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.
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 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 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.…
This small cross-sectional study compared 33 regular yoga practitioners with 35 non‑practitioners aged 17–30. The yoga group had a lower resting heart rate (about 69 vs 81 bpm) and a smaller blood‑pressure response on the sustained handgrip test (about 10.2 vs 16.3), differences the authors report as statistically significant. Other…
This randomised study tested whether a week of daily 35-minute mindful walks in nature helped university students with sleep problems during the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 104 students were assigned to either a nature or an urban walking route and measured before and after the week. Both groups showed…
Researchers ran an 8-week mindful movement program (Movimento Biologico) with 38 university students (mean age 21.2 years; 60.5% male). Participants completed four questionnaires before and after the program. After the program, several measures of interoceptive awareness and positive mental health improved significantly, while overall psychological well-being and sense of coherence…
In this randomized study of 206 Swedish adolescent athletes (mean age 17), researchers tested short body-scan exercises against relaxation exercises, given for either 4 or 8 weeks, and measured sleep problems and anxiety at 0, 4, 8, and 16 weeks. All four groups showed some improvement over time, but only…
This small randomized study tested two 20‑minute nature-based audio exercises — guided imagery (GI) and a nature‑based meditation (NBM) — in 40 adults (average age 38.6). Over a 2‑week period with three measurement points, both exercises were linked with statistically significant improvements in well‑being, self‑compassion, and mindfulness, and reductions in…
This study tested a single 14‑minute body scan on 355 undergraduate and graduate students. Participants filled in questionnaires before and after the exercise to measure current anxiety and pain and to classify people as having low or high everyday symptoms. The results showed the body scan reduced anxiety and pain…
