Adverse Effects of Meditation: A Preliminary Investigation of Long-Term Meditators
📄 Original study ↗Plain English Summary
This pioneering study asked a surprisingly neglected question: can meditation actually mess you up? Researchers surveyed 27 seasoned Vipassana meditators (averaging over four years of practice) at an intensive retreat in Massachusetts. The answer was a striking yes for many -- nearly 63% reported at least one negative effect, including heightened anxiety, emotional pain, and feelings of disorientation. About 7% found the effects so destabilizing they quit meditating entirely. Here is the real kicker: more experience did not help. The most veteran meditators actually reported the highest rate of adverse effects (75%). That said, participants still rated the positives as significantly outweighing the negatives. The study is especially important for psi research that uses meditation-based protocols, since it shows meditation is not a uniformly gentle practice. It built on earlier findings from Transcendental Meditation and extended them into the Vipassana tradition.
Research Notes
One of the earliest empirical studies on adverse meditation effects, conducted at the same Insight Meditation Society where Kornfield (1979) documented meditation phenomenology. Critical for contextualizing meditation-based psi research protocols and understanding why some meditators experience destabilizing effects despite overall positive outcomes.
Surveyed 27 long-term Vipassana meditators (mean 4.27 years experience; 17 men, 10 women) at an intensive retreat in Barre, Massachusetts, using retrospective and prospective questionnaires at one month and six months post-retreat. Of the 27 subjects, 62.9% reported at least one adverse effect across the three time periods, and 7.4% suffered profound adverse effects leading them to stop meditating. Adverse effects were primarily intrapersonal (76.4%), including increased negativity, emotional pain, anxiety, and disorientation. Despite this, subjects reported significantly more positive than negative effects (p=.002 at time one). Frequency of adverse effects was not reduced by longer practice — the longest-term group (105 months average) reported the highest rate (75%). Replicates and extends Otis (1984) findings from Transcendental Meditation to the Vipassana tradition.
Related Papers
Companion
- Intensive Insight Meditation: A Phenomenological Study — Kornfield, Jack (1979)
- Meditation Experience Is Associated with Differences in Default Mode Network Activity and Connectivity — Brewer, Judson A (2011)
- Future Directions in Meditation Research: Recommendations for Expanding the Field of Contemplative Science — Vieten, C (2018)
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📋 Cite this paper
Shapiro, Deane H. Jr (1992). Adverse Effects of Meditation: A Preliminary Investigation of Long-Term Meditators. International Journal of Psychosomatics.
@article{shapiro_1992_adverse,
title = {Adverse Effects of Meditation: A Preliminary Investigation of Long-Term Meditators},
author = {Shapiro, Deane H. Jr},
year = {1992},
journal = {International Journal of Psychosomatics},
}