Meditation Better Than Antidepressants?

Namita Nayyar (WF Team)

10 years ago

Meditation Better Than Antidepressants?

– Reported, January 08 2014

(Ivanhoe Newswire) Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, have found that mindfulness meditation programs may help reduce depression, anxiety, and pain in some people.

Many individuals who mediate do so to cope with stress and maintain good health. Some clinicians believe that to counsel patients, clinicians need to know more about meditation programs and how they might affect their patients health. To do so, Madhav Goyal, MD, MPH, and colleagues conducted a review of medical literature that including 47 randomized clinical trials with over 3,000 participants.

Study findings show that moderate evidence in the medical literature that mindfulness meditation programs show small improvements in anxiety, depression, and pain. For instance, the effect size for the effect on depression was 0.3, which is what would be expected from an anti-depressant.

For more information, go to: http://media.jamanetwork.com/

SOURCE: JAMA Intern Med., January 2014