Graph: the relationship between mental silence and mental health

This graph shows the mental health of people sorted by how frequently they meditate with the mental silence based Sahaja Yoga. The graph depicts a correlation between the frequency of meditation for people who meditate and their mental health score. Mental health was measured by the mental health subscale of…

The popularity of meditation in the West

Meditation is widely perceived in the West as an effective method of reducing stress, and enhancing wellbeing. In Australia, a survey conducted by Kaldor (2002) of a randomly selected but representative sample drawn from the state of Western Australia (n=1,033) found that 11% of respondents had practiced meditation at least…

Advantages of studying Western meditators

While the strong metaphysical linkage between Eastern religiosity, its psycho-spiritual practices, and health may offer important new perspectives on the relationship between religiosity and health, there are a number of practical difficulties associated with studying the epidemiology of non-Western forms of spirituality. These include: differing criteria of religiosity new confounding…

Graph: health of mental silence meditators vs general population

This graph shows a comparison between a group of Sahaja Yoga meditators and a sample of the general population of Australia on a number of health outcomes. The meditator group performed significantly better on a number of key health outcomes including general health and mental health. From Manocha R and…

The yoga tradition

Within the yoga tradition, meditation is defined as an experiential state of awareness specifically involving control over all aspects of mental activity. Feuerstein (2006) explains that “the initial purpose of meditation is to intercept the flux of ordinary mental activity.” He translates Patanjali’s explanation from the Yoga Sutras (aphorism 1.2)…

Sources of non-specific effect in meditation

Explanatory factors for the observed effects of meditation and their particular importance in behaviour therapy research include the following 3 categories: Category 1. Factors which are common to all strategies such as social support or therapeutic contact. Many clinical researchers have observed that controls with high face validity seem more…

Sample size

Sample size is obviously a key factor in determining the validity and generality of trial outcomes. It needs to be determined carefully to ensure that the research time, effort and support costs invested in any clinical trial are not wasted. Ideally, clinical trials should be large enough to detect reliably…

Why is the Jadad score useless for meditation research?

The Jadad scoring system is a widely used method of rating RCTs for basic methodological rigour. However it seems to be inadequately structured to meaningfully discern the methodological standard of meditation trials. For instance, while all trials might be randomised, only a minority described randomisation methods and few use the…

An overview of our research programme

Meditation and its underlying ideas are increasingly popular in Western society but the practice itself has been subjected to little high quality scientific scrutiny. This website describes the outcomes of the Meditation Research Programme, a serious scientific endeavour aimed at addressing this deficiency. Some of our key projects, and their…