Meditation and Mindfulness: Effectiveness and Safety

According to the National Health Interview Survey, an annual nationally representative survey, the percentage of U.S. adults who practiced meditation more than doubled between 2002 and 2022, from 7.5 to 17.3 percent. Of seven complementary health approaches for which data were collected in the 2022 survey, meditation was the most popular, beating out yoga (used by 15.8 percent of adults), chiropractic care (11.0 percent), massage therapy (10.9 percent), guided imagery/progressive muscle relaxation (6.4 percent), acupuncture (2.2 percent), and naturopathy (1.3 percent).

This article presents summaries of many studies that used meditation and mindfulness to gauge their effectiveness and safety. Some studies have shown that meditation and mindfulness practices may have a variety of health benefits and may help people improve the quality of their lives. Recent studies have investigated if meditation or mindfulness helps people manage anxiety, stress, depression, pain, or symptoms related to withdrawal from nicotine, alcohol, or opioids. Other studies have looked at the effects of meditation or mindfulness on weight control or sleep quality.

Their conclusion is that much of the research on these topics has been preliminary or not scientifically rigorous. Their belief is that because the studies examined many different types of meditation and mindfulness practices, and the effects of those practices are hard to measure, results from the studies have been difficult to analyze and may have been interpreted too optimistically.