Meditation helped attention a bit, but not all kinds of it.

The review

1. 01

   Who took part

   Healthy adults in 87 studies. The studies had 5,003 people in all, aged 17 to 79.

2. 02

   What they did

   Most groups learned meditation that holds attention on one thing, or meditation that watches whatever comes up. The other group had no contact in 26 studies and did something else in 28.

3. 03

   What happened

   Attention got better overall, as did the alerting, inhibition and updating parts. The orienting part showed no clear change. Switching between tasks was not clear once the numbers were adjusted for missing studies.

What the review found

1. Helped

   In 87 studies, people who meditated scored better on attention tests than the other group did.

   • Action: Practise mindfulnesstested

   Pooled analysis of 87 studies with 5,003 people · vs people with no contact or doing something else · behaviour was recorded · ⚠ mixes trials with other kinds of study

2. Helped

   In 77 measures, people who meditated did better on alerting than the other group did.

   • Action: Practise mindfulnesstested

   Pooled analysis of 0 studies · vs people with no contact or doing something else · behaviour was recorded · ⚠ mixes trials with other kinds of study

3. Helped

   In 71 measures, people who meditated ignored more distractions than the other group.

   • Action: Practise mindfulnesstested

   Pooled analysis of 0 studies · vs people with no contact or doing something else · behaviour was recorded · ⚠ mixes trials with other kinds of study

4. Helped

   In 40 measures, people who meditated kept track of changing things better than the other group did.

   • Action: Practise mindfulnesstested

   Pooled analysis of 0 studies · vs people with no contact or doing something else · behaviour was recorded · ⚠ signs that small negative studies went unpublished; mixes trials with other kinds of study

Source