Meditation can be harmful – and can even make mental health problems worse

Being able to practise mindfulness at home at no cost makes it seem like the ideal remedy for stress and mental health problems. A form of Buddhist-based meditation called mindfulness focuses on being cognizant of your thoughts, feelings, and senses in the present. The earliest known proof of this dates back more than 1,500 years and was discovered in India. Written by a group of Buddhists, the Dharmatrāta Meditation Scripture outlines a number of techniques and includes accounts of symptoms that may arise after meditation, such as worry and depression. It also describes cognitive abnormalities linked to psychotic episodes, dissociative episodes, and depersonalisation events (when an individual believes the world is not real). There has been an explosion of scientific study in this field within the last eight years. These studies demonstrate that negative consequences are frequent. A 2022 study with a sample of 953 frequent meditation practitioners in the US revealed that more than 10% of participants reported side effects that significantly affected their daily lives and persisted for at least a month. Anxiety and despair are the most frequent side effects, per a 2020 analysis of more than 40 years of study. Dissociation or depersonalisation, panic or terror, and psychotic or delusional symptoms ensue. Additionally, studies have shown that negative effects from even mild exposure to meditation can occur in people without a history of mental health issues and can result in persistent symptoms. There has long been evidence of these negative effects in the western world as well. A prominent member of the cognitive-behavioural science movement, Arnold Lazarus, stated in 1976 that meditation may cause “serious psychiatric problems such as depression, agitation, and even schizophrenic decompensation” if it is used carelessly. There is proof that mindfulness improves people’s quality of life. The issue is that consumers are rarely cautioned about the possible negative effects by mindfulness trainers, books, videos, or apps. In his 2023 book McMindfulness, business professor and certified Buddhist instructor Ronald Purser claimed that mindfulness has evolved into a form of “capitalist spirituality.” The value of meditation is US$2.2 billion (£1.7 billion) in the US alone. Furthermore, prominent members of the mindfulness community ought to be aware of the drawbacks associated with meditation. Leading proponent of the mindfulness movement Jon Kabat-Zinn acknowledged that “90% of the research [into the positive impacts] is subpar” in a 2017 interview with the Guardian. According to Jon Kabat-Zinn, mindfulness meditation has the potential to change “who we are as human beings and individual citizens, as communities and societies, as nations, and as a species” in the foreword of the 2015 UK Mindfulness All-Party Parliamentary Report. Advocates of mindfulness often have a fervent belief in its ability to transform not just the lives of individuals but also the trajectory of humanity, almost to the point of religion. Even a lot of agnostics and atheists who engage in mindfulness practice think that it can bring more compassion and peace to the world. A little unbalanced discourse about mindfulness has also appeared in the media. A chapter in my book Buddha Pill, coauthored in 2015 with clinical psychologist Catherine Wikholm, summarised the negative consequences of meditation research. The media, notably a BBC Radio 4 documentary and a piece in New Scientist, greatly publicised it. However, in 2022, there was minimal public attention to the most costly study in the history of meditation science—more than US$8 million, funded by the Wellcome Trust, a research foundation. Between 2016 and 2018, the study tested over 8,000 students (ages 11 to 14) in 84 UK schools. The study’s findings demonstrated that, when compared to a control group, mindfulness did not enhance children’s mental wellbeing and might possibly have had the opposite effect on kids who were already mentally ill.

Ethical implications

Is it moral to promote mindfulness without disclosing its drawbacks in the marketing of mindfulness applications, in meditation instruction, or even in therapeutic settings? The response ought to be negative given the evidence of how many and varied these consequences are. Nonetheless, a lot of teachers who teach mindfulness and meditation think that these techniques are beneficial and are unaware of any potential risks. People who have experienced negative affects from meditation most frequently tell me that their professors don’t believe them. Usually, the advice given to them is to simply keep meditating and it will pass. Since studies on the subject of safe meditation practices are still in their early stages, people cannot yet rely on definitive recommendations. The fact that meditation deals with uncommon states of consciousness and that we lack psychological theories of mind to explain these states presents a larger issue. However, people can find out more about these negative effects by using available resources. These include scholarly handbooks with parts devoted to this subject and websites created by practitioners who suffered severe side effects from their meditation practice. A mindfulness researcher oversees a clinical service in the US for individuals who have encountered both short-term and long-term issues. For the time being, the general public needs to be made aware of the risks associated with meditation if it is to be used as a wellness or therapeutic tool.