Impact of meditation on health

There is growing interest in the application of and research on meditation observing its beneficial effects on mental and physical health. There are around 275 million people practicing meditation in the world. In the United States of America (USA), 61 million people meditate and in United Kingdom (UK), 15 per cent of adults meditate in their regular life. The Mindful Leader Team conducted a survey on 212 meditation practitioners in 2025 and their report revealed that 56.6 per cent of the sample practice meditation regularly where 10 – 20 minutes being the preferred session.

Evidences are now directing us to make this practice as a prescription for the management of stress, anxiety, depression, sleep problem, cardiovascular diseases and so on. Recent studies on mindfulness meditation on students revealed that meditation is an effective intervention as it reduced the level of stress from 16.31 to 10.07, of anxiety from 14.08 to 8.46 (Komariah et al., 2022), and increased the quality of life from 156.55 to 166.12 (Dehghan-nayeri & Adib-Hajbaghery, 2011). The success stories of meditation are not only fixed to the students but also it has spread to people at different working environment, health care professionals and business communities. For example, members at a certified yoga club in Iran reported their mental health state as 25.1 before attending the meditation class which was improved to 21.3 after completing the class (Yunesian et al. 2008). Evidences also suggests that patients suffering from sleep experienced better quality of sleep measured by the score of Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index as a result of the practice of meditation in their life.

In Bangladesh Quantum Foundation is the pioneering institution which has been providing meditation training since 1993 known as the Quantum Method Meditation. Researchers from different institutions are now showing interest to make evidence based research on the Quantum Method Meditation. A recent conference presentation was on the effectiveness of the Quantum Method Meditation on the quality of sleep where the research explored that 50 per cent of the patients who took medicine for sleep before, did not take medicine after three month practice of the Quantum Method Meditation. This study also examined their health care expenditure which was 30 per cent lower than that of three months ago. This type of research has potentials to explore the evidence of the Quantum Method Meditation on different types of diseases from which Bangladeshi people are now suffering from such as stress, anxiety, depression, heart diseases to name a few.

The impact of meditation on mental and physical health on our community may have relevant policy implications for the health systems prevailing in Bangladesh. Achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC) is a major concern for health sector in reimagined Bangladesh. The UHC target states that all citizens should access health care at affordable costs without any financial hardship. But high out of pocket health care expenditure is a great obstacle to access health care. Here the Quantum Method Meditation may play a vital role in achieving universal health coverage through its cost-effective nature. It only requires the initiatives to provide Quantum Method Meditation training to the targeted population at different hospitals, clinics, community centers or specific centers/units.

In addition, Alternative Medical Care (AMC), Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh has included yoga-meditation as a complementary healthcare strategy in order to manage and treat stress, anxiety, depression, sleep disorder, high blood pressure and heart-related diseases during December 2022. In this regard, the Quantum Method Meditation has the potentials to work as complementary or alternative health care strategy to the AMC wing and other health officials.

In sum, we need to provide training and access to the practice of meditation for mass people. The practice centers may be provided privately or publicly depending on the situation. Raising public awareness on the health benefits of meditation through mass media channels in Bangladesh and abroad is necessary in this connection.

The writer is Associate Professor, Institute of Health Economics, University of Dhaka. She is now pursuing research on meditation and health outcomes.

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