Mindfulness
January 1, 2022
Nicholas I Bowles, Jonathan N Davies, Nicholas T Van Dam
54 citations
Benefits of meditation accumulate over time in a non-linear fashion, with the strongest gains occurring in roughly the first 500 hours of practice before leveling off. In a cross-sectional survey of 1,668 meditators averaging 1,095 lifetime hours, greater historical practice was associated with better psychological outcomes, including higher positive affect and life satisfaction and lower psychological distress and negative affect. The type of practice mattered: Vipassana (as taught by S.N. Goenka) and cultivating practices like compassion and lovingkindness were more strongly linked to favorable outcomes. The results suggest that the dose-response relationship between meditation practice and wellbeing is not linear and depends on practice context.
Pain
October 1, 2023
Jonathan N Davies, Ben Colagiuri, Louise Sharpe et al.
15 citations
A single 20-minute online mindfulness session did not reduce chronic pain intensity or unpleasantness more than sham mindfulness or a general sham condition in 169 adults with chronic or recurrent pain. All three active conditions reduced pain unpleasantness compared to an audiobook control, and this effect was most strongly linked to participants' expectations (placebo). No evidence was found that mindfulness engages its theorized specific processes. The findings suggest that short-term pain relief from a single mindfulness session may be driven by placebo effects rather than mindfulness-specific mechanisms.
BMC complementary medicine and therapies
December 4, 2025
Jonathan N Davies, Cate Bailey, Julieta Galante et al.
1 citation
About 41.5% of Australian and 35.7% of New Zealand adults have ever used meditation, with 32.8% and 24.9% using it in the past year. Younger age and higher education consistently predicted past-year use in both countries. In Australia, additional predictors included female gender, Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander ancestry, unmet mental health care needs, and receipt of complementary care. In New Zealand, identifying as LGBTQIA+ was a strong positive predictor, while not receiving medical care was linked to lower odds. Over 21.7% of Australian and 17.6% of New Zealand meditators reported a meditation-related adverse effect.
Mindfulness
February 25, 2026
Cate Bailey, Nicholas T. van Dam, Jonathan N Davies et al.
A nationally representative Australian survey compared quality of life, health service use, and costs among meditators, other contemplative practitioners, and non-practitioners. Unadjusted quality-of-life scores were higher for non-practitioners, and this difference persisted after accounting for demographics but disappeared when mental health service use was included. Unmet mental-health service need was highest among meditators (13.9%) versus non-practitioners (2.4%). The average annual cost of contemplative practice was $1,281 per person. The findings provide preliminary data for future economic evaluations of contemplative practices.
JMIR research protocols
July 29, 2025
Nicholas Bowles, Alexander Burger, Jonathan N Davies et al.
A proposed randomized controlled trial will test whether longer daily mindfulness meditation sessions produce greater improvements in well-being. Healthy adults aged 18–65 will be assigned to 4-week online courses with 10, 20, or 30 minutes of daily practice, or a 4-minute control condition. The primary outcome is psychological well-being, measured at baseline, midintervention, postintervention, and one-month follow-up. The trial aims to enroll at least 688 participants; as of end of 2024, 70 eligible participants were enrolled. Results are expected by March 2026.