Meditation, what can it do for my Mental Health?

A systematic review and meta-analysis of meditation training for psychological stress and well-being examined 47 trials with more than 3,000 subjects and concluded that mindfulness meditation programs in particular resulted in small improvements in anxiety and depression. The researchers further reported a moderate amount of evidence that meditation programs result in small improvements in stress/distress and the mental health-related quality of life. No evidence emerged indicating that meditation programs were better than active treatments such as medicines, exercise, or other behavioural therapies.

A randomised placebo-controlled study found that the use of transcendental meditation (TM) for 16 weeks in persons with coronary heart disease (CHD) resulted in significant beneficial effects on blood pressure and cardiac autonomic nervous system tone compared with the control group who received only health education. These physiological effects were accomplished without changes in medication, body weight, or psychosocial variables and despite a statistically significant increase in physical activity level in the control group. The results suggest that TM may modulate the physiological response to stress, making it a possible beneficial modality for the treatment of CHD.