A good meta study is: Lindahl et al (2017). The varieties of contemplative experience: A mixed-methods study of meditation-related challenges in Western Buddhists. This vice article recaps it: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/vbaedd/meditation-is-a-po...
I'll list just the titles of select deep dive citations from the first study to give an idea, you can find detailed citations in the paper itself;
- "Meditation-induced psychosis" (several with this title)
- "Mania precipitated by meditation: a case report and literature review."
- "Adverse effects of meditation: a preliminary investigation of long-term meditators."
- "The unveling of traumatic memories and emotions through mindfulness and concentration meditation: clinical implications and three case reports."
- "Meditation in association with psychosis"
- "Precipitation of acute psychotic episodes by intensive meditation in individuals with a history of schizophrenia"
- "Psychiatric complications of meditation practice."
This is a citation tree from just one study on meditation.
To be clear, I know the term meditation is not strictly equivalent to breathing exercises but definitely a good chunk covers & includes them; e.g most frequently practiced meditation style (vipassana), breathing sensation is the most common object of focus.
If you're interested in non-meditation studies, the term "relaxation induced anxiety" will bring a wider selection of papers. If you are interested in studies about psychoactivity of breathing, search for "panic disorder breathing" which has again tons of studies that investigate the link (contents of which doesn't necessarily limit to panic disordered populations).
And to be clear, I am not saying meditation or breathing exercises are bad. But they are potent. They can create altered states. And as such I am against bold claims like "they can do no harm, just do on your own". As studies above demonstrate, even with a proper educational context they can backfire. Especially considering the fact that the population segment that would be most interested in trying these exercises would likely to be the people already suffering from stress, anxiety or mental health problems.
...all day long - just append certain keywords and you'll find many articles and studies to feed your subjective belief and win arguments.
I did and talked with a lot of people doing mindfulness meditation and none of them warned me against it. I don't doubt your claims but I think they are exceptions and just about any activity can be found to be dangerous when looking at the exceptions.
> - "cycling is dangerous", "hiking is dangerous", "swimming is dangerous", "running is dangerous"
The difference is all of those are physical activities, and a reasonable person can easily infer the risks.
That's not the case with these prescriptions of rather potent, psychoactive exercises. A better comparison would be psychedelic mushrooms; it certainly wouldn't kill you but any reasonable prescription would have also cautioned about the importance of set & setting and to stay away from it if you have certain preconditions/proclivities.
Sorry you can’t compare breathing with mushrooms. It’s more like reading an intense book or watching a horror movie. There is a psychoactive effect but it’s pretty small.
> There is a psychoactive effect but it’s pretty small
The research I cited claims otherwise. If you have citations to back your claim, I'm happy to revise my position. And sure, it will be OK for a good majority of the population but it is not universally true to the extent of easily claiming "just try it, no harm can come" on a public forum. To give more context, 30% of US population will be clinically anxiety disordered at least once in their lifetime [1]. 17% to 53% of people will experience relaxation-induced anxiety [2].
Looking up just one of the papers in your example [1], and it looks far from convincing.
The paper is about the correlation between two separate manic episodes after meditation with two different methods. It further cites other papers - but in common for them is episodes occurring after meditation in patients with severe mental illnesses who in several cases are off their medication.
The paper goes on to give a case study of the patient, who had a manic episode the first time after a full weekend yoga retreat, and secondly again two months after entering a Zen retreat that she had been associated with for two years.
Notably there's no evidence of causation at all, of course, but more importantly there is also no reliable pattern of repetition despite her persistent involvement with meditation:
She was involved in meditation extensively over a long period before the second episode, she recovered without medication and re-entered the retreat. Of course we don't know if she further episodes, but that the case study only mentions two is a strong indication.
There's no discussion in the case study about other causes other than suggesting insomnia as a result of the practice as a possible cause. But the paper does not present any information to suggest any data on sleep deprivation was collected from the patient.
Maybe the other papers are more convincing, but this paper basically boils down to:
* Some reports of correlation have been made.
* Here's another example of correlation... Where the second incidents happened months into intensive practice, and with patient going back into intensive practice, yet no suggestion it happened more.
If anything, the low number of incidents the author uncovered has further convinced me of the safety of meditation. Maybe people with serious mental illnesses should be a bit careful.
[1] Mania precipitated by meditation: a case report and literature review, Graeme A. Yorston.
I'll list just the titles of select deep dive citations from the first study to give an idea, you can find detailed citations in the paper itself;
- "Meditation-induced psychosis" (several with this title)
- "Mania precipitated by meditation: a case report and literature review."
- "Adverse effects of meditation: a preliminary investigation of long-term meditators."
- "The unveling of traumatic memories and emotions through mindfulness and concentration meditation: clinical implications and three case reports."
- "Meditation in association with psychosis"
- "Precipitation of acute psychotic episodes by intensive meditation in individuals with a history of schizophrenia"
- "Psychiatric complications of meditation practice."
This is a citation tree from just one study on meditation.
To be clear, I know the term meditation is not strictly equivalent to breathing exercises but definitely a good chunk covers & includes them; e.g most frequently practiced meditation style (vipassana), breathing sensation is the most common object of focus.
If you're interested in non-meditation studies, the term "relaxation induced anxiety" will bring a wider selection of papers. If you are interested in studies about psychoactivity of breathing, search for "panic disorder breathing" which has again tons of studies that investigate the link (contents of which doesn't necessarily limit to panic disordered populations).
And to be clear, I am not saying meditation or breathing exercises are bad. But they are potent. They can create altered states. And as such I am against bold claims like "they can do no harm, just do on your own". As studies above demonstrate, even with a proper educational context they can backfire. Especially considering the fact that the population segment that would be most interested in trying these exercises would likely to be the people already suffering from stress, anxiety or mental health problems.