When meditation goes wrong: part one

Meditation has a lot of benefits, but could it also have risks?

Over the past decade, meditation and mindfulness have been promoted to reduce stress and increase relaxation.

But there is another story of meditation that rarely gets told... one that involves anxiety, insomnia — even psychosis.

Today, how one person went from being an evangelical mindfulness meditator, to a leading researcher on the adverse effects of meditation.

Guests:

Willoughby BrittonAssociate professor, Brown University Medical School and director of the Clinical and Affective Neuroscience Lab

Pawan SharmaAssistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the Pattan Academy of Health Sciences School of Medicine

Pierce SalgueroProfessor of Asian History and Health Humanities at Penn State University

Credits:

• Presenter: Sana Qadar
• Reporter/producer: Fiona Pepper
• Senior producer: James Bullen
• Producer: Rose Kerr

Extra information:

• Defining and measuring meditation-related adverse effects in mindfulness-based programs
• Prevalence and 20-year trends in meditation, yoga, guided imagery and progressive relaxation use among US adults from 2002 to 2022
• Prevalence and predictors of meditation use in Australia and New Zealand: results from a nationally representative survey
• Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy improves polysomnographic and subjective sleep profiles in antidepressant users with sleep complaints
• Meditation-induced psychosis: a narrative review and individual patient data analysis
• Psychiatric Problems Precipitated by Transcendental Meditation
• The varieties of contemplative experience: A mixed-methods study of meditation-related challenges in Western Buddhists
• Cheetah House

To explore more great episodes from the award-winning psychology podcast All in the Mind with host Sana Qadar, download the ABC Listen app (Australia) or search 'ABC All in the Mind podcast' wherever you get your podcasts. There you'll find more episodes on mental health, trauma, attachment theory, wellness hacks, and family relationships. You'll also hear interviews with experts like Esther Perel, Billy Garvey and Ethan Kross. All in the Mind is created for ABC's Radio National by specialist journalists and reporters at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.