Meditation

Mindfulness-based stress reduction for healthy individuals: A meta-analysis

Khoury B, Sharma M, Rush SE, et al. · Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 2015

Most research on mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), the eight-week program developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn, has focused on people with health conditions. This meta-analysis looked instead at healthy adults, combining 29 studies with 2,668 participants. MBSR showed moderate effects both when comparing people before and after the program and when comparing MBSR groups with control groups, and the gains held at an average follow-up of 19 weeks. Effects were large for stress, moderate for anxiety, depression, distress and quality of life, and small for burnout. Increases in mindfulness and self-compassion tracked with these improvements. The main limitation is that results varied a lot across studies, likely because of differences in design, how the program was delivered and what was measured.

Our summaries describe what each study found. They are not medical advice, and the practices at Halcyon are not a treatment for any condition.