About 28% of distressed college students and 10% of distressed US adults reported at least one adverse experience during a digital meditation program, but rates did not differ between those who completed guided meditations and those who did not, suggesting the experiences were not caused by meditation itself. Higher baseline depression, anxiety, loneliness, experiential avoidance, and perceived barriers to meditation predicted more adverse experiences. Among those reporting adverse experiences, roughly 90% were glad to have learned to meditate. Participants used diverse coping strategies, often drawing on skills taught in the program. The findings indicate that adverse experiences during meditation training may reflect preexisting distress rather than iatrogenic harm.
An invited commentary argues that meditation-based ethical development interventions (MBEDs) may have limited capacity to address unethical behavior shaped by structural factors like academic incentive systems. It highlights a motivational trade-off: voluntary participation risks self-selection and ceiling effects, while mandatory implementation may lead to low engagement, as seen in other universal mindfulness-based interventions. The authors question reliance on meditation as the primary mechanism for ethical cultivation, noting sustained benefits require ongoing engagement that may be unrealistic in mandatory contexts. They propose an integrated model embedding MBEDs within institutional initiatives like holistic career assessment, open science practices, and incentives for replication, supplemented with non-meditative contemplative methods.