Depression, Anxiety and Stress in Meditation Practitioners versus Non Meditation Practitioners: A Cross-sectional Study
JOURNAL OF CLINICAL AND DIAGNOSTIC RESEARCH May 1, 2026 Ram Kumar Gupta, Abhishek Kumar Bhardwaj
A cross-sectional study in northern India compared depression, anxiety, and stress levels between 200 meditation practitioners and 200 non-practitioners, all higher education students. Practitioners, who had at least one year of experience and meditated at least twice weekly, showed significantly lower scores on all three measures: depression (9.50 vs. 12.82), anxiety (10.67 vs. 13.66), and stress (12.76 vs. 15.14). More meditation experience correlated with lower depression, and more frequent weekly practice correlated with lower anxiety. The findings suggest meditation may benefit mental health.