JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Meditation has become increasingly popular in recent decades. Yet relatively little remains known about the prevalence of and risk factors for adverse experiences related to a single meditation practice.

Objective:

Using representative samples of the US and UK adult populations with regards to ethnicity, sex, and age (N=5,049), we used a randomized controlled trial to investigate adverse experiences in three brief meditation practices (i.e., mindfulness, self-compassion, gratitude) relative to using the internet as usual. We also investigated the potential of using pre-intervention characteristics to predict such outcomes.

Results:

Taken together, we find that the brief, digitally-delivered meditation practices tested in this study carry comparable or lower risk of adverse experiences than typical activities on the internet; ten-minute meditation practices were more likely to result in distressing experiences than five-minute meditation practices; and adverse responses to a brief meditation practice can, at least to a certain degree, be predicted using pre-interventions characteristics.

Conclusions:

These findings support the safety of brief, digitally delivered meditation for the general adult population, while highlighting the importance of dosage and individual differences in guiding responsible implementation. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT06165497