Mindfulness Meditation Often Fails the Scientific Test
and why waiting lists cannot generally be regarded as control groups
An excellent article out of McGill University reports on a 2024 publication which puts yet another nail in the coffin of mindfulness. I encourage you to read the full article not only because it shows mindfulness for what it is (ineffective and potentially dangerous) but also because it highlights the kinds of shenanigans that go into producing incompetent or even fraudulent papers across the board of psychology (and also physiotherapy).
Read the article here, excerpt below:
“The kicker is that mindfulness is rarely shown to be better than an active control. Many authors of systematic reviews of the evidence will excitedly report that mindfulness showed a small but significant benefit over people in the control group, before quietly adding that there was no difference when mindfulness was strictly compared to active control groups. The conclusion here is that doing something—anything, it would seem—is better than doing nothing. I have seen this frequently when so-called complementary or alternative medical interventions are touted as being scientifically proven: often, they were compared to people receiving nothing. If you’re in pain or mildly anxious, seeing someone, even someone whose intervention is based on magical beliefs, will feel better than being ignored.”
Note the warning over using waiting lists as a control. Waiting lists can’t be considered to be regarded as an informative control and comparison with a waiting list does not generally provide any kind of credible evidence.
We already know that playing a 5-minute game of Tetris on a phone outperforms mindfulness in terms of reduction of stress, anxiety and depression, and an increase in reported energy levels. Why would any health professional tell a client to learn and practice mindfulness when virtually any leisure activity (including a brief nap) is superior?
And how do we get this “magical thinking” out of psychology practice and health programs?
Catchup note: I’m about to upload the next series of tutorials of SDR Therapy for chronic pain, in between rewriting the weight loss book (focussed on assisting clients using SDR Therapy in the context of a comprehensive but very doable program). See you soon!
Fails at what? Is not better than what? Dangerous in what way? Your comments sure seem to suggest that mindfulness is some sort of treatment to be tested for some sort of disorder. That is a pretty preposterous concept. It’s not unlike claiming that reading Hegel fails at diminishing manic episodes.