Pick your practice wisely — meditation's benefits depend on its style

Not all meditation is created equal, according to a new study. And if you’re looking to meditate to improve something specific, you should pick a practice that focuses on the thing you’d like to improve.

Many studies have been done to show the benefits of meditation: it can make you calmer and happier and a better person. But “meditation” is actually a group of different techniques — different methods produce different results. And a lot of the studies are somewhat subpar, lumping together different skills and using relatively few participants, says Sofie Valk, a cognitive scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Studies in Germany.

That’s why Valk and her colleagues recruited over 300 people to spend nine...

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