Mudita Journal

More on the Health Benefits of Mindfulness

September 29, 2004 · Filed under: Health, Meditation, Mindfulness
Share

I’ve been pointing people to Ruth Baer’s (2003) meta-analysis of the benefits of mindfulness (available in crystal-clear PDF format on David Fresco’s web site) for some time, as an excellent introduction to and overview of the current mindfulness research.

Today, via Marshall (via Drew), I learned about a new meta-analysis that is in publication in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research, exploring the health benefits of mindfulness:

J Psychosom Res. 2004 Jul;57(1):35-43.

Mindfulness-based stress reduction and health benefits. A meta-analysis.

Grossman P, Niemann L, Schmidt S, Walach H.

Freiburg Institute for Mindfulness Research, Konradstr. 32, 79100 Freiburg, Germany.

OBJECTIVE: Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) is a structured group program that employs mindfulness meditation to alleviate suffering associated with physical, psychosomatic and psychiatric disorders. The program, nonreligious and nonesoteric, is based upon a systematic procedure to develop enhanced awareness of moment-to-moment experience of perceptible mental processes. The approach assumes that greater awareness will provide more veridical perception, reduce negative affect and improve vitality and coping. In the last two decades, a number of research reports appeared that seem to support many of these claims. We performed a comprehensive review and meta-analysis of published and unpublished studies of health-related studies related to MBSR.

METHODS: Sixty-four empirical studies were found, but only 20 reports met criteria of acceptable quality or relevance to be included in the meta-analysis. Reports were excluded due to (1) insufficient information about interventions, (2) poor quantitative health evaluation, (3) inadequate statistical analysis, (4) mindfulness not being the central component of intervention, or (5) the setting of intervention or sample composition deviating too widely from the health-related MBSR program. Acceptable studies covered a wide spectrum of clinical populations (e.g., pain, cancer, heart disease, depression, and anxiety), as well as stressed nonclinical groups. Both controlled and observational investigations were included. Standardized measures of physical and mental well-being constituted the dependent variables of the analysis.

RESULTS: Overall, both controlled and uncontrolled studies showed similar effect sizes of approximately 0.5 (PCONCLUSION: Although derived from a relatively small number of studies, these results suggest that MBSR may help a broad range of individuals to cope with their clinical and nonclinical problems.

PMID: 15256293 [PubMed - in process]

If you’re one of the lucky few with institutional passwords to the full-text version, see the original page at PubMed for the relevant links and the PI’s e-mail address.

Posted by Joshua Zader · Trackback URL · Link
  • http://www.mindfulexperience.org David Black

    An additional review of sitting meditation that is more current is:

    Sitting-Meditation Interventions Among Youth: A Review of Treatment Efficacy.
    Black DS, Milam J, Sussman S.

    Institute for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Research, University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, Alhambra, California.
    Objective: Although the efficacy of meditation interventions has been examined among adult samples, meditation treatment effects among youth are relatively unknown. We systematically reviewed empirical studies for the health-related effects of sitting-meditative practices implemented among youth aged 6 to 18 years in school, clinic, and community settings. Methods: A systematic review of electronic databases (PubMed, Ovid, Web of Science, Cochrane Reviews Database, Google Scholar) was conducted from 1982 to 2008, obtaining a sample of 16 empirical studies related to sitting-meditation interventions among youth. Results: Meditation modalities included mindfulness meditation, transcendental meditation, mindfulness-based stress reduction, and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. Study samples primarily consisted of youth with preexisting conditions such as high-normal blood pressure, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and learning disabilities. Studies that examined physiologic outcomes were composed almost entirely of African American/black participants. Median effect sizes were slightly smaller than those obtained from adult samples and ranged from 0.16 to 0.29 for physiologic outcomes and 0.27 to 0.70 for psychosocial/behavioral outcomes. Conclusions: Sitting meditation seems to be an effective intervention in the treatment of physiologic, psychosocial, and behavioral conditions among youth. Because of current limitations, carefully constructed research is needed to advance our understanding of sitting meditation and its future use as an effective treatment modality among younger populations.

blog comments powered by Disqus