Mindfulness may alter brain networks involved in attention, emotion, and self-referential thought.

Meditation can have adverse effects, including anxiety, and insomnia.

We need dose- and context-sensitive research on both the benefits and risks of meditation.

I will be the first to admit that I am an anxious type. I worry about little things and replay the events of the day in my mind.

I would like to be calmer and more collected, but that is simply not who I naturally am.

Meditation has helped bring some serenity into my life.

A few years ago, we stayed at a Shingon Buddhist temple on Kōyasan, where visitors were invited to practice Ajikan, a traditional form of Shingon meditation. We sat for about 45 minutes before breakfast and dinner, focusing on our breathing and on the Sanskrit letter A, traditionally visualized within a moon disc. I confess that I found it easier to substitute the image of a tree.

Still, I found the practice calming and rewarding.

Since then, I have tried to continue meditating with an app. But there always seems to be something more pressing, and I can’t say I have been a good student.

When I do manage to meditate, however, I am able to detach myself from my thoughts. Negative emotions; frustration, anger, and anxiety tend to recede. They are still there, but they matter less.

Neuroscience has begun to offer possible explanations for some of these effects. Studies suggest that mindfulness can alter activity and connectivity within and between brain networks involved in self-referential thought, emotional processing, and attentional control, including the default mode network, salience, and frontoparietal control networks.

I have also recommended meditation and breathing exercises to patients who seem anxious or stuck. And when we recommend a non-pharmacological intervention like meditation, we often add reassuringly: it’s safe. There is no harm in trying.

Can meditation have negative effects?

So when I recently read The Atlantic article, “When Meditation Has a Dark Side,” I was intrigued.

The article features research done by psychologist and meditation researcher Willoughby Britton. Britton was herself a meditation practitioner and originally........

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