Potential side effects are often front and center when considering taking medicine for physical or mental conditions, but information is less clear with treatments like meditation that don’t come in pill form.

    There is a very good reason for this.  For one, meditation is difficult to study and have 'animal studies' or even control groups.  The psyche is very unique and difficult to test even in the best of studies. Pills have a set of chemicals that we can isolate and know exactly their attributes and effects on human physiology.  Thoughts or 'lack of thought' as some people understand meditation does not have the same effects on human physiology. 

Popular media and case studies have recently highlighted negative side effects from meditation—increases in depression, anxiety, and even psychosis or mania—but few studies have looked at the issue in depth across large numbers of people.

Yes, however, over 2,600 years of empirical and well documented work has gone into many practices of meditation we know today.  There are plenty of anecdotal and personal accounts of people that have indeed suffered and even committed suicide from meditating.  The cinch pin is the method, understanding of the process of meditation and teaching.  

In a recent paper featured in the journal Psychological Medicine, researchers at the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin–Madison found that people who took part in the most common and widely available secular mindfulness program did not experience psychological harm at a rate higher than people in control groups who did not take part in the program.

When we write a paper it is most proper to have a reference, for this paper 'Prevalence of harm in mindfulness-based stress reduction' it specifically states; "We find no evidence that MBSR leads to higher rates of harm relative to waitlist control on any primary or secondary outcome. On many indices of harm across multiple outcomes, community MBSR was significantly preventative of harm."  SO basically the whole premise of the article is not much more than clickbait and nonsense.  It is basically trying to cause distress in people that are considering meditation (but will not read the actual article) and to give fodder to those that try and debunk meditation as a viable and useful tool in psychotherapy, sociotherapy and even pain control.  

As meditation joins a growing list of treatment options for stress, depression, and substance abuse, so does the need to understand when it’s effective and when it may pose risks.

“With any treatment of any kind—behavioral or drug—there are two sides,” says Matt Hirshberg, a 2019 National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation postdoctoral research fellow at the Center who led the study. “What are the benefits and what are the risks of harm? The research on mindfulness meditation has overwhelmingly focused on the benefits—how it works, to what extent it works, and so on. This paper intended to provide empirical estimates of potential risks.”

I agree that we need to honestly look at possible harm in the practice of meditation but not to overstate it or blow it out of proportion.  One of the problems I have seen in speaking to many that have practiced meditation in one form or another and teached for decades is that when someone does not have a good mental health status to begin with it can lead to more trouble.  Especially when many MBSR instructors have very little training and the premise of MBSR is most basically rumination without any moral teachings.  In Buddhism's version of meditation which gave birth to the MBSR movement one of the main aspects of Buddhist teachings was abandoned.  That is the Four Noble Truths, Noble Eight Fold Path, and Dependent Origination/The Wheel of Becoming or Samsara... and the entire concept those portray as 'Sila'.   One of the most unfortunate things about this study paper as well as MBSR itself is that a main aspect of meditation practice is also ignored.  It is not really designed to deal with outright mental illness.  Meditation practice is a very true and useful tool in mental health.  There is a difference. 

In the analysis, researchers examined data from more than 2,150 adults who took part in a community health clinic Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) class between 2002 and 2016. MBSR is a standard eight-week mindfulness program typically taught in person that is offered widely in health care settings.

A good study size but only in one metro area and hardly representative of the population or even the meditation practitioner population.  I was unable to find what people in the paper were under treatment for and how they ended up in the MBSR program.  

The team looked at before-and-after results on a common assessment of psychological symptoms and a measure of troublesome physical symptoms. They also included data from three National Institutes of Health-sponsored studies on MBSR that had people who were randomly assigned to control groups and compared harm in those studies with community MBSR. This allowed the group to examine results and levels of harm in people who did not take MBSR. 

There are a slew of surveys for mental health and psychological symptom surveys but there is no mention of which one was used or if it was merely set up by the writers of the original paper.  

Because there is no standard way to assess harm, researchers looked at several common measures of harm, including whether average symptoms worsened, the number of people who reported increased symptoms, the number reporting greater than a 35% increase in symptoms, and clinically significant harm, or the proportion of people who reported a categorical worsening in symptoms (e.g., from normal symptom level to mildly symptomatic).

The scientific team did not find a single instance in which harm that was experienced by people in MBSR (community or research) was greater than the increased negative symptoms experienced by people in the control group who received no treatment.

Again, here is the important take away of this article.  There was not a single instance of 'harm'.  So does that mean that it is absolutely safe?  Not by a long shot really.  Someone in severe mental disruption should probably not be told to do meditative practices even with a seasoned teacher or coordinator.  They should be evaluated properly and treated for any physical or chemical issues that are found first.  Then and only then could a meditation practice be considered.  

For instance, if someone presents with serious and detailed suicidal ideations and they begin meditation, it is likely that they may ruminate on why and how they will proceed rather than find anything useful to really work on.  

In addition, on about half of the harm measures the researchers examined, rates of harm in MBSR were significantly lower than those in the no-treatment group. Hirshberg notes that these findings “suggest that MBSR may not only be no more harmful than no treatment, it may actually be preventative of developing increased psychological and physical symptoms.”

Again, basically this seems to be a pitch for MBSR even when compared to people that did nothing.  This smells of fluff rather than academically serious research. 

The researchers were careful to note, however, that more research of potential preventative effects is needed because most preventative effects were observed in comparisons between community MBSR and people in the research MBSR studies who received no treatment—groups that had significantly different levels of symptoms at baseline.

If you read enough research papers, this is the rule.  Always note that more research needs to be done.  This is a staple of all research as there is no research that definitively proves anything.  There is always outliers, mistakes, small sample sizes and amendments to be made.  Not that this was not a good effort, but it is not the end for sure.  

I for one, look forward to more research on the subject as well as collaboration between MBSR and other forms of meditation.  This may help us gain insights into how the mind really does work and how it can be actively and passively helped into a more healthy and skillful state of being. 


Still, Hirshberg warns, this doesn’t mean that no one participating in MBSR experiences harm. It remains important to expand the research to understand the experiences of the small number of individuals who have adverse reactions. Hirshberg also noted that due to limitations in the data, they were not able to examine whether socioeconomic status or race and ethnicity were related to harm.“The fact that incidents of harm appear to be low in MBSR is important because most mindfulness-based interventions are derivatives of MBSR, and it’s the root of practices we see offered in schools, health care, and workplaces,” says Hirshberg. “It’s really important to know the prevalence of people who are having adverse reactions.”

Another question to explore further is the subjective interpretation of harm. In some meditation traditions, temporary discomfort, negative thoughts, and unusual somatic experiences might be indicative of progress in one’s practice.

Spectacular point, in fact there was a few different articles on this and I have a good study that did expand on what we know.  Here is that link. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5584749/

“The distinction is not always made clear enough when we hear about cases of harm,” says Hirshberg. “Meditation practice means many different things, from intensive meditation retreats for months or even years to 10 minutes of daily practice at home. Most reported cases of harm are related to more intensive practice. They are really different categories. We can’t infer about harm in intensive practice from these findings and, similarly, we cannot infer about potential harm in MBSR or similar programs from harm following intensive practice.”

I am curious as to what 'more intensive' really means.  The article here gives a great list of practices and does recognize there are many different opinions and ways TO meditate.  On the one hand I would consider an MBSR treatment class of six weeks to be pretty intensive for someone that can barely sit still for a few minutes.  

This article was originally published on the Center for Healthy Minds 

Reminder:  The 'BLUE' font is my addition and commentary on this article.   If you go to the original article study there are some good references to look at .  Here are a couple more.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5584749/

https://www.insider.com/why-meditation-can-be-bad-2018-3#6-it-might-damage-your-sense-of-self-6

https://www.vice.com/en/article/vbaedd/meditation-is-a-powerful-mental-tool-and-for-some-it-goes-terribly-wrong

https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/can_meditation_cause_you_harm



  • Marianne Spoon wrote the original article which appeared in Center for Healthy Minds.  This is her bio. 

    Marianne leads communications and marketing for the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she produces written and multimedia stories, coordinates with media interested in the Center’s work and manages its brand and external-facing publications.

    Before joining the University of Wisconsin–Madison, she conducted behavioral research with monkeys and worked as a freelance journalist for media outlets including the Discovery Channel, HowStuffWorks.com and Atlanta’s NPR affiliate.

Here is a list of some of the harmful experiences I have seen people have in practice.  I will be shortly working on remedies for each of these. 

Numbness, agitation, Doubt of your practice, teacher or life itself. leg pain, back pain, Sleepiness, Insomnia, Panic, Chest tension, Nausea, Feelings of withdrawal, disgust in the mundane, impostor syndrome, Loss of interest, Loss of joy, Stress, Addiction (relapse), Chronic pain, Mood disorders, Psychiatric disorders, Hyper-arousal, trauma flashback, emotional instability, Hypersensitivity, disembodiment, dissociation, sadness, paranoia, 'Zen sickness' (ear ringing, heat or cold feeling, sweats, fatigue, , Emptiness, Emotional, Return of repressed memory, Guilt, Negativity, dizziness, loss of hope, suicidal ideations, fear, 


In this, the old adage; 'The obstacle becomes the path'.  It is these that become our most devoted teachers and lessons.  

Joseph Campbell said.  'Follow your bliss'  so as a remedy, stop and do something relaxing and nice, make a meal, feed the birds, have a glass of iced tea.  Listen to music.