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Recent research has documented a range of challenging, distressing, or impairing experiences that can result from Buddhist meditation practices (Lindahl et al.). The present study investigates the impact of dietary changes on the trajectories of Western Buddhist meditators who reported meditation-related challenges.
Interviews were conducted with 68 Western Buddhist meditators and 33 meditation experts (teachers and clinicians).
Thematic analysis resulted in the following observations: (1) dietary restrictions could be a risk factor for the development of meditation-related challenges; (2) a loss of appetite or lack of eating was often an exacerbating factor and diagnostic indicator of more severe distress when meditation-related challenges were already occurring; and (3) diet-related remedies, such as eating “heavy” foods and meat, were often described as helpful and associated with “grounding” effects for meditators-in-distress.
This study highlights the importance of considering diet-related factors as both risk factors and remedies for meditation-related challenges and suggests possible implications for research and practice.
Over the past several decades, Buddhist meditation and Buddhist-derived meditation practices such as mindfulness have become popular in the United States and other Western countries, where they have been increasingly secularized and integrated with Western psychology (
Recent research from the Var
Dietary restrictions involving transient or irregular acts of deprivation in the kind or amount of food intake are an extremely common element of religious traditions and are often associated with religious rituals (
Food-related practices and dietary restrictions vary considerably by Buddhist lineage, geographical region, and historical era (
Diet has a well-established relationship with mental health (
In some East Asian medical systems, such as Traditional Chinese and Tibetan Medicine, food is considered to influence the flow of “energy” (e.g., Chn.
Less is known about the relationship between contemplative or religious practices, dietary intake, and subsequent mental health. In addition to their concomitant ethical and cultural systems, it is possible that certain contemplative techniques alone can precipitate changes in eating behavior. For example, Buddhist-derived mindfulness meditation training has been associated with reduced food cravings and emotional-eating among individuals with a tendency to stress eat (
The present study aims to examine the influence of dietary changes on trajectories of meditation-related challenges among contemporary Western Buddhist meditators. Using a secondary analysis of the diet-related changes reported by meditators and meditation experts in the Var
The present study includes data collected for the
VCE study participant references to diet by data source.
| Mentioned dietary or appetitive changes in interviews | 39 | 57 |
| Reported dietary changes in follow-up survey | 37 | 54 |
| Reported dietary changes in either data source | 50 | 74 |
| Reported in interviews only | 11 | 16 |
| Reported in survey only | 12 | 18 |
| Reported in both data sources | 28 | 41 |
The demographics of the practitioners in this sample and in the larger VCE project are detailed in
Practitioner demographics and characteristics: full sample and subsample.
| All VCE practitioners | VCE practitioners who reported dietary changes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gender | ||||
| Female | 31 | 46 | 24 | 48 |
| Male | 37 | 54 | 26 | 52 |
| Nationality | ||||
| American | 56 | 82 | 41 | 82 |
| Canadian | 3 | 4 | 2 | 4 |
| Middle Eastern | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| British | 3 | 4 | 3 | 6 |
| Other European | 4 | 6 | 3 | 6 |
| Mexican | 1 | 1 | ||
| Sexual Orientation | ||||
| Heterosexual | 54 | 79 | 41 | 82 |
| Gay/Lesbian | 6 | 9 | 3 | 6 |
| Bisexual | 3 | 4 | 3 | 6 |
| Other | 5 | 7 | 3 | 6 |
| Race | ||||
| White | 60 | 88 | 45 | 90 |
| Native American or Alaska Native | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Black | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Asian | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| More than one race | 3 | 4 | 2 | 4 |
| Other Race | 4 | 6 | 2 | 4 |
| Ethnicity | ||||
| Hispanic | 3 | 4 | 2 | 4 |
| Non-Hispanic | 61 | 90 | 46 | 92 |
| Prefer not to answer | 4 | 6 | 2 | 4 |
| Practice tradition | ||||
| Goenka | 8 | 12 | 10 | 20 |
| Theravāda | 20 | 29 | 13 | 26 |
| Tibetan | 20 | 29 | 13 | 26 |
| Zen | 20 | 29 | 14 | 28 |
| Lifetime practice hours | ||||
| 0–100 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 4 |
| 100–500 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| 500–1,000 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 6 |
| 1,000–5,000 | 16 | 24 | 14 | 28 |
| 5,000–10,000 | 16 | 24 | 10 | 20 |
| 10,000 | 28 | 41 | 20 | 40 |
| Symptom duration | ||||
| Less than 1 week | 4 | 6 | 1 | 2 |
| 1 week to 1 month | 8 | 12 | 5 | 10 |
| 1 to 6 months | 18 | 26 | 11 | 22 |
| 6 to 12 months | 5 | 7 | 5 | 10 |
| 1 to 3 years | 13 | 19 | 9 | 18 |
| 3 to 6 years | 7 | 10 | 7 | 14 |
| 6 to 10 years | 2 | 3 | 2 | 4 |
| More than 10 years | 11 | 16 | 10 | 20 |
In semi-structured VCE interviews, practitioners were asked to describe their meditation-related challenges, how these experiences were interpreted by themselves and others, and what responses and remedies were helpful or unhelpful for navigating their challenges. As mentioned above, an online follow-up survey was used to collect additional information. This survey explicitly asked whether participants tried changing their diet as a remedy. It did not explicitly ask about dietary changes as a risk factor. Meditation experts were also interviewed on the types of challenges that they had seen in their students and/or clients, as well as how they interpreted and managed such challenges. A team of researchers transcribed interviews and used open coding techniques described by Corbin and Strauss (
For the present qualitative analysis, all VCE interviews in which appetitive or dietary changes were coded were identified. Then, using the thematic analysis method outlined in Braun and Clarke (
Quantitative information on demographics and participant ratings of dietary changes as a remedy for meditation-related challenges were included in the present analysis from the follow-up survey. Data that was missing from the follow-up survey was imputed by the research team when the information was available in the qualitative interviews.
Many practitioners in the Var
Meditators described mixed reactions to these reductions in food intake. Though eating slightly less was generally not viewed by practitioners as concerning or problematic, some practitioners described experiencing significant challenges when stricter dietary constraints were imposed by their practice context. One described feeling “pretty peaceful” at the time, while another remembered “intense hunger pains.” A few meditators who were only served food in the morning reported losing a considerable amount of weight. One meditator, who said he looked “like death” after a five-month retreat in Burma, recounted: “I remember talking to one of the monks and I was like, ‘I’m leaving, this sucks. I’m done.’ I had lost so much weight […]; I weighed […] 120 pounds.” Around this time, he described not being able to “be aware of a concept” and feeling physically weak. Although he ended up deciding to stay, finding that his mind became “more steady” over time, eventually he became very sick and returned to the United States out of concern for his health.
Many meditators also shared that they were vegetarian around the time of their challenges or that they had stopped eating animal meat as a part of their practice. Some described a link between a light vegetarian diet and meditation-related experiences that involved feelings of positive affect, weightlessness, and emotional lability. One practitioner at a Tibetan Buddhist nunnery recalled that:
I also was a vegetarian back then and I was […] basically subsisting on rice and weird cooked vegetables. So I think I was probably super protein-deficient. […] But I did lose a ton of weight, and I just remember it was kind of blissful at times, because if you do that many prostrations and you get into the rhythm, and you know you are doing the mantra and the prostrations right? And I can just remember feeling like I was almost like flying, which is kind of nice. […] But that’s the time I remember having really intense [feelings …], and I would just bawl for like four hours.
Other practitioners drew a connection between vegetarian diets and more distressing experiences. For example, one man who had been practicing various Tibetan forms of meditation for several years developed “what Tibetans call a
Several practitioners and experts described their views on how vegetarianism can directly influence meditation-related experiences. One Tibetan Buddhist teacher shared his observation that energy-related challenges seemed to be more common among vegetarian students who were not “well-nourished”:
You know, the sort of classic grounded energy is somewhere in the midsection. You’re grounded to the Earth, you are grounded with others. You’re embodied. You know what is going on in any given moment. And your energy can begin to rise. And this happens particularly when people aren’t well-nourished, if they are vegetarians—bad vegetarians, not all vegetarians. The energy begins to rise and so it rises up above that. You lose your connection with the Earth.
Not all diet-related changes reported in the Var
Many meditators reported a reduction in appetite alongside changes in perception or sense of self —especially perceptual alterations in time or space. For example, one practitioner remembered losing her appetite during her first silent
A handful of practitioners described developing gastrointestinal distress because of the emotional or mental stress they experienced through meditation. The digestive challenges that meditators reported varied, but in all cases, they affected the meditators’ ability or desire to eat. For example, one practitioner developed a host of somatic challenges, including gastrointestinal distress, while engaging with tantric practices that involved “using visualizations of channels and energies and moving energy through [her] imagination [and] body.” She shared that at the time she “did not want to eat at all because [she] was on the toilet all the time.” Similarly, another practitioner shared how he became unable to digest food while practicing at a series of
I began losing weight—my ability to digest food also stopped. So even if I ate just a little bit of food it felt like it would sit in my stomach for hours and then I would not be hungry for the next meal. And I lost a lot of weight. So maybe the next three months was a time where this sense of exhaustion got stronger and stronger and more persistent. And my ability to bioregulate began to fall apart in that I was exhausted through the day, I was restless at night, I could not digest my food, and my mind was restless and my body was tired, and I was losing weight and feeling weak.
This practitioner returned to the United States out of concern for his health and continued to experience extreme fatigue for 4–6 years. In his recovery he interpreted his symptoms as “physical manifestations” of “emotional and mental patterns” that he “broke apart” while working with a teacher who had a particularly “aggressive” approach. His mental and physical health improved “slowly” as he learned “different strategies for how to be in the world and deal with stressful situations.”
Several meditators also reported a loss of appetite in relation to energy-like somatic experiences [ELSEs; see (
Finally, many practitioners who reported appetitive or weight changes also reported co-occurring sleeplessness. Participants often mentioned these phenomena in the same breath, suggesting that they perceived a lack of eating and sleeping to be connected or affected by the same underlying mechanism. A few participants mentioned these phenomena in reference to a self-described “manic” state. For example, one Theravāda Buddhist practitioner described “getting into a bit of manic-ness” in reference to “periods of immense clarity and freedom” in which she was “barely” eating or sleeping. Despite the reference to mania, this practitioner interpreted her experiences as a stage of insight and did not seek medical intervention. Another practitioner described not eating or sleeping “for long periods of time” while experiencing a growing sense of mania that came on following a
Practitioners’ dietary changes were also discussed by meditation teachers when differentiating between mental health crises that required intervention and expected stages of practice. Some teachers described monitoring students’ food intake when determining the potential causes and severity of their students’ challenges and when determining what form of intervention they deemed necessary. An overwhelming consensus from meditation teachers across traditions was that not eating enough (as understood within the practice context) was a “real red flag” or a “recipe for disaster.” One Theravāda Buddhist teacher described how students who are not eating or sleeping can get “wound up in an ecstatic way.” As a result, this teacher reported that whenever a student comes to him in “a bit of a manic way,” he explicitly asks the student how much, and what, they are eating. In cases in which a student is eating “almost nothing,” he recommends that the student focus less on their meditation practice and take time to eat, sleep, and walk.
In some cases, meditation teachers implied that a loss of appetite was a byproduct of the student’s challenge. A handful of meditation teachers reported instances in which appetitive changes were symptomatic of a more serious mental health challenge, such as psychosis. One Theravāda Buddhist teacher recounted the trajectory of a student who came on retreat very eager to progress in her meditation practice but then began experiencing auditory hallucinations, behaved disruptively, and stopped eating. Despite the teacher’s efforts to feed the student, the student did not improve, which led the retreat staff to seek psychiatric support.
A variety of diet-related remedies were discussed, attempted, and recommended by both meditation practitioners and experts in response to meditation-related challenges. The quantitative survey revealed that 37 practitioners interviewed for the Var
Participant survey-reported ratings of diet change as a remedy for meditation-related challenges.
| % | ||
|---|---|---|
| No impact | 17 | 46 |
| Harmful | 0 | 0 |
| Helpful | 20 | 54 |
| Somewhat helpful | 13 | 35 |
| Moderately helpful | 3 | 8 |
| Very helpful | 4 | 11 |
Overall, we found many participants used the term “grounding” to describe their intention and/or phenomenological experience of diet-related remedies. Meditation experts from different Buddhist traditions described eating as a “grounding” intervention for students presenting with challenges. Some experts believed that their students’ challenges were related to a reduction of food intake and found that a “low-threshold” remedy for these students was to give them a meal. A handful of meditators described changing their diet as a response to feeling “too high,” as if they had lost touch with the ground. Experts and meditators reported that root vegetables, small quantities of beer or wine, and meat were helpful in such circumstances because they bring energy “down.” For example, one
Several meditators, especially those who dealt with energy-like somatic experiences (ELSEs) or
Basically then I realized how much I was craving meat. And also, literally the moment I was eating meat—like after 10 to 20 s—I actually did feel a lot better. Like, the wired-ness stopped almost completely. […].
Other practitioners reported that eating meat had a slower remedial effect or that eating meat was one component of a combined “therapy structure” that included psychotropic medications or other remedies. One meditator, who felt like her mind was “shattered” after a six-week
Some experts recommended that their students eat, not necessarily because they were not eating enough, but because they considered the
This paper outlines various ways in which contemporary Western Buddhist meditators described dietary changes playing a role in the incidence, symptomology, and recovery from meditation-related challenges. The analysis yielded the following themes: (1) a reduction in food intake and meat consumption was perceived to increase the likelihood of meditation-related challenges; (2) a loss of appetite was reported to be a symptom of meditation-related challenges that could exacerbate such challenges when accompanied by not eating enough; (3) not eating enough was considered a key factor in differentiating normal or normative meditation-related challenges from those requiring support or intervention; and (4) dietary changes were often considered to be a helpful remedy for meditation-related challenges, particularly those described as “grounding.” Given that there is little prior research on the role of dietary changes in contemplative practice trajectories or meditation-related challenges more specifically, these findings introduce a number of novel hypotheses for future investigation.
Participants in the present study characterized dietary restrictions, such as a significant reduction in food intake or meat consumption, as a potential risk factor for the development of meditation-related challenges or exacerbating factor when challenges were already present. While the current study cannot infer causality, our study generated hypotheses regarding three potential pathways through which dietary restrictions could affect meditation-related challenges: (1) a link between reduced food consumption and altered or “ungrounded” states of consciousness (including mania and psychosis); (2) a link between reduced food consumption and acute changes in cognitive and emotional functioning; and (3) micronutrient deficiencies especially related to a lack of meat consumption.
First, fasting, in and out of religious contexts, has been associated with a variety of altered and challenging states of consciousness, ranging from euphoria, religious experience, and “self-transcendence” (
Another way in which restrictive dieting may be related to meditation-related challenges is due to its association with low glucose levels and short-term negative emotionality and cognitive deficits. Short term fasting has been found to be associated with decreased subjective mood, increased irritability, and reduced performance on cognitive and attentional tasks (
Finally, participants’ meditation-related challenges could be related to micronutrient deficiencies resulting from restrictive dieting. Many meditation practitioners in the present study reported that they were not consuming animal meat at the time of their unusual or challenging experiences and some practitioners drew a connection between their vegetarianism and changes to their affect, mood, and somatic experience. Vegetarian and vegan diets, if not properly balanced, can increase the risk of deficiencies in nutrients such as protein, omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin B12, which can result in mental health-related symptoms (
Practitioners and experts described a loss of appetite and an ensuing lack of dietary intake as an exacerbating factor when individuals were already experiencing meditation-related challenges, as well as a diagnostic indicator of a greater degree of destabilization. At times, practitioners described losing interest in their bodily needs (such as eating and sleeping) during experiences in which they lost track of space, time, their sense of self, and/or their embodied existence in physical reality. At other times, practitioners experienced reductions in their appetite or eating as a result of their bodily experience, such as a felt sense of gastrointestinal distress or energy-like somatic symptoms. In all of these cases, a lack of eating, at times in combination with a lack of sleeping, was described as exacerbating preexisting symptoms and leading to greater destabilization. This is in alignment with research that indicates that highly restrictive eating and weight loss can lead to severe forms of psychological distress (
Experts similarly agreed that a lack of eating was indicative of more serious forms of destabilization and, as a result, was a primary target for assessment and early intervention. Poor appetite and/or overeating are criteria listed for several disorders in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), thus mental health providers are advised to monitor significant appetitive or dietary changes when diagnosing eating, anxiety, depressive, bipolar, and substance-use-related disorders (
Practitioners and experts described various dietary changes as helpful in remedying their meditation-related challenges. Importantly, over half of practitioners who tried changing their diet in response to meditation-related challenges reported it to be helpful while none found it to be harmful. This indicates that particular dietary changes may be a somewhat effective early intervention for meditation-related challenges with few associated downsides.
Meat, heavy foods (e.g., high fat, high protein), root vegetables, and alcohol were particularly described as being helpful. Many practitioners sought the help of traditional medicine practitioners; thus, it is unsurprising that the foods that participants described align with recommended foods for treating a
Micronutrient repletion refers to the reversal of micronutrient deficiencies through whole foods or supplements (
Animal meat, heavy foods, and alcohol might have also been helpful for participants due to their short-term effects on stress reactivity and arousal. Studies have found that rats and/or humans fed “comfort food,” defined as foods high in fat and sugar, release fewer stress hormones and exhibit fewer emotional and behavioral responses when exposed to stressful or emotionally intense environments (
Finally, participants often described helpful diet-related remedies using the term “grounding.” This term was used to describe a range of phenomenological experiences—from remediating a sense of “disembodiment” by helping participants focus their attention on their physical body, to soothing energy-like somatic symptoms, to eliciting positive memories. The term “grounding” points to an existential fact of human existence: that being alive means depending on the ground beneath us. This fact, some argue, is a fundamental prerequisite for ontological security (
Our findings highlight the importance of considering dietary practices when engaging in or researching contemplative practices, as well as seeking to prevent or respond to meditation-related challenges or other altered-state experiences. In particular, practitioners may benefit from information regarding the risks of retreats that involve significant dietary restrictions, while teachers may benefit from routinely asking their students about dietary and sleep patterns so that potential challenges can be prevented or addressed early on. Furthermore, practitioners already experiencing challenges may benefit from exploring diet-related remedies while researchers should continue to investigate these remedies as potentially low-cost approaches to treating meditation-related challenges. Retreat centers may benefit from offering a wider range of nutritional choices, including animal-based protein and other grounding foods. Meditation research may benefit from measuring dietary practices and/or modification which may impact (enhance, reduce) the treatment response of meditation practices.
The present study has significant limitations, consistent with the early stage of this research. First, qualitative results are descriptive and cannot establish causal relationships. The hypotheses derived from the present study should be tested by future studies that quantitatively measure relationships between dietary changes and the incidence of and recovery from meditation-related challenges. Further research is needed to determine whether dietary changes indeed function as a risk factor, indicator of more severe symptomology, or remedy for meditation-related challenges. Second, the present findings include a wide range of meditation-related challenges, practices, and practice traditions, in addition to many different types of dietary changes. Future research may benefit from narrowing the scope of investigation as certain forms of dietary changes may impact certain forms of meditation-related challenges or certain practices/practice traditions. Studies with a narrower scope may also be able to identify more precise mechanisms. Third, the semi-structured interviews did not specifically query the role of diet in participants’ meditation-related challenges. As a result, participants may have left out important information regarding the role of dietary changes in their interviews. Finally, the present sample does not generalize to all meditation practitioners or all individuals who experience meditation-related challenges, as participants were Western Buddhists who reported meditation-related challenges and were primarily highly experienced, educated and White. Future studies should investigate the role of dietary changes in meditators with a different set of demographic characteristics to determine the level of generalizability of these findings.
In describing the various ways in which dietary changes play a role in the incidence, symptomology, and recovery from meditation-related challenges, the present study highlights the importance of considering diet-related factors when researching both risk factors and remedies for meditation-related challenges. Our findings suggest that a significant reduction in food intake, even if considered normative in one’s practice context, may contribute to the onset and trajectory of meditation-related challenges. Furthermore, diet-related remedies were described as an effective remedy or early intervention for meditation-related challenges. Finally, an overarching theme was the contrast between challenging or destabilizing “ungrounded” states resulting from intensive meditation and dietary restrictions and the remedial “grounding” effects of certain forms of dietary intake or the act of eating itself. Overall, this research highlights the need for increased attention to dietary practices as an important support for individuals and/organizations engaging in contemplative practices.
The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.
The studies involving humans were approved by Brown University Institutional Review Board. The studies were conducted in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. The participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.
JoL: Formal analysis, Writing – original draft, Data curation, Conceptualization, Writing – review & editing. NC: Writing – review & editing, Supervision, Methodology, Conceptualization, Writing – original draft. DC: Data curation, Writing – review & editing, Conceptualization, Supervision. JaL: Supervision, Writing – review & editing, Conceptualization. WB: Supervision, Writing – review & editing, Conceptualization.
The author(s) declare that no financial support was received for the research and/or publication of this article.
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
The author(s) declare that no Gen AI was used in the creation of this manuscript.
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