Trial reportJournal of behavioral medicine2008
Migraines and meditation: does spirituality matter?
Trial report in Journal of behavioral medicine, 2008. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 56 papers, 10 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
56 citing papers in PubMed, 10 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 231 citations in OpenAlex.
- Mantra Meditation for Pain Conditions: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Pain research & management · 2026Pooled it
- Behavioral interventions for migraine prevention: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Headache · 2025Pooled it
- Religiosity and spirituality in the prevention and management of depression and anxiety in young people: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC psychiatry · 2023Pooled it
- Effectiveness of Mantra-Based Meditation on Mental Health: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Pooled it
- Systematic Review for the Medical Applications of Meditation in Randomized Controlled Trials.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Pooled it
- Psychological therapies for the prevention of migraine in adults.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2019Pooled it
- Mindfulness Meditation for Primary Headache Pain: A Meta-Analysis.Chinese medical journal · 2018Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Psychological interventions for migraine: a systematic review.Journal of neurology · 2016Pooled it
- Religious and spiritual interventions in mental health care: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled clinical trials.Psychological medicine · 2015Pooled it
- Centering and flourishing: an online intervention study assessing the effects of a Christian contemplative practice on stress-reduction and human flourishing.BMC psychology · 2024Trial
- Recruitment, retention, and adherence in a randomized feasibility trial of mindfulness-based stress reduction for patients with migraine.Complementary therapies in medicine · 2020Trial
- A reanalysis of a randomized trial on meditation for migraine headaches: Distraction is not enough but meditation takes time.Complementary therapies in medicine · 2019Trial
- Hypnotherapy or transcendental meditation versus progressive muscle relaxation exercises in the treatment of children with primary headaches: a multi-centre, pragmatic, randomised clinical study.European journal of pediatrics · 2019Trial
- Trial
- Effect of Prayer on Intensity of Migraine Headache: A Randomized Clinical Trial.Journal of evidence-based complementary & alternative medicine · 2017Trial
- A pilot study: mindfulness meditation intervention in COPD.International journal of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease · 2015Trial
- Spiritual wellbeing mediates PTSD change in veterans with military-related PTSD.International journal of behavioral medicine · 2012Trial
- Living with HIV: responses to a mantram intervention using the critical incident research method.Journal of alternative and complementary medicine (New York, N.Y.) · 2012Trial
- Effect of Different Meditation Types on Migraine Headache Medication Use.Behavioral medicine (Washington, D.C.)Trial
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Migraine headaches are associated with symptoms of depression and anxiety (Waldie and Poulton Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry 72: 86-92, 2002) and feelings of low self-efficacy (French et al. Headache, 40: 647-656, 2000). Previous research suggests that spiritual meditation may ameliorate some of the negative traits associated with migraine headaches (Wachholtz and Pargament Journal of behavioral Medicine, 30: 311-318, 2005). This study examined two primary questions: (1) Is spiritual meditation more effective in enhancing pain tolerance and reducing migraine headache related symptoms than secular meditation and relaxation? and, (2) Does spiritual meditation create better mental, physical, and spiritual health outcomes than secular meditation and relaxation techniques? Eighty-three meditation naïve, frequent migraineurs were taught Spiritual Meditation, Internally Focused Secular Meditation, Externally Focused Secular Meditation, or Muscle Relaxation which participants practiced for 20 min a day for one month. Pre-post tests measured pain tolerance (with a cold pressor task), headache frequency, and mental and spiritual health variables. Compared to the other three groups, those who practiced spiritual meditation had greater decreases in the frequency of migraine headaches, anxiety, and negative affect, as well as greater increases in pain tolerance, headache-related self-efficacy, daily spiritual experiences, and existential well being.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.