Are there statistics about Americans and meditation?

May 8, 2015 9:14 AM

I'm curious about how many Americans have been exposed to meditation and mindfulness, and to what degree. I've had a difficult time finding research about these and related statistics. Can anyone point me in the right direction?
posted by zenja72 to Society & Culture (6 answers total)

One place to start is to look for the number of institutions that have incorporated it into their programming: inpatient psychiatric facilities, prisons, etc. I also suspect that Marsha Linehan's crew has decent numbers on annual participation in DBT (total participants will be smaller than the sum of annual participants, because DBT lasts longer than a year.)

Your numbers will be heavily influenced by how broadly you define your terms. Does every person who takes a free six-week yoga course at the YMCA count?
posted by SMPA at 9:28 AM on May 8, 2015

What do you mean by "exposed", and what counts as mindfulness and meditation? Does reading self-help books count? Taking certain kinds of yoga classes? Doing a formal program in a particular variation of mindfulness meditation? You could get estimations re book sales in the general genre or by keyword (probably missing or miscounting some books) - I don't know about stats on library use. It'd be hard to track takeup of seminars or yoga classes (or even just the number of seminars or classes held in a city over a year, but for that you could take a sample of one or two cities and count advertisements or providers for a year. You wouldn't be able to tell from any of that if the people who read books then went on to take a mindfulness meditation seminar, for example. I think rough indicators are probably the best you could do.
posted by cotton dress sock at 9:29 AM on May 8, 2015

I'm interested in any numbers or estimates anyone can send my way, from how many people have seen a pamphlet to how many maintain a daily meditation or mindfulness practice. Broad or specific numbers / answers are acceptable.
posted by zenja72 at 9:40 AM on May 8, 2015

The Center for Mindfulness might have some helpful resources for you. Right on the front it says more than 20,000 people have completed the program.
posted by mibo at 9:58 AM on May 8, 2015

You could also look for information about Paramahansa Yogananda, one of the earliest bringers of yoga, meditation, and eastern thought to the United States. Info on how he impacted American's exposure to mediation dates back to 1915. My great grandma for instance attended one of his earliest lectures in 1917-1920 in Missouri and my family has been practitioners of meditation ever since.
posted by Hermione Granger at 10:12 AM on May 8, 2015

From the CDC: Regional Variation in Use of Complementary Health Approaches by U.S. Adults

The use of yoga with deep breathing or meditation was approximately 40% higher in the Pacific and Mountain regions than the national average.

Yoga with deep breathing or meditation use in the East South Central (5.1%), West South Central (6.0%), South Atlantic (6.8%), and Middle Atlantic (7.1%) regions was lower than the percentage for the nation as a whole (Figure 4).

The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health might be another resource for you. This report notes that "Nearly 20 million adults had chiropractic or osteopathic manipulation, and nearly 18 million adults practiced meditation."
posted by MonkeyToes at 5:23 PM on May 8, 2015