DEBATE: The inevitable decline of mindfulness


Author: Miguel Farias1

Affiliation: <sup>1</sup> Brain, Belief, & Behaviour Lab, Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations, Coventry University, Coventry, UK.
Conference/Journal: Child Adolesc Ment Health
Date published: 2022 Oct 2
Other:
  Special Notes: doi: 10.1111/camh.12600.   ,  Word Count: 116  
    The use of mindfulness meditation as a well-being and clinical tool is being deeply challenged on various fronts. The recent failure of showing its salutary effects on schoolchildren, in a large-scale study, which stands as the most expensive study in the history of meditation science (£6.4 million), is accompanied by growing evidence of potential adverse effects associated with mindfulness practice. It is suggested that the heightened enthusiasm surrounding the benefits of mindfulness led academics to use facile metaphors to promote it (such as comparing the mind to a muscle) and distorted its presentation - both in disseminating overhyped findings and in neglecting the report of adverse effects.



Keywords: Mindfulness; adverse effects; children; mental health.



PMID: 36183732 DOI: 10.1111/camh.12600