Which kind of mindfulness meditation to choose? Comparing sitting meditation, body scan, and mindful yoga

Let’s say you want to be more mindful—that is, cul­ti­vate inten­tion­al, non-judg­men­tal atten­tion to each moment. Med­i­ta­tion is the core of mind­ful­ness, but there are many dif­fer­ent forms of med­i­ta­tion. Which one is best for you?

That’s the ques­tion tack­led in a new study pub­lished in the jour­nal Mind­ful­ness. Over the span of three weeks, the researchers broke 141 under­grad­u­ates into three groups that each engaged in one of these forms of mind­ful­ness meditation:

• The sit­ting med­i­ta­tion, which involves sit­ting in a relaxed but erect pos­ture and cul­ti­vat­ing aware­ness of each breath you take.
• The body scan, which entails method­i­cal­ly pay­ing atten­tion to each part of your body, from top to bottom.
• Mind­ful yoga, the prac­tice of delib­er­ate, inten­tion­al movement.

At the begin­ning and end of those three weeks, par­tic­i­pants answered ques­tions mea­sur­ing depres­sion, anx­i­ety, stress, emo­tion reg­u­la­tion, rumi­na­tion, mind­ful­ness (observ­ing, describ­ing, non-judg­ing, non-reac­tiv­i­ty, and act­ing with aware­ness), well-being, and self-compassion.

Researchers found some ben­e­fits across all three groups. In all three groups par­tic­i­pants report­ed reduced rumi­na­tion, as well as greater self-com­pas­sion and well-being. These results echo decades of research show­ing that mind­ful­ness prac­tices improve phys­i­cal and men­tal health.

Then the researchers looked at each group (sit­ting med­i­ta­tion, body scan, or yoga) indi­vid­u­al­ly and com­pared those results to the oth­er two groups. Dif­fer­ences emerged:

• Yoga improved well-being more than sit­ting med­i­ta­tion and body scan, which the authors argue may be linked to “long­stand­ing evi­dence that phys­i­cal exer­cise pro­motes psy­cho­log­i­cal health” and well-being, rather than specif­i­cal­ly mindfulness.
• Yoga and sit­ting med­i­ta­tion improved emo­tion reg­u­la­tion more so than in the body scan group. Why this might be is still a mys­tery, but the authors note that sit­ting med­i­ta­tion involves explic­it instruc­tions to observe strong emo­tions with­out hold­ing on or try­ing to get rid of them, sim­ply allow­ing them to be as they are.
• Mem­bers of the sit­ting med­i­ta­tion group were sig­nif­i­cant­ly less judg­men­tal towards their own feel­ings and expe­ri­ences than those who prac­ticed yoga and the body scan, which is like­ly due to the sit­ting meditation’s “more explic­it instruc­tions against judg­ing one’s experiences.”

So which prac­tice is best for you? That depends on what chal­lenges you’re fac­ing in your life, sug­gests this study.

If you find your­self over­whelmed by anger against your­self or oth­ers, sit­ting med­i­ta­tion sounds like the one for you. If you fre­quent­ly feel tired or sick, yoga is worth a try. While the body scan did not seem to yield as many ben­e­fits as the oth­er two prac­tices, that’s an area that needs fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tion. For exam­ple, it’s pos­si­ble that body scan paired with sit­ting med­i­ta­tion or yoga could be helpful.

This pre­lim­i­nary study is an excit­ing begin­ning to exam­in­ing how these spe­cif­ic med­i­ta­tion prac­tices may affect dif­fer­ent parts of our lives.

– Pub­lished here by cour­tesy of Greater Good, an online mag­a­zine based at UC-Berke­ley that high­lights ground break­ing sci­en­tific research into the roots of com­pas­sion and altru­ism. Hoo­ria Jazaieri, MFT, is a researcher and cog­ni­tive-behav­ioral ther­a­pist cur­rent­ly in the psy­chol­o­gy grad­u­ate pro­gram at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Berkeley.

To Learn More:

• 12 Ways Yoga Med­i­ta­tion Helps Nour­ish The Body, Brain and Mind
• Train­ing Atten­tion and Emo­tion­al Self-Reg­u­la­tion — Inter­view with Michael Posner