Projects

Meditation science has focused on the therapeutic benefits of techniques derived from Buddhist and Hindu traditions (Mindfulness and Transcendental Meditation). But what do know about the effects of meditation practices from other traditions? Can the practice of heart-centered meditation from Christian and Muslim traditions increase human flourishing by positively impacting one’s health and interpersonal behaviors?

For this project, we developed 8-week heart-centred meditation interventions delivered via a phone App, and explored it through a randomised controlled trial. We compared the Christian and Islamic meditations with a mindfulness-based stress reduction control condition and a waitlist condition. You can read more about this experiment, here.

As part of this project, we have also produced a 4-episode podcast documentary which you can access below. 

While doing fieldwork on rituals in Brazil, I discovered the richness of indigenous cultures. The Brazilian Amazon is home to over 200 indigenous groups, most of whom speak different languages, and the largest concentration of uncontacted tribes in the world. There is a vast anthropological literature about these cultures, and new literature emerging from indigenous peoples, which deeply challenge how we think about ourselves and the world.

In collaboration with anthropologists from the Universidade Federal da Amazônia, and other colleagues, I started the podcast project ‘Forest Thinking.’ This is a popular science project which aims to explore, in plain language, how indigenous peoples from the Amazon relate to the natural and spiritual work, their ways of being and thinking, and how their perspective brings fresh insight into the problems of our own urban civilisation, including the environmental crisis.

This is a developing project and I am very interested in hearing from potential collaborators, particularly environmental educators. See below for a short interview I gave on this project.

When the Buddha Pill was first published, one of the chapters describing the potential adverse effects of meditation caused a media sensation, which has led to both public discussion and new research on this topic. Summaries of that chapter can be found in this New Scientist article, or in this Lancet Psychiatry article.

You can also find an excellent BBC Radio4 radio documentary based on that chapter and other parts of the Buddha Pill here.

Finally, if you want to read a more thorough academic summary of the literature, have a look below at this systematic review of over 40 years of literature on meditation adverse events.

Together with Robin Dunbar and other colleagues, I have explored the effects of rituals. We studied how rituals generate stronger social bonding and positive affect, and what are the biological mechanisms that make rituals so powerful and present across all cultures. 

We looked at different types of rituals in the UK and Brazil, and also in the laboratory. Some of the studies using a double-blind procedure to test the biological role of endorphins while others compared the effect of religious with secular rituals, and of yoga-based rituals in a laboratory over 5 weeks.

What we found has confirmed early insights about the function of rituals in creating social cohesion, and Dunbar’s theory about the role of the endorphin system.