The Western scientific and health community of scientists and clinicians has generated in excess of 3,000 peer-reviewed articles on or referring to meditation (as featured in the major bibliographic databases such as MEDLINE and PsycINFO).
The maximum yearly output was in 2000–2001 when 12 RCTs were reported in MEDLINE. In the same time period 106 RCTs [...]
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 [...]
The design of RCTs ( randomized controlled trials) for meditation (or any behaviour-based therapy for that matter) involves a number of unique challenges compared with pharmacological trials.
While both categories of trial use an inactive placebo, the pharmaceutical trial uses an inert “sugar tablet” which appears similar to the medication being administered. The participant taking the “sugar [...]
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, [...]
Defining meditation has proved a difficult challenge for modern researchers. Conceptual definitions of meditation vary widely but generally lack empirical confirmation. The authoritative National Centre for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (a department of the National Institutes of Health) in the United States in 2006 defined meditation as “a conscious mental process that induces a set [...]
The characteristic features of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), such as hyperkinesis, poor attention and impulsiveness, are seem to be more or less the opposite of those qualities that meditators wish to cultivate. Meditation, in many ways seemed like an ideally designed antidote.
Treatment program
The intervention was conducted over a 6 week period and consisted of [...]