Chronic tinnitus often causes anxiety, depression, and reduced quality of life. Mindfulness-based therapy has emerged as a potential psychological intervention. This narrative review examines the rationale, clinical application, efficacy, limitations, and future directions of mindfulness-based therapy for chronic tinnitus. Current evidence suggests that mindfulness-based interventions may reduce tinnitus-related distress, improve emotional regulation, and enhance quality of life, while evidence for direct effects on tinnitus loudness remains limited. The literature is heterogeneous in intervention types, comparators, and outcome measures. Mindfulness-based therapy may be a useful adjunctive option for some patients, but more rigorous research is needed to define its clinical role.
A single 10-minute session of brief focused mindfulness meditation (BFMM) in 24 young adults was associated with significant decreases in heart rate and respiratory rate, and with changes in theta and beta brainwave power in right frontotemporal and frontocentral regions. An ensemble deep learning model combining multi-layer perceptron, long short-term memory, and convolutional neural network classified EEG signals from meditation versus resting states with 79.0% accuracy, outperforming individual models. The findings suggest that even a brief meditation session can regulate autonomic nervous system activity and modulate neural activity, and that the ensemble model may support future EEG-based assessment of mindfulness.