A nine-week meditation-based program called 'Open and Calm' (OC), which trains relaxed, receptive attention and non-intervening witnessing, reduced perceived stress, depressive symptoms, and sleep disturbances while improving quality of life and mental health compared to treatment as usual. Improvements were sustained three months later and were unrelated to age, gender, education, or whether the program was done individually or in a group. The dropout rate was only 6%. The program shows promise for public mental health promotion and reducing stress-related illness.
Among 94 chronically stressed but otherwise healthy adults randomized to eight weeks of meditation, yoga, or stress education, only the meditation group showed a significant reduction in resting-state functional connectivity between the posterior cingulate cortex and the left hippocampus. Changes in this brain connectivity were correlated with improvements in perceived stress, allostatic load, and anti-inflammatory gene expression, suggesting that meditation's neural effects are closely linked to physical wellness biomarkers. No such changes occurred in the yoga or stress education groups, indicating this neurobiological mechanism may be unique to meditation training.