Each month our editorial team sifts through hundreds of papers and curates notable findings—for practitioners and informed readers who want to stay current with the evidence. Subscribe to the monthly Research Digest for expert analysis and concise summaries of key papers.
This review looked at studies that measured cortisol (a stress hormone) after people visited forests, a practice called forest bathing or shinrin-yoku. The authors found that people in forest groups had lower salivary cortisol than people in urban groups, both before and after the visits. The reviewers say the change…
Researchers studied the Nishino Breathing Method, a slow breathing and movement practice taught by Kozo Nishino, and tested the "Ki-energy" his school claims to produce. In lab tests, Nishino's Ki slowed growth of cultured human liver cancer cells, and it helped protect isolated rat liver mitochondria from heat damage and…
Singing bowl sound meditation is an old Tibetan and Buddhist practice. This review of studies found short-term calming effects: lower negative mood, higher positive mood, and some small improvements in blood pressure, heart rate, and breathing in some studies. The authors say the reasons are unclear (possible changes in brain…
