Effect of Traditional Meditation (Spiritual Techniques) on Metacognitive Abilities and Mindfulness in University Students: A Three-armed Controlled Trial
Cognition Brain Behavior An Interdisciplinary Journal March 31, 2026 Narottam Kumar, Udham Singh
A five-month randomized trial compared two spiritual techniques—vipassana meditation (VM) and pranav meditation (PM)—with a control group in 102 university students aged 19–26. Both VM and PM led to significant improvements in metacognitive abilities and mindfulness from before to after the intervention, while the control group did not. Post-hoc comparisons showed that VM and PM each differed significantly from the control and from each other on post-test scores. The findings suggest that both techniques can benefit metacognition and mindfulness in higher education students.