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16. Meditation

Scientists say 7 days of meditation can rewire your brain
A single week of intensive meditation and mind-body practices led to measurable changes across the brain and body. Researchers observed improved brain efficiency, boosted immune signaling, and increased natural pain relief chemicals in participants’ blood. The effects even promoted neuron growth and stronger brain connectivity. Surprisingly, the experience mirrored psychedelic-like brain states—without any drugs involved.
ScienceDaily
Meditation ‘Works’ Faster Than Previously Thought
Meditation works on our brains sooner than previously thought. Micro-meditations can help to boost our attention and resilience in an increasingly distracted and uncertain world.
Psychology TodayBalachundhar Subramaniam MD, MPH, FASA

Meditation and psychedelics facilitate similar types of mystical, psychological, and philosophical-existential insights predictive of wellbeing: a qualitative-quantitative approach (Jylkkä, et al, 2025)

the reported insights were highly similar across the two types of reports, and only minor differences were observed between classic and non-classic psychedelics (including ketamine). Regression analyses indicated that metacognitive and value insights were positively associated with perceived improvements in positive affect, while mystical-type insights predicted increased meaning in life. These findings suggest that both psychedelic substances and meditation can facilitate a broad range of insights that are not fully captured by existing questionnaires. The results highlight similarities between psychedelic and meditation experiences supporting the notion that transformative experiences are not exclusive to classic psychedelics but can be facilitated through various means.

APA PsycNet

Mindfulness, cognition, and long-term meditators: Toward a science of advanced meditation. (Ehmann, et al, 2026) we synthesized cognitive-behavioral outcomes in long-term meditators (LTMs) resulting from diverse, prolonged meditation practices. Preliminary evidence suggests that LTMs exhibit increased cognitive-sensory integration and decoupling of affective processes, demonstrated by enhanced interoceptive awareness, reduced negative affective pain perception, and more rational decision making. Additionally, LTMs may experience more emotional neutrality, malleable self-boundaries, and altered self-awareness. Neuroimaging findings included increased bottom-up activation, particularly within the salience network (interoception, pain, affect), and reduced connectivity between the executive (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) and salience (dorsal anterior cingulate cortex) networks (reduced pain). The literature also suggests reduced fear and amygdala activation (mitigated negative affect), increased temporoparietal junction activation (pre-reflective experiential processes, empathy), and altered midline default-mode network activation, which was associated with emotional neutrality and non-ordinary states of consciousness.

Client Challenge

Neural correlates of meditation and psychedelic medicines including ketamine (review of the literature)

Dynamic causal modeling of low-density resting-state EEG in long-term meditation practitioners - Scientific Reports
Scientific Reports - Dynamic causal modeling of low-density resting-state EEG in long-term meditation practitioners
Nature Publishing Group UKGianluca Rho
New Research Reveals That Meditation Induces Changes in Deep Brain Areas Associated with Memory and Emotional Regulation
Findings provide insight about its potential as a noninvasive therapy
Mount Sinai Health SystemMount Sinai Health System
Neural and molecular changes during a mind-body reconceptualization, meditation, and open label placebo healing intervention - Communications Biology
Editorial Summary: fMRI, multi-omics, and cellular assays reveal that an intensive mind-body retreat intervention modulates brain network connectivity and plasma signaling pathways linked to neuroplasticity, metabolism, and neurotransmission in healthy adults.
Nature Publishing Group UKAlex Jinich-Diamant

(2026): " This intensive non-pharmacological mind-body intervention produces broad short-term neural and plasma-based molecular changes associated with enhanced neuroplasticity, metabolic reprogramming, and modulation of functional cell signaling pathways, highlighting the potential of mind-body techniques to modulate neural circuits and pathways important to health and well-being."

Effects of mindfulness breathing meditation on stress and cognitive functions: a heart rate variability and eye-tracking study - Scientific Reports
Scientific Reports - Effects of mindfulness breathing meditation on stress and cognitive functions: a heart rate variability and eye-tracking study
Nature Publishing Group UKLing Yut Hooi

(2025): "The results showed significant improvement in cognitive flexibility and reduction in perceived stress levels after the intervention in the mindfulness breathing meditation group compared to the active control group. Participants in the mindfulness breathing meditation group self-reported this intervention as highly acceptable and effective in promoting stress reduction, emotional regulation, and attentional control."

Global landscape and hotspot analysis of meditation research in cancer: a bibliometric study - Journal of Cancer Survivorship
Purpose Meditation is well known for its positive effects on recovery and quality of life enhancement among cancer patients. Meditation as an adjuvant therapy has received extensive attention from international scholars in relieving pain, reducing psychological pressure and improving the quality of life of cancer patients. In this study, we examine the current status of meditation in cancer research and its potential application value and future development. Methods We collected 825 articles published in the Web of science Core Collection between January 1, 1976, and July 1, 2024, covering 11 cancer types. Bibliometric tools such as VOSviewer, Citespace, and Biblioshiny were used to analyze publication trends, international collaborations, author contributions, keywords, co-citations, and journal impact. Results First, the steadily rising number of publications indicates an increasing scholarly focus on meditation’s benefits for patients. Second, the USA, Australia, and China are the countries with the highest number of publications in each of the three clusters. Additionally, Carlson Linda E and eight other scholars are influential scholars in this field. Finally, through keyword co-occurrence and co-citation analysis, we identified “breast cancer,” “quality of life,” and “psychological intervention” as the hot topics of current research. Conclusions The study provides a valuable reference for scientific researchers to further explore meditation in cancer treatment. Implications for Cancer Survivors This study highlights the growing interest in meditation as an adjuvant therapy for cancer patients, underscoring its potential to improve survivors’ quality of life. Current research primarily focuses on quality of life, mindfulness-based stress reduction therapy, and clinical trials. Additionally, online, virtual reality technology, cancer survivors, fear of cancer recurrence, and qualitative research may become cutting-edge research directions in the future.
Springer USQi Han

(2025): "Meditation is well known for its positive effects on recovery and quality of life enhancement among cancer patients. Meditation as an adjuvant therapy has received extensive attention from international scholars in relieving pain, reducing psychological pressure and improving the quality of life of cancer patients. In this study, we examine the current status of meditation in cancer research and its potential application value and future development. This study highlights the growing interest in meditation as an adjuvant therapy for cancer patients, underscoring its potential to improve survivors’ quality of life. Current research primarily focuses on quality of life, mindfulness-based stress reduction therapy, and clinical trials. Additionally, online, virtual reality technology, cancer survivors, fear of cancer recurrence, and qualitative research may become cutting-edge research directions in the future."

Meditation and complexity: a review and synthesis of evidence (Atad, et al, 2025)

We provide a scoping review of the growing literature studying the complexity of neural activity in meditation, disentangling different families of measures, short-term (state) from long-term (trait) effects, and meditation styles. Beyond families of measures used, our review uncovers a convergence toward identifying higher complexity during the meditative state when compared to waking rest or mind-wandering and decreased baseline complexity as a trait following regular meditation practice. In doing so, this review contributes to guide current debates and provides a framework for understanding the complexity of neural activity in meditation, while suggesting practical guidelines for future research.

The Gateway Experience Facilitates Psychological Well-Being - Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science
This study investigates the effects of the Gateway Experience (GE) on psychological well-being. The GE has been developed several decades ago for the induction of altered states of consciousness. It incorporates several techniques such as hypnosis, meditation, and binaural beats, which are known to facilitate well-being, sleep, learning and memory, and emotional states, but have not been tested in the exact combination used by the GE. Twelve participants with no prior experience in meditation and related techniques were exposed to the GE (i.e. experimental condition) and a relaxation treatment (i.e. control condition) over the course of four weeks. Psychological well-being was measured at multiple timepoints using Ryff’s Psychological Well-being Scale (PWS) which includes 18 items measuring six aspects of psychological well-being: Autonomy, environmental mastery, personal growth, positive relations with others, purpose in life, and self-acceptance. Results of a two-way repeated measures multivariate analysis of variance showed that participants’ psychological well-being improved significantly over time in the GE condition compared to the control condition on all measured scales. There was no effect of participants’ sense of mysticality as measured by the Barrett’s Revised Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ30). Mysticality has been suggested before to potentially influence the GE. These findings are in line with the theory and suggest that the GE could be a powerful tool to facilitate psychological well-being even in the short-term. Moreover, our findings are also relevant to our understanding of the GE from a historical point of view.
Springer USPriscilla Fabrizi

Hearing Your Thoughts | Free ACT Defusion Audio | Psychwire
Free ACT audio from Dr. Russ Harris. Use the Hearing Your Thoughts…
Psychwire
Ketamine-State Yoga live teachings, April 2026
For the Psychedelic Yoga Meetup group
Psychedelic YogaHenry Kandel
Esketamine combined with a mindfulness-based intervention for individuals with alcohol problems - PubMed
The findings suggest that esketamine may improve treatment outcomes when combined with mindfulness-based therapies through its ability to increase engagement with meditative practice.
PubMedEmily M Gent

(2024): "Esketamine enhanced psychological engagement with a daily MBI, compared to placebo, and led to transient decreases in alcohol cravings. Esketamine also resulted in significantly greater mystical experiences and dissociative states compared to placebo."

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