Meditation may support student well-being, but evidence for resilience is limited

What is it about?

We reviewed 88 randomized studies involving 8,728 university students to examine whether meditation alone—without exercise or additional treatment components—strengthens psychological resilience. Meditation showed beneficial effects on resilience-related mental health outcomes, including anxiety, stress, and well-being, as well as on factors such as mindfulness and self-compassion. However, studies using direct resilience scales did not provide clear evidence of improvement. We also found no robust differences according to meditation style, delivery format, session frequency, or intervention duration, although many of these comparisons had limited statistical power. Overall, meditation appears promising for student mental health, but its direct effect on resilience remains uncertain.

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Photo by Benjamin Child on Unsplash

Photo by Benjamin Child on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Universities increasingly offer meditation programs to support students facing academic, financial, and social pressures. Our findings suggest that meditation can be a useful option, but it should not automatically be described as a proven resilience intervention. Improvements in stress or well-being are valuable, yet they are not the same as demonstrating successful adaptation to adversity. Some analyses also indicated that meditation did not clearly outperform simple rest, suggesting that intervention choices may reasonably depend on individual preferences. Future studies should measure resilience more directly by examining how students respond to and recover from actual stressors, while reporting intervention content, adherence, follow-up effects, and possible adverse experiences more consistently.

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