When Meditation Has a Dark Side

Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Overcast | Pocket Casts Twenty years ago, a meditation teacher and doctoral candidate in clinical psychology named Willoughby Britton set out to do a study showing that meditation improves sleep.

She divided up the participants, sent them to a sleep lab to monitor their brain activity, and discovered that the results were the opposite of what she had hoped for: The more they meditated, the worse their quality of sleep got.

Britton had already experienced benefits of meditation herself, which are well documented in medical literature: It soothes anxiety, chronic pain, and depression, and it lowers blood pressure, alleviates back pain, and has many other benefits, as well.

But as she continued to look into it, Britton kept discovering what seemed, at first, like exceptions: people who actually became more anxious or unmotivated after meditating.

Then she began encountering people who experienced more serious mental-health side effects, such as paranoia, hallucinations, and dissociation.

Britton became a researcher at Brown University and eventually developed a robust body of work showing that meditation—for certain people and at certain intensities—can be harmful.

On this episode of Radio Atlantic is the staff writer Olga Khazan, who interviewed Britton about her research.

We talk about how the meditation community responded, how Britton’s life changed after it was released, and what her recommendations are for the average person interested in meditation.

The following is a transcript of the episode: Hanna Rosin: Just a quick warning: This episode mentions suicide.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text the U.S.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988. [ Music ] Rosin: This is Radio Atlantic .

I’m Hanna Rosin.

I meditate, now and again.

Or, at least, I try.