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.
MBSR is able to reduce stress levels in healthy people. However, important limitations of the included studies as well as the paucity of evidence about possible specific effects of MBSR in comparison to other nonspecific treatments underline the necessity of further research.
The source explains what Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is and reports research comparing ACT with cognitive therapy (CT). In a randomized trial of 101 outpatients with moderate to severe anxiety or depression, people assigned to ACT or to CT showed large, similar improvements in depression, anxiety, daily functioning, quality…
In a remote, randomized trial (NCT05304000), people did one of three five-minute daily breathing exercises or five minutes of mindfulness meditation each day for one month. The researchers measured mood, anxiety, and physiological arousal (breathing rate, heart rate, and heart rate variability). Breathwork—especially exhale-focused cyclic sighing—produced bigger mood gains and…
This paper pooled results from 19 randomized trials with 1,173 adults to see if meditation and yoga change PTSD symptoms. Overall, these mind–body practices were linked to a small-to-medium reduction in PTSD symptoms (effect size = −0.39). The authors found no big differences by type of practice, who was studied,…
This randomized study tested a breathing-based meditation (Sudarshan Kriya yoga) in 21 male U.S. veterans of the Iraq or Afghanistan wars. Participants were randomly assigned to the meditation group (n = 11) or a waitlist control (n = 10). The meditation group showed reductions in self-reported PTSD symptoms, anxiety, and…
This small randomized pilot study tested a therapy called Mindful Awareness in Body-Oriented Therapy (MABT) as an extra treatment for women in substance use disorder (SUD) care. Forty-six women were enrolled and those in the MABT group received eight weekly one-on-one sessions in addition to usual care. At the main…
This randomized trial put 74 adults with moderate-to-high perceived stress into either an 8-session mindful walking program over 4 weeks or a waiting-list control. After 4 weeks, the mindful walking group had a much larger drop in perceived stress scores than the control group. The study also reported better quality-of-life…
This systematic review of research up to 2024 found that meditation and mindfulness are linked to measurable brain changes and to better emotional regulation, cognition, and stress resilience. Many studies report thicker cortex in certain areas, lower amygdala reactivity, changes in brain connectivity and neurotransmitters, and improvements in anxiety, depression,…
This 2020 review looked at English studies on yogic breathing (pranayamas) published from 2008 to 2018. The authors screened 1,588 articles and analyzed 14 that met their criteria. Those 14 papers generally reported effects of pranayama on emotional states and on thinking or cognitive performance. The review also said the…
This randomized trial tested whether a single short bout of walking, meditation, or a combination changed short-term anxiety in young adults. One hundred ten university students (mean age 21.4 years) were randomly assigned to 10 minutes of walking, 10 minutes of meditation, walking then meditation, meditation then walking, or sitting.…
The authors reviewed 14 randomized trials to see if doing only body scan meditation helps people. A pooled analysis found a small improvement in mindfulness compared with passive control (Hedge's g = 0.268, 95% CI 0.032 to 0.504, p < .05). However, the studies were low quality, results varied a…
