Meditation has been shown to improve physical and mental well-being, and to increase prosocial action, empathy, compassion, focus, and connection with nature.
Given the climate crisis, widespread mental illness, and extreme inequality—as young people, finding ways to address these realities is immensely valuable to us. To this end, we developed and tested a peer-led university curriculum based on meditation, traditional wisdom, ecology, and neuroscience.
Our Research
Our consciousness research group has been investigating the effects of students taking the Meditation and Mindfulness DeCal, which has been running every semester since Fall 2019.
Students have reported a wide variety of benefits from taking the course and practicing meditation, for seven continuous semesters now—-from improvements in concentration, mood, ability to handle stress, and altruistic behavior, to increased incidences of mystical / self-transcendent experiences as well as feelings of connection to nature and all of life.
In a preliminary study, mean positive persisting effects scores of students in the class nearly doubled those of controls (students in more ‘traditional’ psychology and cognitive science courses), while mystical experiences were bolstered remarkably. With reports of alleviated well-being, empathy, and connection to nature, 70% of students reported that taking the course and practicing meditation was more significant than anything they had ever experienced before.
Current work involves longitudinal follow-up interviews and surveys; utilization of additional psychometric assessments; qualitative analysis of anonymized written student reflections; and additional lines of inquiry + data collection related to our other projects (i.e. wilderness meditation retreats, art and movement classes, and student mental health initiatives).
Methods & Findings
With our meditation-based course at UC Berkeley, we’ve shared contemplative techniques and teachings for the direct investigation of one’s mind—which can often lead to increased psychological and emotional resilience, in addition to bolstered compassion, altruistic behaviors, concentration, and connection to nature as well as with other humans.
Our research focuses on learning about the effects of these meditative practices and traditional teachings, as well as the mechanisms involved with how they work.
Positive Persisting Effects Distribution Comparison:
(Class: orange, Control: blue; class n=120; control n=78; p=2.155e-11)
This first figure shows differences in reported total scores for positive persisting effects, comparing students in the meditation course with students in other university courses (psychology and cognitive science).
The scale used here measures a range of dimensions such as compassion, creativity, happiness, ability to cope with difficulty, relationship satisfaction, etc.
Comparison of total reported positive & negative effects, class vs. control group (aggregated data from 3 semesters):
Presence of Mystical-Type Experiences
Our studies have used a version of the Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ), made up of measures that investigate experiential features such as feelings of unity or interconnectedness, sacredness, positive mood, transcendence of time and space, and ineffability.
Relationship Between Mystical Experience and Positive Persisting Effects:
The plot shows a significant positive correlation between the intensity of mystical-type experiences reported and the degree of positive effects.
Distribution of Mystical Experience - End of Semester Surveys:
Comparing distributions between class and control we observe a significant association between participating in the class and reporting experiential features of mystical-type experiences.