Meditation improves some kinds of attention, not all
A meta-analysis of 87 studies concluded meditation improves certain attentional processes while leaving others unchanged.
The short version
"Attention" is not one thing, and this meta-analysis of 87 studies shows meditation does not improve all of it equally. Meditation produced small but reliable gains in alertness, executive control, inhibition and updating working memory. Teaching two meditation styles together did no better than teaching one. The authors' own summary is the useful one: meditation may improve some, but not all, attentional processes.
What the researchers did
David Sumantry and Kathleen Stewart pooled 87 studies of people practising focused-attention meditation (holding attention on one object, such as the breath), open-monitoring meditation (noticing whatever arises without following it), or both. They sorted the outcomes using two well-known frameworks:
- the three attention networks: alerting (getting and staying ready), orienting (directing attention to a location) and executive control (resolving conflict between competing responses);
- the three facets of executive control: inhibition (stopping an automatic response), shifting (switching between tasks) and updating (keeping working memory current).
What they found
- Attention overall: g = 0.17.
- Alerting network: g = 0.16.
- Executive control network: g = 0.20.
- Inhibition: g = 0.16.
- Updating: g = 0.26, the largest effect reported.
- The summary of results does not list improvements for orienting or shifting, consistent with the conclusion that some attentional processes do not benefit.
- Studies that taught both focused attention and open monitoring did not show attention improvements over teaching one technique.
- Gains were larger on accuracy-based tasks than on reaction-time tasks.
Limits and caveats
All of these effects are small, and results varied a lot between studies for several of the measures, which means the average hides real differences in how well individual programmes worked. The studies mix novices and experienced meditators and range from brief courses to long practice, so the analysis cannot tell you what dose is needed. It also measures laboratory attention tasks, not focus during real work.
What it means for how you work
Treat meditation as a way to get steadier, not faster: fewer errors, better resistance to an automatic urge, and a more up-to-date picture of what you are doing. Those are the facets most relevant to resisting a notification or noticing your mind has drifted. Keep the practice simple — one technique is as good as two — and keep your expectations modest. For the broader picture, see the mindfulness-as-attention-training meta-analyses and the 111-trial review, which reach a similar conclusion.