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Re:Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety by zepto on Monday August 17, 2020 @12:19PM (#24188675)
I know it can seem like a middlebrow dismissal to ask for supporting evidence, but in this case I think it’s important.

You’ve dismissed the parents view (and import of the linked article) as overly broad, and you have asserted the existence of an evidence base to support this.

Is there any summary of this evidence that you think is compelling?

Re:Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety by Pyramus on Monday August 17, 2020 @05:17PM (#24192250)
> Is there any summary of this evidence that you think is compelling?

The meta-analyses in [1] are a good starting point. Note that in particular in a clinical setting, the intervention usually comprise more than just the meditation aspects, e.g. psycho-education, a group setting, or some form of body movement.

You can find further evidence if you pick a specific intervention, e.g. Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) [2], which is considered the ancestor of modern mindfulness-based interventions.

However, you might find it more compelling to learn about the mechanism rather than effectiveness. In that case an interesting starting point are the studies that have been done on Buddhist monks as "extreme points" in the set of meditators, e.g. see the references in [3].

Regarding the original article, I find the title a bit clickbaity (X can worsen depression and anxiety is true for almost all X, in particular doing nothing can worsen depression and anxiety!) and it is a bit concerning to me that the author does not differentiate between mindfulness and meditation.

I couldn't find the paper from the article, my understanding is that 8 % of subjects reported adverse effects when doing a self-guided mindfulness meditation. I find 8 % quite low - 92 % did not report adverse effects?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness#Scientific_researc... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness-based_stress_reduc... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthieu_Ricard