Meditation won't make you a better person: Study

New Delhi : Against a popular belief that meditation makes a person better, it has been learned that it plays very less or no significant role in improvising a person.

The researchers, including those at Coventry University in the UK, reviewed more than 20 studies based on different meditations; in the initial analysis they said indicated that meditation does have an overall positive impact but have no role in making a person better.

The researchers said meditation made people feel moderately more compassionate or empathic, compared to if they had done no other new emotionally-engaging activity.

However further analysis revealed that it played no significant role in reducing aggression or prejudice or improving how socially-connected someone was.

The findings from the research were published in the journal Scientific Reports. It has been mentioned that the researchers only included randomised controlled studies, where meditators were compared to other individuals that did not meditate.

"The popularisation of meditation techniques, like mindfulness, despite being taught without religious beliefs, still seem to offer the hope of a better self and a better world to many," said Miguel Farias from Coventry University.

"We wanted to investigate how powerful these techniques were in affecting one's feelings and behaviours towards others," said Farias.

Most of the initial positive results disappeared when the meditation groups were compared to other groups that engaged in tasks unrelated to meditation.

"We also found that the beneficial effect of meditation on compassion disappeared if the meditation teacher was an author in the studies. This reveals that the researchers might have unintentionally biased their results," researchers said.