Spending more money on health care than any other country in the world the U.S. currently ranks 53rd for life expectancy in the world. Adopting healthy lifestyles could substantially reduce premature mortality and prolong life expectancy in US adults by as much as 14 years. Traditional medicine approaches to healthy lifestyles have been around for many centuries and are still quite popular today. Complementary and integrative approaches to whole-person health have included meditation as an integral part of medicine and this holistic approach may explain why these approaches have continued to motivate healthy lifestyles and hold such appeal for so many people.
World Health Organization W. Global Health Observatory Data Repository: Life expectancy – Data by country. Geneva, Switzerland: 2015. [Accessed February 14, 2018]. at http://apps.who.int/gho/data/view.main.WOMENLEXv. [Google Scholar]
What are meditation and mindfulness?
Meditation has a history that goes back thousands of years, and many meditative techniques began in Eastern traditions. The term “meditation” refers to a variety of practices that focus on mind and body integration and are used to calm the mind and enhance overall well-being. Some types of meditation involve maintaining a mental focus on a particular sensation, such as breathing, a sound, a visual image, or a mantra, which is a repeated word or phrase. In traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and its medical qigong practices, there are meditations and mantras for every disease known to man. The idea of TCM is that the patients must be an active participant in their own healing not merely a victim of their disease. Some forms of meditation use mantras, some use mandalas or visual images, and some like tai chi or qigong involve physical activity but all forms of meditation revolve around the practice of mindfulness, which involves maintaining attention or awareness of the present moment without making judgments.
Programs that teach meditation or mindfulness may combine the practices with other activities. For example, mindfulness-based stress reduction is a program that teaches mindful meditation, but it also includes discussion sessions and other strategies to help people apply what they have learned to stressful experiences. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy integrates mindfulness practices with aspects of cognitive-behavioral therapy.
According to a 2017 U.S. survey, the percentage of adults who practiced some form of mantra-based meditation, mindfulness meditation, or spiritual meditation in the previous 12 months tripled between 2012 and 2017, from 4.1 percent to 14.2 percent. Among children aged 4 to 17 years, the percentage increased from 0.6 percent in 2012 to 5.4 percent in 2017.
Mindfulness programs for schools have become popular. These programs provide mindfulness training with the goal of helping students and educators manage stress and anxiety, resolve conflicts, control impulses, and improve resilience, memory, and concentration. The mindfulness practices and training methods used in these programs vary widely. Studies on the effectiveness of school-based mindfulness programs have had small sample sizes and been of varying quality.
Why do people practice mindfulness meditation?
In a 2012 U.S. survey, 1.9 percent of 34,525 adults reported that they had practiced mindfulness meditation in the past 12 months. Among those responders who practiced mindfulness meditation exclusively, 73 percent reported that they meditated for their general wellness and to prevent diseases, and most of them (approximately 92 percent) reported that they meditated to relax or reduce stress. In more than half of the responses, a desire for better sleep was a reason for practicing mindfulness meditation.
What are the health benefits of meditation and mindfulness?
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.
However, much of the research on these topics has been preliminary or not scientifically rigorous. 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.
How do meditation and mindfulness work?
Some research suggests that meditation and mindfulness practices may affect the functioning or structure of the brain. Studies have used various methods of measuring brain activity to look for measurable differences in the brains of people engaged in mindfulness-based practices. Other studies have theorized that training in meditation and mindfulness practices can change brain activity. However, the results of these studies are difficult to interpret, and the practical implications are not clear.
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What is Mindfulness? Q and A with Dr. Amishi Jha
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NCCIH supports a variety of meditation and mindfulness studies, including:
- An evaluation of how the brain responds to the use of mindfulness meditation as part of a combined treatment for migraine pain.
- A study of the effectiveness of mindfulness therapy and medication (buprenorphine) as a treatment for opioid use disorder.
- A study of a mindfulness training program designed to help law enforcement officers improve their mental health by managing stress and increasing resilience.
Tips To Consider
- Don’t use meditation or mindfulness to replace conventional care or as a reason to postpone seeing a health care provider about a medical problem.
- Ask about the training and experience of the instructor of the meditation or mindfulness practice you are considering.
- Take charge of your health—talk with your health care providers about any complementary health approaches you use. Together, you can make shared, well-informed decisions
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The NCCIH Clearinghouse provides information on NCCIH and complementary and integrative health approaches, including publications and searches of Federal databases of scientific and medical literature. The Clearinghouse does not provide medical advice, treatment recommendations, or referrals to practitioners.
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