Unpleasant meditation-related experiences in regular meditators: Prevalence, predictors, and conceptual considerations

Abstract

So far, the large and expanding body of research on meditation has mostly focussed on the putative benefits of meditation on health and well-being. However, a growing number of reports indicate that psychologically unpleasant experiences can occur in the context of meditation practice. Very little is known about the prevalence and potential causes of these experiences. The aim of this study was to report the prevalence of particularly unpleasant meditation-related experiences in a large international sample of regular meditators, and to explore the association of these experiences with demographic characteristics, meditation practice, repetitive negative thinking, mindfulness, and self-compassion. Using a cross-sectional online survey, 1,232 regular meditators with at least two months of meditation experience (mean age = 44.8 years ± 13.8, 53.6% female) responded to one question about particularly unpleasant meditation-related experiences. A total of 315 participants (25.6%, 95% CI: 23.1 to 28.0) reported having had particularly unpleasant meditation-related experiences, which they thought may have been caused by their meditation practice. Logistic regression models indicated that unpleasant meditation-related experiences were less likely to occur in female participants and religious participants. Participants with higher levels of repetitive negative thinking, those who only engaged in deconstructive types of meditation (e.g., vipassana/insight meditation), and those who had attended a meditation retreat at any point in their life were more likely to report unpleasant meditation-related experiences. The high prevalence of particularly unpleasant meditation-related experiences reported here points to the importance of expanding the scientific conception of meditation beyond that of a (mental) health-promoting and self-regulating technique. We propose that understanding when these experiences are constitutive elements of meditative practice rather than merely negative effects could advance the field and, to that end, we conclude with an overview of methodological and conceptual considerations that could be used to inform future research.

Adverse events in meditation practices and meditation‐based therapies: a systematic review

“…All except 3 of the observational studies (88, 90, 94) employed quantitative methods, and its two most recent reports consisted of large surveys that accounted for 58% of the total sample size. (12, 13) The studies employed a wide variety of meditation techniques (see Table 1), though the majority used either mindfulness or mindfulness‐based interventions (MBIs) (61; 71%), or transcendental meditation (14; 16%).…”

“…Within the psychotherapeutic literature, there is growing evidence that psychological treatments can be associated with AEs (13) with estimates ranging from 3% to 10% of patients who have become worse following psychotherapy (14). Similar findings have been reported for physical relaxation, which may in some individuals stimulate an increase in anxiety, an adverse event documented as ‘relaxation‐induced anxiety’ (15).…”

Meditation experience is associated with lower levels of repetitive negative thinking: The key role of self-compassion

“…No financial compensation for participation was offered. A subsample of the current sample has previously been utilised to answer unrelated and non-overlapping research questions regarding unpleasant meditation-related experiences (Schlosser et al 2019).…”

Role of Yoga and Meditation as Complimentary Therapeutic Regime for Stress-Related Neuropsychiatric Disorders: Utilization of Brain Waves Activity as Novel Tool

“…68 A similar study was conducted by Schlosser et al (2019) highlighting the unpleasant meditation experiences among the regular practitioners. 69 Anderson et al (2018) in their work also explored the importance of studying the negative effects associated with meditation practices. 70 Moreover, some studies have also indicated the potential harmful effects of yoga and meditation practices in some psychological disorders such as clinical or sub-clinical epilepsy highlighting the increased incidence of epileptic seizures post meditation practice.…”