A Bibliometric and Visualization Analysis of Mindfulness and Meditation Research from 1900 to 2021

From 1900 to 2021, research on meditation—especially mindfulness meditation—grew from a single article in 1963 to 19,752 publications. The United States leads in collaboration, output, and citations. The journal Mindfulness published the most articles, and the most cited paper is Brown and Ryan's work on mindfulness and psychological well-being. Frequently studied topics include mindfulness, meditation, depression, intervention, stress reduction, stress, and anxiety. Before 2010, research focused on hypertension, cancer, and generalized anxiety disorder; after 2010, interest shifted to meta-analysis, attention, self-assessment, and mindfulness-based interventions. These results map the field's development and guide future research.

Study at a glance

Abstract

This study comprehensively summarizes research in the field of meditation, especially mindfulness meditation from 1900 to 2021, by analyzing the knowledge map through CiteSpace and VOSviewer software. Using “mindfulness *” or “meditation *” as the topic, articles included in the Science Citation Index Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index were searched in the web of science core database, resulting in the selection of 19,752 articles. Over half a century ago, Deikman published the field’s first article in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease in 1963, and publications have soared in subsequent decades. The USA is in the core position in terms of global collaboration, total publication numbers, and total citations. The Mindfulness journal ranked first for the most published articles and citations. “The benefits of being present: Mindfulness and its role in psychological well-being,” written by Brown and Ryan, was the most cited article. Mindfulness, meditation, depression, intervention, stress reduction, stress, and anxiety are the top co-occurrence keywords. The timeline of cluster analysis discloses that before 2010, hypertension, cancer, mindfulness, generalized anxiety disorder, and other topics received great attention. In the decade since 2010, scholars have shown interest in meta-analysis, attention, and self-assessment, and keen attention to mindfulness-based interventions. These findings provide an important foundation to direct future research.