Home / The Mind Unleashed / Mindfulness

Mindfulness

The Mind Unleashed: one of Metanoia's twelve dimensions of human capacity

Last reviewed 5 October 2026

Read this first. This page is education, not instructions to use. Metanoia does not supply any substance. In the United States, most of the substances discussed here are Schedule I under federal law (21 CFR 1308.11), their legal status differs between countries and between US states, and none of this is legal advice. Nothing here is medical advice, and nothing here describes or recommends a dose. "Healthy adults" means people with no diagnosed psychiatric or major medical condition, the population Metanoia studies. A great deal of psychedelic research, and much of the research on mindfulness training, was done in clinical populations or in unusual samples such as experienced meditators. Where a study below used one of those groups, the text says so, because it changes what the result can mean for everyone else.

What it is

The word "mindfulness" covers at least three different things, and the research on psychedelics depends on which one is meant. It can mean a quality of attention, a skill that is trained, or a number printed by a questionnaire.

As a practice, it is old. The best-known early Buddhist teaching on the subject, the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, describes steady, alert attention to the body, to feelings, to the state of the mind and to mental qualities [32]. In modern clinical science it was packaged into short courses, such as the eight-week mindfulness-based stress reduction program (MBSR) used as a comparison group in one ayahuasca study below [7]. In a research paper, though, mindfulness is usually whatever score a scale produces.

That matters, because the scales differ. The Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) splits mindfulness into observing, describing, acting with awareness, not judging one's inner experience, and not reacting to it [26]. The Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) focuses on attention and awareness in daily life. The Toronto Mindfulness Scale and similar tools measure a state, how mindful someone felt during a particular sitting. Decentering questionnaires ask, in plain terms, whether a person can watch a thought go by without being carried along by it. A state is how someone feels today, a trait is how they tend to be over months, and a capacity, such as noticing a thought, differs from a habit, such as meditating on more days of the week. Studies of psychedelics have measured all of these, and they do not always move together.

Why does a research organization interested in natural psychedelics and personal growth care about this dimension? Partly because people often assume the two are linked. A 2018 narrative review, which leans partly on case reports and an unpublished survey, compared how meditation and psychedelics alter the sense of self and concluded that the empirical data remained too sparse to say how specific either state is [22]. Partly because mindfulness has a well-studied, drug-free route, so an honest comparison is possible.

What is known

The short version. Evidence that classic psychedelics raise mindfulness in healthy adults is thin and mixed. In the best controlled trials the result is small or absent once a placebo and the surrounding retreat are accounted for. Uncontrolled studies show small rises on particular facets, which mostly fade within weeks to a few months. The largest prospective study found no change in trait mindfulness at all, though people who used psychedelics did report meditating more.

What the scales can and cannot tell us

Before the studies, a warning about the instruments. A 2016 randomized trial tested whether the FFMQ can tell MBSR apart from a health-enhancement program (movement, nutrition, music and imagery) that taught no mindfulness. It could not. Of 130 people randomized, 106 had before-and-after scores. Three of the five facets rose with MBSR compared with a waiting list, and the total score was only borderline (p = 0.092). The comparison program raised the total score too, and the two programs did not differ on any facet. Only medium-sized differences could have been detected [26]. A 2019 meta-analysis of 37 trials found the questionnaires disagree with each other: against active control programs the FFMQ showed a small advantage for mindfulness training (Hedges g = 0.25, where about 0.2 counts as small, 0.5 as medium and 0.8 as large), while the MAAS showed none (g = -0.06) [25]. A large critical review (a majority-consensus paper, not a systematic search) concluded that mindfulness is hard to define and that the questionnaires may not capture what training cultivates [31]. It cites primary work showing that the FFMQ's factor structure differs between meditators and non-meditators and across training. In one such study, of 238 adults with recurrent depression in remission (a clinical sample), the structure changed over an eight-week course, and the authors conclude that before-and-after comparisons of the total score and of the observing facet are not valid [35].

Psychedelic studies inherit these weaknesses. One microdosing study noted that mindfulness is "particularly difficult to assess using rating scales" and that its null result might reflect low sensitivity [17]. Another found that its volunteers, all experienced ayahuasca users, already scored above the general population on several facets, which leaves little room to rise [8].

Controlled trials in experienced meditators

In a Zurich trial, 39 healthy, experienced Buddhist practitioners attended a five-day retreat. They were randomly assigned to psilocybin or placebo on one day. State mindfulness, rated after each daily sitting, did not differ between groups (group by day interaction F(4,148) = 1.05, p = 0.38). It rose over the retreat in both. Trait mindfulness on the short Freiburg inventory was higher after the retreat in the psilocybin group, though the paper prints no group means or effect size for it in the text. The authors name the main limitation: with an inert placebo, participants could probably tell which arm they were in [2]. An imaging paper from the same trial linked ego dissolution during the session, a temporary loosening of the usual sense of being a separate self, to a change in coupling between front and back regions of the default mode network during open-awareness meditation (38 analysed). The group-by-time interaction was marginal after correction (p = 0.057), and the link with ego dissolution rested on 20 people. Mindfulness was not an outcome in that paper [3].

In a second trial, run at the same research center, 40 healthy meditators (described by the authors as intermediate, averaging about 2,400 hours of practice) attended a three-day retreat and received either a DMT and harmine combination or placebo. The pre-specified state comparison was null (group by day F(2,76) = 0.74, p = 0.481). The trait questionnaire showed a significant interaction, with scores in the drug group climbing from 41.05 at baseline to 44.00 one week later while the placebo group stayed flat, but the direct comparison between groups at one week was not significant (p = 0.076). Compassion scales did not differ. What did differ was the experience itself: mystical-type experience, non-dual awareness and emotional breakthrough were all higher in the drug group, and so were participants' one-month ratings of how meaningful the retreat had been. The authors summarize that mindfulness and compassion changed "only slightly or not significantly." Blinding failed here too: 82.5 percent of participants guessed their group correctly, and expectations were higher for the drug (2.06 against 1.56 on a 0 to 4 scale). The omnibus tests were not corrected across the roughly nine outcomes [1].

So two small retreat trials, two different drugs, and two different answers on trait mindfulness, with state mindfulness not differing between drug and placebo in either. Both come from the same research center and use a similar design, so they are not independent confirmation of each other.

Controlled studies in other healthy adults

The same group ran a laboratory crossover with 31 healthy men, average age about 25, who received the DMT and harmine combination, harmine alone, and placebo on separate days. A 19-item composite called MINDSENS, which combines ten FFMQ items with nine decentering items, was modestly higher the day after the drug combination than after placebo (mean difference 0.14 on a five-point scale, p = 0.04). Harmine alone did not differ from placebo on it. The effect was concentrated in a subgroup defined after the fact by how intense participants rated the experience, and the authors report "no lasting effects" at one and four months. Blinding was not assessed [4].

A placebo-controlled field study at ayahuasca retreats found that "none of the FFMQ measures were affected by time or treatment." The authors call it naturalistic and observational (single-blind in the Methods). The host organization assigned the 30 participants, who were trainee facilitators with long ayahuasca experience. Ego dissolution ratings were nearly the same in both groups, and the authors say the amount given may have been too low for a full psychedelic response. Stress, depression and anxiety scores fell in both arms, and the authors consider it rather likely that expectancy contributed strongly [5].

A three-group trial in 75 healthy volunteers asked a different question: does psilocybin help people take up spiritual practices such as meditation? People who already practiced regularly were screened out, so the result says nothing about experienced meditators. The trial did not measure mindfulness with a scale. On six measures of practice engagement, the psilocybin group and the comparison group did not differ, and the authors concluded that psilocybin "did not facilitate engagement with these spiritual practices." Engagement was higher only in the group that received psilocybin plus extensive structured support. No group had low psilocybin with high support, so the two cannot be separated [6].

Before-and-after studies without a control group

Most of the ayahuasca and 5-MeO-DMT literature has this design. It can show that scores changed. It cannot show why.

In 16 healthy volunteers with prior ayahuasca experience, scores on the not-judging and not-reacting facets and on decentering rose the day after a session. At two months, the not-judging rise no longer survived correction for multiple comparisons (corrected p = 0.495) [8]. In a small non-randomized comparison, 10 people received four ayahuasca sessions and a separate 10 took an eight-week MBSR course. The ayahuasca group's not-judging score rose (within-group p = 0.02) while its other facets did not. The MBSR group improved on every facet. The difference in how much the two groups changed on not-judging was not significant (p = 0.08). The groups were matched on a baseline decentering score but not on intent, they were not randomized, and the authors raise a possible ceiling effect in experienced ayahuasca users [7].

A naturalistic study of ceremony attendees found higher scores the day after, mainly on not-judging and acting with awareness, and no differences at four weeks, by which point only 31 of the original 57 were still responding. About 23 percent reported a psychiatric diagnosis, so it is not a purely healthy sample [9]. A study of inhaled 5-MeO-DMT in facilitator-led naturalistic sessions (about a quarter of participants reported a psychiatric condition) found no mindfulness change at 24 hours, then a rise in not-judging at four weeks (Hedges' g = 0.64). Of 75 who consented, only 24 completed that follow-up, and the authors warn that people who had a bad experience may have dropped out, which "would strongly bias the current findings" [10].

The most striking uncontrolled result is for psilocybin. In 39 healthy volunteers followed for three months after open-label sessions (46 sessions, because seven people took part twice, all open-label), MAAS scores rose by 8.1 percent (Cohen's d = 0.72, an effect-size measure on the same scale as Hedges g). The link with how intense the mystical-type experience had been was weak, with a confidence interval close to zero. Ten volunteers had appeared in an earlier report from the same group, and all came from a pool of people who had signed up for psilocybin imaging studies, a group likely to hold strong expectations. There was no control group, and nothing was measured between the session and the follow-up [11]. A larger naturalistic cohort recorded a small rise in a mindfulness scale over four weeks (ηp² = 0.06) in the 165 people with complete data. It began with 654 people and was down to 64 at two years, an attrition of about 91 percent, and no separate two-year result was reported for the scale [19]. A field study of group psilocybin ceremonies, not preregistered and not randomized (participants chose their ceremony date), found decentering rose in both of its comparison conditions, one of them a smaller but still active amount, so the rise cannot be credited to whichever condition was meant to be stronger [20].

Large observational studies

The biggest dataset is a preregistered, two-month follow-up of US adults aged 18 to 50. Of 13,012 at baseline, 7,484 answered again (the 42 percent lost were handled by imputation), and 336 had used a psychedelic in between. After adjustment, psychedelic use was associated with no change in trait mindfulness on the 15-item FFMQ (coefficient 0.00, standard error 0.07, p = .991) and none in trait self-compassion. It was associated with more days of mindfulness meditation in the past week (0.23, p < .001). The analyses were not corrected for multiple comparisons. The authors suggest, without testing it, that mindset and support during the experience may explain the null. Among people who already meditated, psychedelic use was also linked to more difficulty and impairment in loving-kindness practice [14].

Older cross-sectional surveys fit the same picture. In a stratified online panel of 953 US adults, of whom 536 had meditation experience and answered the decentering questions, lifetime psychedelic use and ego dissolution were not associated with decentering, although ego dissolution was linked to more meditation and to finding meditation more effective [12]. In 2,822 adults, lifetime use was linked to more days of mindfulness meditation but not of loving-kindness practice. The link was small (β = 0.13), the survey was not preregistered, and in a joint model psychological insight, not ego dissolution, predicted practice [13]. Among 863 regular meditators who had also used psychedelics (an inclusion rule), recruited through social media and meditation networks, 73.5 percent said psychedelics had improved their meditation. This rested on a single unvalidated question in a self-selected sample that was 79 percent male. The authors note that frequent users may justify their use by crediting it with benefits, and the answer records what people believe about their own practice rather than a measured change in mindfulness [15].

Microdosing

The strongest design here is a self-blinding trial in which participants prepared their own capsules. Of 191 who finished, mindfulness on a questionnaire called the CAMS rose with microdosing (+2.4) and also with placebo (+1.6), and the difference between them was not significant. Participants guessed their capsule correctly 72 percent of the time against 63 percent expected by chance, and the number of guesses was itself a significant predictor, which suggests partial unblinding. The authors conclude that the gains can be explained by placebo effects. They add that the study may have been underpowered, that the capsule contents could not be verified, and that 74 percent of participants were active supporters of psychedelic use [16]. A forum-recruited observational study with no placebo group found MAAS unchanged in the 63 people who completed it (adjusted p = 0.573) [17]. A preregistered, double-blind, placebo-controlled study found no difference from placebo in depression, anxiety or body awareness, none of them mindfulness scales, and participants broke the blind in the second testing block [36]. A rise in trait mindfulness did appear in an online study of adults with ADHD, but that sample was clinical, had no placebo, and shrank from 233 to 66 to 44 across three time points. Scores began below general-population averages, and the authors note that people with an unpleasant experience may have dropped out [18].

One note on the brain

A popular claim says psychedelics switch off a brain network responsible for mind-wandering. Measured as functional connectivity, how closely regions' activity is coupled, the best current evidence says something different. A pooled analysis of 11 imaging datasets, in healthy adults across five drugs, found a "core signature of increased functional connectivity between transmodal" and unimodal networks, with reductions inside networks that were weak to moderate and selective. It measured connectivity rather than activity or blood flow, and only the acute state, not mindfulness [21]. Whether any brain change maps onto a lasting change in attention is not established.

What is not known

No study we read tests whether psychedelics change trait mindfulness in healthy adults who are new to meditation, compared against both a placebo and a structured training program, and followed for a year. The controlled retreat trials used experienced meditators, who may have less room to improve on the scales. The ayahuasca work used experienced ayahuasca users, many of whom started above population norms. The one large prospective study found no change in the trait.

Blinding, meaning that participants do not know whether they received the substance or a placebo, is a standing problem. A participant who has had a profound experience knows it, and in the retreat trial that measured it, 82.5 percent guessed their arm correctly [1]. In the self-blinding microdosing trial the figure was 72 percent [16]. Expectation then does some of the work, and only a few studies measure it.

Where effects appear, they are small. They sit on one or two facets, most often not-judging, and they tend to fade between four weeks and three months. Whether anything lasts for a year is unknown.

Several of the studies above run many tests without correcting across outcomes, and some of the most-cited ayahuasca numbers rest on 10 to 25 people. Sibling papers drawn from one trial are sometimes counted as separate evidence. They are not.

If the FFMQ rises about as much with a program that teaches no mindfulness [26], either the questionnaire is insensitive or the comparison programs teach related skills [25]. Either way, we should not lean on it alone to detect a psychedelic effect, and the factor-structure finding [35] adds caution for before-and-after comparisons.

Finally, mindfulness as a capacity and meditation as a habit get conflated. In the large observational data, people who used psychedelics meditated more but did not score higher on trait mindfulness [14]. That might mean psychedelics prompt people to take up practice, or it might mean people interested in practice are more likely to try psychedelics. The data cannot say.

What Metanoia seeks to learn. Metanoia's long-term plan begins with a validated measure of flourishing and a naturalistic observational cohort studied under shared reporting standards, with records kept under full legal authorization and without Metanoia supplying any substance. For this dimension, those data could help answer several questions that the current literature leaves open:

  1. Does anything change in people who are not already meditators, and does it last for a year?
  2. Does the person's stated intention, recorded before any exposure, predict what changes?
  3. Do behavior measures, such as how often someone does one thing at a time, agree with questionnaires, and which is more trustworthy?
  4. Is a rise in meditation practice a result or a reason?
  5. How much of any change survives once expectation and unblinding are measured and adjusted for?

None of this means Metanoia expects a particular answer. A null result would be as useful to publish as a positive one.

Compared with other paths

For mindfulness, the comparison arm is unusually strong, because training programs have been studied for decades. They also have their own problems, which are worth stating plainly.

Training programs, compared with doing nothing. A 2021 meta-analysis of 136 randomized trials in 11,605 non-clinical adults found that mindfulness-based programs reduced anxiety (standardized mean difference, SMD, -0.56), depression (-0.53) and distress (-0.45), and raised well-being (+0.33) compared with passive controls such as no intervention. Confidence in most results was low or very low. Against specific active control programs, the evidence for superiority was not statistically significant. Every trial was rated at high risk of bias, and when the higher-risk trials were removed only the effect on distress remained (-0.30) [23]. A separate analysis of individual participant data from 13 trials (2,371 people) reported a small to moderate reduction in distress against passive controls (SMD -0.32), with high confidence in that result [24]. These outcomes are distress and well-being, not trait mindfulness.

On the mindfulness scales themselves. The 2019 meta-analysis of 37 active-controlled trials reported an overall difference of g = 0.19 in favor of mindfulness training, based on the 33 trials that reported a total score. When the control condition was matched for session time, it fell to g = 0.02. Participants had a diagnosed mental or physical condition in 27 of the 37 trials, and only three used community samples. The authors think comparison programs such as cognitive behavioral therapy may teach similar skills without naming them [25].

Exercise. In a trial of 413 adults with recurrent respiratory infections and no prior mindfulness training or regular exercise, randomized to MBSR, moderate-intensity exercise or a waiting list (353 were analyzed), both active programs raised the MAAS measured four months later by a similar amount (path coefficients 0.20 and 0.23, both p < .05). The authors describe the model as poorly fitting and the effects as small, and the MAAS did not explain the effect of MBSR on mental health. It shows that mindful attention, as the MAAS measures it, is not unique to meditation [27]. This page does not yet cover yoga or tai chi.

The retreat itself. Inside the psychedelic trials, the placebo groups are a comparison too. In the DMT and harmine retreat, state mindfulness in the placebo group rose from 32.30 on day one to 39.50 on day two [1]. In the psilocybin retreat it rose across five days in both arms [2]. A meditation retreat is a powerful setting by itself, and any drug effect has to be measured against it.

Head to head. The only direct comparison of a psychedelic with a training course is the small, non-randomized ayahuasca and MBSR study described above, in which the course produced larger and broader gains [7].

Fragile findings in the training literature. The widely cited claim that an eight-week MBSR course changes brain structure did not replicate in a combined analysis of two randomized trials with 218 meditation-naive adults. The authors call it a conceptual rather than a direct replication, the participants were unusually healthy, and the course lasted only eight weeks [28]. Of 124 published trials of mindfulness-based therapy, 87 percent reported a positive result. That is about 1.6 times the number expected if the true effect were d = 0.55, a figure the authors themselves consider an overestimate for these programs. Only 17 percent of the trials had been registered before data collection. The authors say reporting bias is one possible explanation but cannot be separated from others. Two thirds of the trials were in clinical populations, and the search ended in 2013 [29]. A school program tested in 8,376 adolescents found no benefit over usual teaching on any primary outcome at one year, although adolescents are not the population Metanoia studies. The comparison was the schools' existing social and emotional learning rather than nothing, and mindfulness itself, measured with the CAMM, did not rise [30].

Where psychedelics fit. On present evidence the psychedelic route has not been tested against training in a fair head-to-head comparison, and it shows no measured advantage on mindfulness scales. What the best trials do show is a different set of experiences during the session: mystical-type states, non-dual awareness, emotional breakthrough, higher ratings of meaning. Whether those experiences matter for ordinary attention in daily life is the open question. Training programs are better studied, and drug-free exercise appears to be at least as good on one measure. This page does not claim that any path is best.

History and tradition

Grade 4 sources. These describe what traditions teach and what early studies reported. They are not evidence that any practice or substance works.

The Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, a text in the Pali canon attributed to the Buddha, presents mindfulness as the direct route to liberation. In the translation read for this page it names four frames of reference, the body, feelings, the mind and mental qualities, and describes practicing each while "ardent, alert, & mindful." It also states, as a traditional claim, that results can arrive anywhere from seven years of practice down to seven days [32]. That is a doctrine, not a measured result.

The tradition's ethics also address intoxicants. The fifth of the five precepts, undertaken by lay Buddhists, concerns abstaining from intoxicants [33]. How that line applies to psychedelics is a question for Buddhist communities themselves, and this page does not try to settle it.

An early controlled test of psychedelics and religious experience took place in 1962. A divinity student study, often called the Good Friday experiment, gave psilocybin or an active placebo to 20 students in a chapel, with assignment by coin flip within matched pairs and a double-blind design. Blinding was broken during the service as the drug effects deepened. Doblin's later follow-up located 19 of the 20, interviewed 16 and re-administered the original questionnaire, and also set out the methodological problems, including the broken blind [34]. That study asked about mystical experience, not attention training.

Metanoia is a California 501(c)(3) public charity advancing the science of natural psychedelics for personal growth and human flourishing in healthy adults. Not treating illness. Expanding potential.

Sources

Grade key: 1 = peer-reviewed primary study or systematic review. 2 = peer-reviewed narrative or critical review. 3 = preprint, community or grey source. 4 = traditional text. Grade describes the type of source, not the strength of the design, which is given separately. "Full text" means read in full by Metanoia between 30 September and 4 October 2026. Online supplements were not read for any source.

  1. Meling D et al. J Psychopharmacol 2024, 38(10):897-910. DOI 10.1177/02698811241282637 Grade 1. Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled retreat trial, n = 40, blinding broken, no non-meditation or harmine-only arm. Full text.
  2. Smigielski L et al. Sci Rep 2019, 9:14914. DOI 10.1038/s41598-019-50612-3 Grade 1. Randomized, double-blind retreat trial, n = 39 analysed. Full text. Note: Meditation depth was higher with psilocybin on the fourth day only.
  3. Smigielski L et al. NeuroImage 2019, 196:207-215. DOI 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2019.04.009 Grade 1. Imaging analysis of the same retreat trial, n = 38, interaction marginal after correction. Full text (PDF copy). Note: The default mode network is a set of brain regions often active when attention turns inward.
  4. Aicher HD et al. J Psychopharmacol 2025 (print 2026, 40(8)). DOI 10.1177/02698811251344689 Grade 1. Randomized, double-blind laboratory crossover, n = 31 men. Full text.
  5. Uthaug MV et al. Psychopharmacology 2021, 238:1899-1910. DOI 10.1007/s00213-021-05817-8 Grade 1. Naturalistic placebo-controlled field study with assignment by the host organization (the authors call it observational and single-blind), n = 30. Full text.
  6. Griffiths RR et al. J Psychopharmacol 2018, 32(1):49-69. DOI 10.1177/0269881117731279 Grade 1. Randomized, double-blind, three groups, n = 75 completers, no mindfulness scale, regular practitioners excluded. Full text.
  7. Soler J et al. Front Pharmacol 2018, 9:224. DOI 10.3389/fphar.2018.00224 Grade 1. Non-randomized two-group comparison, 10 and 10, matched on baseline decentering but not intent, no placebo. Full text.
  8. Sampedro F et al. Int J Neuropsychopharmacol 2017, 20(9):698-711. DOI 10.1093/ijnp/pyx036 Grade 1. Open-label before and after, n = 16, no control. Full text.
  9. Uthaug MV et al. Psychopharmacology 2018, 235:2979-2989. DOI 10.1007/s00213-018-4988-3 Grade 1. Naturalistic observational, 57 then 31, no control, about 23 percent self-reported diagnosis. Full text.
  10. Uthaug MV et al. Psychopharmacology 2019, 236:2653-2666. DOI 10.1007/s00213-019-05236-w Grade 1. Naturalistic observational, 42 then 24, no control. Full text. Note: The rise in acting with awareness was weaker, Hedges' g = 0.12.
  11. Søndergaard A et al. Front Psychol 2022, 13:948729. DOI 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.948729 Grade 1. Open-label, 39 healthy volunteers, 46 sessions (seven people twice), no control. Full text. Note: Seven people took part twice, which gives 46 sessions, and everyone knew what they were receiving.
  12. Simonsson O, Goldberg SB. J Psychoactive Drugs 2023, 55(1):11-18. DOI 10.1080/02791072.2021.2022816 Grade 1. Cross-sectional survey, stratified online panel, n = 953 (536 with meditation experience). Full text.
  13. Simonsson C et al. Mindfulness 2023, 14:763-768. DOI 10.1007/s12671-023-02103-w Grade 1. Cross-sectional survey, n = 2,822, not preregistered. Full text.
  14. Simonsson O et al. J Psychiatr Res 2025, 184:457-463. DOI 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2025.03.025 Grade 1. Preregistered longitudinal observational study, purposive sample, 13,012 then 7,484, no multiple-comparison correction. Full text.
  15. Jiwani Z et al. PLoS One 2025, 20(2):e0310160. DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0310160 Grade 1. Convenience-sample survey of meditators who also used psychedelics, n = 863, single unvalidated outcome item. Full text.
  16. Szigeti B et al. eLife 2021, 10:e62878. DOI 10.7554/eLife.62878 Grade 1. Self-blinding citizen-science trial, 191 completers, partial unblinding, possibly underpowered. Full text.
  17. Polito V, Stevenson RJ. PLoS One 2019, 14(2):e0211023. DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0211023 Grade 1. Observational, 63 completers, no placebo. Full text.
  18. Haijen ECHM et al. Front Psychiatry 2023, 14:1233585. DOI 10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1233585 Grade 1. Naturalistic prospective study in an ADHD (clinical) sample, 233 then 66 then 44. Full text.
  19. Mans K et al. Front Psychiatry 2021, 12:647909. DOI 10.3389/fpsyt.2021.647909 Grade 1. Prospective naturalistic cohort, 654 then 64 at two years, complete-case analysis n = 165. Full text.
  20. Pallavicini C et al. Front Hum Neurosci 2026, 20:1874178. DOI 10.3389/fnhum.2026.1874178 Grade 1. Naturalistic field study, 105 started, not preregistered, assignment not randomized (the paper describes it inconsistently). Full text.
  21. Girn M et al. Nat Med 2026, 32(4):1543-1554. DOI 10.1038/s41591-026-04287-9 Grade 1. Pooled imaging mega-analysis, 11 datasets, functional connectivity, acute effects only. Full text.
  22. Millière R et al. Front Psychol 2018, 9:1475. DOI 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01475 Grade 2. Narrative review, partly resting on case reports and unpublished survey data. Full text.
  23. Galante J et al. PLoS Med 2021, 18(1):e1003481. DOI 10.1371/journal.pmed.1003481 Grade 1. Systematic review and meta-analysis, 136 RCTs, 11,605 non-clinical adults. Full text.
  24. Galante J et al. Nat Ment Health 2023. DOI 10.1038/s44220-023-00081-5 Grade 1. Individual participant data meta-analysis, 13 trials, 2,371 participants. Full text.
  25. Baer R, Gu J, Cavanagh K, Strauss C. Psychol Assess 2019, 31(10):1247-1263. DOI 10.1037/pas0000744 Grade 1. Meta-analysis of 37 active-controlled trials (33 with a total score), mostly diagnosed populations. Full text.
  26. Goldberg SB et al. Psychol Assess 2016, 28(8):1009-1014. DOI 10.1037/pas0000233 Grade 1. Three-arm randomized trial, 130 randomized and 106 with before-and-after scores, construct validity of the FFMQ. Full text.
  27. Goldstein E et al. J Health Psychol 2020, 25(12):1816-1830. DOI 10.1177/1359105318772608 Grade 1. Three-arm randomized trial, n = 413, analysed sample 353, adults with recurrent respiratory infections. Full text.
  28. Kral TRA et al. Sci Adv 2022, 8(20):eabk3316. DOI 10.1126/sciadv.abk3316 Grade 1. Two combined randomized trials, n = 218, neuroimaging. Full text.
  29. Coronado-Montoya S et al. PLoS One 2016, 11(4):e0153220. DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0153220 Grade 1. Meta-research, 124 trials, mostly clinical populations, search to 2013. Full text.
  30. Kuyken W et al. Evid Based Ment Health 2022. DOI 10.1136/ebmental-2021-300396 Grade 1. Cluster randomized trial, 8,376 adolescents, compared with existing social and emotional learning. Full text.
  31. Van Dam NT et al. Perspect Psychol Sci 2018, 13(1):36-61. DOI 10.1177/1745691617709589 Grade 2. Critical review written as a majority consensus, not a systematic search. Full text.
  32. Thanissaro Bhikkhu (trans.). Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, Majjhima Nikāya 10. Access to Insight, https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.010.than.html. Grade 4. Traditional text in translation. Full text, read 4 October 2026.
  33. Access to Insight. The Five Precepts: pañca-sīla. https://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/sila/pancasila.html. Grade 4. Traditional formula and translation. Full text, read 4 October 2026.
  34. Doblin R. J Transpersonal Psychol 1991, 23(1). URL https://www.atpweb.org/jtparchive/trps-23-91-01-001.pdf. Grade 2. Methodological critique and long-term follow-up. Full text, reference list not read.
  35. Gu J, Strauss C, Crane C, Barnhofer T, Karl A, Cavanagh K, Kuyken W. Psychol Assess 2016. DOI 10.1037/pas0000263 Grade 1. Confirmatory factor analysis of the FFMQ before and after an eight-week course in 238 adults with recurrent depression in remission (clinical sample), no control group. Full text.
  36. Marschall J, Fejer G, Lempe P, Prochazkova L, Kuchar M, Hajkova K, van Elk M. J Psychopharmacol 2022. DOI 10.1177/02698811211050556 Grade 1. Preregistered, double-blind, placebo-controlled field and laboratory study, 40 to 52 participants depending on the measure, no mindfulness scale. Full text.

The book on all twelve dimensions   Back to the twelve dimensions