The effects of meditation on anxiety and stress are comparable to effect sizes described in conventional meta-analyses of psychotherapy field studies73.
For example Andrews’ review of psychotherapy for neurotic patients reported a mean effect size of 0.74 for verbal psychotherapy and 0.97 for behavioural psychotherapy vis-a-vis a mean effect size of 0.55 for placebo56.
It should be [...]
Unlike modern Western therapeutic thinking however, meditation was not originally designed to be used as a course of treatment so much as to be part of an ongoing lifestyle thus implying that the benefits of meditation are likely to persist in the follow-up phase only so long as the person chooses to meditate regularly.
Meditation instructional [...]
Examining the studies in the review ”Does Meditation Have a Specific Effect? A Systematic Experimental Evaluation of a Mental silence Orientated Definition”, control methods were presumptively categorized according to their face-validity into low, moderate or high face validity categories.
The low face-validity controls used strategies that were:
Passive and unstructured: Participants were involved in minimal or no activity [...]
Control methods in meditation trials can be positioned on a spectrum based on their varying ability to elicit non-specific effects. At the low face validity end are those that are mostly passive and implausible (such as “waiting list”) and therefore unlikely to control for non-specific factors, while at the other extreme are those that are [...]
It seems obvious that the non-specific effect of any intervention is closely related to its credibility and plausibility as a therapeutic intervention i.e. its “face validity”.
Now, some of the effects associated with meditation must be non-specific, i.e. comprising a mixture of placebo, therapeutic contact, spontaneous improvement, and so on, whereas some, hopefully, are specific to [...]
Can mental silence and its associated yogic philosophy provides a basis for a taxonomy of meditation that is practically useful in the delivery of healthcare?
This question is based on the wide range of applications in medicine, psychology and neuroscience on which Sahaja Yoga meditation (SYM) interventions have been shown to have a specific effect. Moreover, [...]
ADHD is characterized by a symptom triad of inattention, hyperactivity and poor impulse control. Meditation is precisely directed at developing the opposite features, that is, stable attention, calm and measured behaviour and the ability to contain one’s impulses.
The use of complementary and alternative medicines and other non-pharmacological strategies as a treatment for children diagnosed with [...]
Pharmacological treatment of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), while at the moment more effective than any other treatment option, is still considerably limited in its usefulness. For instance, although stimulants act for only a limited period, symptoms are continuous. Thus stimulants must be given several times per day (or at least daily in the case of [...]
Dr Ramesh Manocha is a regular contributor on the blog Researching Meditation. The site explores the scientifically associated phenomena associated with mental silence based meditation. Much of Dr Manocha’s research is published on the site, including extracts from his research and graphs of his results.
The blog can be found at www.researchingmeditation.org.
In this excerpt from his thesis, Dr Manocha discusses the wider implications of his research results.
“Mental silence, and its associated yogic philosophy, may provide a basis for a taxonomy of meditation that is practically useful in the delivery of healthcare. An intervention with a specific effect such as SYM (sahaja yoga meditation) has a wide [...]