Just be: Skilful doing nothing is calming, pleasant, and easy — not aversive
September 30, 2025 Toby J. Woods, Andrew W. Corcoran, Olivia Carter et al. preprint
A 15-minute session of Stillness Meditation, which involves skillfully doing nothing, is calming, pleasant, and easy for meditation-naive adults, not aversive as earlier research suggested. In a randomized trial with 165 participants, those practicing Stillness Meditation reported the session as calm, pleasant, and easy, and showed increases in heart rate variability and interbeat interval from baseline. While focused attention led to higher self-reported calm than Stillness Meditation or an audiobook, there were no differences in easiness, pleasantness, or cardiac measures between groups. The findings validate Stillness Meditation as a tool for studying pure consciousness.