Evidence

Meditation programs had moderate evidence of improving anxiety and depression (Goyal 2014), mindfulness apps reduced perceived stress, anxiety and depression with no significant effect on distress (Gál 2020), mindfulness-based programs reduced rumination, stress, depression and anxiety against passive control (Querstret 2020); short-term training did not improve attention or executive function (Lao 2016), burnout results were more equivocal (Lomas 2018), and immune effects are tentative (Black 2016).

Living in a way that matches what you value — authenticity, a sense of meaning, a moral identity you recognise — is associated with greater well-being; the association is consistent in direction and almost entirely correlational.

A sense of purpose in life is associated with lower mortality across meta-analyses of cohort studies (Sutin 2026; Cohen 2016), and meaning in life with physical health indicators (Czekierda 2017); these are observational associations.

Interventions promoting meaning in life had an effect of SMD 0.85 against passive control and 0.32 against active control (Manco 2021); meaning-centered therapies improved quality of life and reduced psychological stress (Vos 2018) and meaning therapies, one type of existential therapy, had large effects on positive meaning in life (Vos 2015); spiritual and religious interventions reduced anxiety, stress and depression (Gonçalves 2015); brief workplace formats showed no evidence of effectiveness (Ivandić 2017).

Large prospective studies repeatedly link a stronger sense of purpose to lower mortality risk and better health markers.

Religious and spiritual engagement is associated with better mental health across reviews, with a small overall effect in longitudinal meta-analysis (r = 0.08; Garssen 2020); negative spiritual coping was associated with more mental-health diagnoses and symptom severity while positive coping had an ameliorating effect in veterans (Smith-MacDonald 2017).

Qualitative and mixed-methods reviews describe spirituality as a coping resource across bereavement, end-of-life care, forced migration, illness and disaster; an umbrella review identified meaning-making, spiritual struggle and intervention as pathways with small-to-moderate effects (Asgari 2026); one meta-analysis found no genuine growth for meaning and spirituality after major life events (Mangelsdorf 2018).