Experts from Brown University and the University of California, Santa Barbara conducted the first qualitative assessment of the side effects of meditation.
The popularity of Eastern spiritual practices is raising interest in their safety. By analogy with Taijiquan, which evolved from a martial art into gymnastics, Buddhist meditations are now often viewed primarily as a system of mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs). At the same time, more than 75 percent of scientific papers devoted to the effects of such activities focus on their positive impact. Possible negative consequences of meditation, according to a number of observations, include the risk of psychosis, mania, epileptic seizures - the prevalence of such cases can be underestimated 20 times. In addition, often the purpose of research is to test narrow hypotheses, and experiments are conducted with violations.
The study of the side effects of Buddhist practices is also limited by the difficulty of quantifying the relationship between MBIs and symptoms. Instead, the authors of the new work (including a neuroscientist, psychologist, religious scholars, and methodologist) conducted a qualitative analysis. Through a semi-structured interview, they interviewed 60 practitioners from the Theravada, Zen, and Tibetan Buddhist schools aged 18 and over. The conversations involved discussion of three topics: description of the experience of meditation, including the unpleasant one; interpretation of impressions; and a story about ways to protect yourself from negative consequences. In addition to the respondents, the interviewees were 32 experts - gurus or doctors who used MBIs in their work. They answered questions about practitioners.
The researchers processed the data obtained taking into account six criteria of causality, which are used by the World Health Organization (WHO), the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other organizations. In particular, the relationship between the subjective dynamics of practices and the state of health was revealed by the parameters of the temporal proximity of phenomena, exacerbation of early symptoms, expert opinion, and others. If the answers met two or more criteria, the authors attributed the phenomenon to possible side effects of meditation. The results showed that 29 percent of those surveyed experienced negative consequences of the practice in the first year, 45 percent - within ten years.
The prevalence and duration of side effects of meditation (blue) and their complications (blue) / © Jared R. Lindahl et al., PLoS ONE, 2017
In total, scientists have identified 59 side effects, including: anxiety, fear, changes in perception, sleep disturbances, gastrointestinal (gastrointestinal) tract disorders. Moreover, the list also included conditionally positive manifestations, which were often accompanied by discomfort. For example, increased attention span was associated with the risk of obsessive thoughts (about the need to maintain a state of no-mind), and hallucinations - with increased anxiety when moving from intense meditation to performing everyday activities. 82 percent of practitioners reported increased emotional sensitivity, including paranoia and empathy. Many experienced somatic effects: pain, fainting, decreased sexuality.
Each practitioner's responses and expert assessments allowed, on average, to establish four criteria of causality for symptoms. The overwhelming majority of respondents had repeated negative experiences: 88 percent of them reported similar experiences, according to the agreement score. Often these were mild to severe impairments within a single category of effects, lasting 1–3 years (range from a few days to more than ten years). Participants also indicated that the side effects of meditation affected their daily life, with only 10 percent of them citing negative experiences as minor. According to the researchers, the work complements the existing data on the possible negative consequences of spiritual practices.
The article was published in the PLoS ONE magazine.
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