Table 1.

Demographics. Differences in gender were tested using the chi-square test. As the assumptions of the chi-square test did not hold for work status, marital status and race, these variables were tested using Fisher’s exact tests. Highest completed level of education was tested using the Mann-Whitney test. Differences in age were tested using an independent samples t-test after testing for normality.

	Novice (N=16)	Experienced (N=16)	Test statistica	P
Gender (male/female)	11/5	10/6	0.139	0.710
Age (mean with standard deviation in parentheses)	51 (14)	53 (12)	−0.521	0.606
Handedness (right/non-right)	13/3	13/3	0.000	1.000
Highest level of completed education (college or university/graduate school)	6/10	1/15	88.000	0.035
Work status (full-time/part-time/homemaker/retired/unemployed)	9/3/1/2/1	11/3/0/2/0	2.276	0.926
Marital status (never married/married/living in permanent relationship/divorced)	1/11/2/2	2/9/4/1	1.681	0.706
Race (White/African American/Asian)	13/1/2	16/0/0	2.865	0.226
Meditation practice (Theravada/Vajrayana/Zen/Theravada, Zen and Vajrayana/Vedanta and Mindfulness/Zen and Catholic Contemplative/Theravada, Zen and Mindfulness)		5/6/1/1/1/1/1
Lifetime meditation practice hours (median, range)		6164 (1527–50978)