Meditation Programs for Psychological Stress and Well-being: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis
Goyal and colleagues asked what meditation programmes actually do for stress-related health, and answered it by reviewing the trials rather than by running one. They searched the literature systematically and kept only randomised trials with active control groups, which is the decisive choice: comparing meditation against another activity that also involves time, attention and expectation, rather than against nothing, is what separates the practice from the effect of being given something to do. Forty-seven trials with several thousand participants met that bar. The findings are modest and specific. Mindfulness meditation programmes showed moderate evidence of improvement in anxiety, depression and pain, with the benefits smaller at follow-up than immediately after the course, and low evidence of improvement in stress and mental health-related quality of life. For positive mood, attention, substance use, eating habits, sleep and weight, the evidence was either of no effect or too weak to say. This is the paper to cite when a claim about meditation needs its actual size stated.
Goyal and colleagues asked what meditation programmes actually do for stress-related health, and answered it by reviewing the trials rather than by running one. They searched the literature systematically and kept only randomised trials with active control groups, which is the decisive choice: comparing meditation against another activity that also involves time, attention and expectation, rather than against nothing, is what separates the practice from the effect of being given something to do. Forty-seven trials with several thousand participants met that bar. The findings are modest and specific. Mindfulness meditation programmes showed moderate evidence of improvement in anxiety, depression and pain, with the benefits smaller at follow-up than immediately after the course, and low evidence of improvement in stress and mental health-related quality of life. For positive mood, attention, substance use, eating habits, sleep and weight, the evidence was either of no effect or too weak to say. This is the paper to cite when a claim about meditation needs its actual size stated.
Written from the abstract, OpenAlex.
What our sources record
Reproduced as it was written when this source was checked, figures and all.
47 trials, 3,515 participants; anxiety ES = 0.38 (0.12 to 0.64) and depression ES = 0.30 (0.00 to 0.59) at 8 weeks; no evidence of advantage over other active treatments.
Where we use it
- 2,500 Years, One Good Study, Why We Exist / Endure
Reliability of this reference
The link below was matched against the publisher's record on title, first author and year, and all three agree.
The source
https://doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2013.13018
DOI: 10.1001/jamainternmed.2013.13018