help to decreasepeople s experiences of anxiety. To test this idea, we de-signed an experiment in which anxiety was measured atCan Coloring Mandalas Reduce Anxiety? Nancy A. Curry andTim Kasser,Galesburg, ILEditor s note:Nancy A. Curry, BA, completed this projectwhile an undergraduate at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinios;she is now a graduate student in social work at Loyola Universityin Chicago. Tim Kasser, PhD, was her mentor for the project andis an associate professor of psychology at Knox College. Theauthors wish to thank J. Boostrom, J. Ellegood, C. , R.

6 Mowers, S. Salyards, and K. H. Sawicka fortheir constructive criticism, encouragement, and feedback. Thisstudy was partially funded by small grants from the RichterMemorial Fund and the Bumstead Fund at Knox correspondence concerning this article to Dr. Kasser,Box K-83, Knox College, Galesburg, IL 61401 or via e-mail TO Reduce ANXIETY three points: immediately upon entering the laboratory,after a brief anxiety-induction experience, and after 20minutes of Coloring . We hypothesized that people whocolored a mandala for 20 minutes would experience greaterreductions in anxiety than would people who engaged infree-form Coloring for 20 minutes, as the mandala s geo-metric complexity and meditative significance would helpindividuals to disengage from their feelings of anxiety andattain a more soothing state.

7 To examine whether the geo-metric form of the mandala had any unique effects on anx-iety reduction, we also asked a third group of individuals tocolor a plaid geometric pattern that was as complex as themandala. If Mandalas have special properties beneficial foranxiety-reduction, then the mandala group would experi-ence larger decrements in anxiety than the plaid group. Onthe other hand, if Coloring a prestructured, reasonablycomplex form is key to inducing the meditative-like state,the plaid and the mandala conditions might be equally ef-fective in reducing anxiety, and both would be more effec-tive than a free-form (55 female, 29 male) undergraduate stu-dents attending a small, Midwestern liberal arts collegewere solicited for participation through courses or duringmeals in the college cafeteria. The vast majority of partici-pants were Caucasians between the ages of 18 and participants received extra course credit for theirinvolvement, and three prizes of $15 were awarded via alottery procedure as additional incentives to came to a classroom in groups of two toseven.

8 After completing consent procedures, participantscompleted the 14 items of the State Anxiety Inventory(Goolkasian, ), which was adapted from Spielberger,Gorsuch, and Lushene s (1970) measure. Respondentsrated their current level of anxiety on a 9-point scale, rang-ing from not at all to extremely. Two sample items are I feel anxious and I am relaxed. High scores indicatedgreater baseline or Time 1 (T1) anxiety levels. Participants then went through an anxiety were asked to think about the time that they feltmost fearful, then write for 4 minutes about that experi-ence on a piece of " x 11" unlined paper. Immediatelyafterward, the State Anxiety Inventory was readministeredin order to assess Time 2 (T2) anxiety before the coloringprocedure participants were then randomly assigned to oneof three conditions; all participants during a particular test-ing session were assigned to the same condition to decreasethe likelihood that participants would see that others werecoloring something different than they were Coloring .

9 Themandala group (n= 30) was given an outline of a mandala(Figure 1) on " x 11" paper. The plaid group (n= 27)was given an irregular plaid design (Figure 2) on a piece " x 11" paper. The free-form group (n= 27) was given ablank piece of " x 11" paper. Both the mandala and theplaid design were composed of 324 areas of various shapesand sizes; the mandala was taken from Freeman ( )whereas the plaid design was developed specifically for thisstudy. Regardless of whether they were given a geometricdesign or a blank piece of paper, all participants wereinstructed to color the paper in front of them for 20 min-82 Figure 1 Mandala DesignFigure 2 Plaid DesignCURRY / KASSER utes using the six colored pencils (red, orange, yellow, green,blue, and purple) provided. All participants were asked tofocus on their own Coloring and to try to ignore any soundsthey might hear from the other people in the room.

10 After20 minutes of Coloring , all participants once again com-pleted the State Anxiety Inventory to assess at Time 3 (T3)any changes in anxiety that occurred during AnalysesWe began by examining the effectiveness of our ran-domization and anxiety-induction procedures. To ensurethat randomization to groups was effective, we examinedT1 anxiety scores. As can be seen in Table 1, baseline anx-iety was equivalent across the three groups, F(2,81) = .08,p= .93. To test whether the anxiety-induction ( , writingfor 4 minutes about a past fearful event) was successful, weconducted a paired samples ttest comparing T1 and T2anxiety scores. This yielded a highly significant result, t(83)= , p< .001, showing that participants anxiety didindeed increase significantly from T1 to T2. Notably, thesechanges in anxiety were essentially equivalent across thethree conditions, as the three groups still had similar anxi-ety scores at T2, F(2, 81) =.