Behind the long lists of named techniques, most types of meditation belong to one of three families. In a 2015 map, the neuroscientists Cortland Dahl, Antoine Lutz and Richard Davidson grouped them into attentional practices that steady or widen attention, constructive practices that build a quality such as kindness, and deconstructive practices that examine how experience is put together.¹ Breath focus, body scans, mantras, walking meditation, loving-kindness and visualization are variations inside those families.

Choosing one is less about finding the best type than about matching a practice to what you want to train and what you can safely handle. The widest look at the evidence is Simon Goldberg and colleagues’ 2022 umbrella reviewumbrella review: A review that gathers and compares existing systematic reviews and meta-analyses on a broad question, rather than individual studies. It gives a wide view quickly, but it inherits the limits of the reviews it collects.Full entry in the glossary, which covered 44 meta-analyses. It found that mindfulness-based programs outperformed no treatment on most outcomes and roughly matched proven therapies such as cognitive behavioral therapy.² Trials that pit one type directly against another are far rarer, so any ranking of types rests on thin ground. For the basics of the most studied family, see what mindfulness is and how well it works.

The short version for a beginner: decide what you want to get better at, start with a simple breath-focus practice, and give that one practice two weeks before judging it. The four steps near the end show how.

The types of meditation, grouped by what they ask of attention

Meditation types differ mainly in what they ask attention to do. A 2008 review by Antoine Lutz and colleagues split common practices into focused attention, which holds attention on one chosen object, and open monitoring, which notices whatever arises without holding on to anything. In focused attention, the work has three parts: keep attention on the object, notice when it has slipped, and bring it back.³

Think of reading on a busy train: you realize you have been listening to the conversation behind you, and you return to the page. That small return, repeated many times, is the exercise.

Open monitoring drops the single object. You notice sounds, thoughts and sensations as they come and go, the way you might watch people pass from a park bench without following any of them. Lutz’s group describes it as a style usually taken up once focused attention has steadied the mind.³

Dahl’s 2015 map keeps both styles inside an attentional family and adds two more: constructive practices, which deliberately cultivate something such as warmth toward yourself and others, and deconstructive practices, which use self-inquiry to look at how thoughts and the sense of self are built.¹

A 2019 German study by Karin Matko and Peter Sedlmeier came at the question from the practitioner’s side. Experienced meditators sorted popular techniques by how similar they felt, and two dimensions explained most of the sorting: how activating a practice is, and how much it centers on the body.⁴ Their seven clusters, from mantra meditation to meditation with movement, are a reminder that most real practices blend families.

So read a practice’s instruction rather than its name. Ask where your attention is meant to go, and whether you are holding it on one thing or letting it open.

Seven common practices, side by side

Seven practices cover most of what a beginner meets in classes, books and apps. The evidence column describes each practice’s own research, which is often thinner than the research on the programs that include it.

The practices with the most research, breath focus and the body scan, are mostly studied as parts of packages such as Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), so the share each piece contributes is unknown. A friend who credits a body scan is also crediting the course, the teacher and the weekly group. If walking meditation or visualization appeals, go ahead, knowing you are choosing on preference, not proof.

Myth

There is one best type of meditation, and the rest are second-rate.

Fact

The families train different skills, and few trials compare types directly. Which one suits you depends on the skill you want and on your health.

Does the type of practice change what you get?

Different practices do seem to train different things, according to a large German study built to test the question. In the ReSource Project, summarized in 2019 by Tania Singer and Veronika Engert, the same adults practiced attention-based, compassion-based and perspective-taking modules in turn.⁷ That makes it one of the few studies to compare types within the same people.

The study

Moderate evidence

Three kinds of training in the same adults, each followed by its own pattern of change

The Presence module trained attention and body awareness, the Affect module trained compassion and kindness, and the Perspective module trained observing your own thoughts and taking other people’s viewpoint. Each was followed by its own pattern of change in experience, behavior, brain structure and body, which the authors summarize as “it matters what you practice.”⁷ In a lab stress test, only the Affect and Perspective modules were followed by a smaller cortisolcortisol: A hormone made by the adrenal glands that helps regulate energy, blood pressure and the body's response to stress. Its level follows a daily rhythm, high on waking and low at night, so a single reading says little on its own.Full entry in the glossary response, though participants reported less stress after each kind of training.⁸

Three limits apply. The volunteers were healthy adults, the outcomes were lab tests and brain measures rather than everyday functioning, and the design has not, as far as we know, been repeated elsewhere.

Your own sense of progress can mislead: in the study, feeling calmer and measuring calmer did not always move together, so a practice that feels pleasant is not automatically the one doing the most for you. You might end a breath session feeling lighter and still react as sharply as ever when a deadline moves; that reaction, not the pleasant session, is what to track.

Kindness and mantra practices: big reputations, weaker trials

Two families arrive with big reputations and thinner evidence than their fans suggest. A 2014 review by Julieta Galante and colleagues found that kindness-based meditation moderately eased self-reported depression and raised compassion compared with no active treatment. Against active comparisons the results were inconclusive, and the authors rated study quality low to moderate and the results imprecise.⁶

A kindness practice trains a feeling rather than attention. You silently wish yourself well, then someone you love, then a neutral acquaintance, and eventually the colleague who talks over you in meetings. If that appeals, treat the early results as a promising start rather than a settled answer.

Transcendental Meditation (TM) is a standardized mantra technique taught through its own organization. A 2004 systematic review by Paul Canter and Edzard Ernst found insufficient good-quality evidence that it lowers blood pressure, and noted that every trial it could assess was potentially biased because its authors included people affiliated with the TM organization.⁵ A 2013 US scientific statement from the American Heart Association rated TM above other meditation techniques as a way to lower blood pressure, but judged the evidence for these behavioral approaches modest, mixed or inconsistent, and rated exercise more strongly than either.⁹ A broader 2017 AHA statement said only that meditation may be considered as an add-on to standard heart-risk care, with benefits yet to be better established.¹⁰

The lesson for a buyer: when a course promises a benefit unique to its own method, ask whether independent trials, run against an active comparison, back it. A mantra does not require a proprietary course; the US National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health lists focusing on a repeated word or sound among ordinary forms of meditation.¹¹

Which practices need more care, and for whom

Any type of meditation can bring unpleasant experiences, and some people need a clinician’s input before they start. The NCCIH notes that meditation is usually considered low-risk, but that too few studies have looked for harms to make definite statements about safety.¹¹ Willoughby Britton’s 2021 US study followed adults with depression symptoms through an eight-week mindfulness course: of the 81 who rated the effects of their practice, 37 percent described at least one effect that harmed their functioning.¹²

Van Dam’s 2018 review notes that guidance for Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) warns people with trauma histories about possible flashbacks, and that standard courses screen out people with current suicidal thoughts or a current psychiatric disorder.¹³ Britton’s trial left out anyone who had ever had psychosis or bipolar disorder, and anyone with current post-traumatic stress disorder or active suicidal thoughts.¹²

In daily terms, notice how a practice leaves you in the hour afterwards. Settled, a little bored or restless is ordinary. Panic, feeling unreal or cut off, or old memories flooding back is a signal to stop that practice and talk to someone, rather than pushing through.

How to choose a type of meditation and give it a fair test

Choose by the skill you want to train, rule out anything that does not suit your health now, and test one practice for about two weeks before judging it. The steps below are suggestions for healthy adults built from the research above, not a tested program.

1. Name the skill you want to build

Steadier attention points to focused attention. Warmth toward yourself or others points to a kindness practice. If sitting still is the obstacle, walking meditation keeps the same focus on moving feet. Paced breathing drills such as box breathing for quick calm are a different tool: they change how you breathe rather than train where attention goes.

2. Start with focused attention if you are new

Open monitoring usually comes after focused attention, and the breath is the usual first anchor. Starting there teaches the basic move of noticing and returning, which every other type assumes.

3. Run a two-week trial at a length you can repeat

Keep sessions short and hang them on a fixed point in your day, such as the first coffee. The few trials behind our guide to how long a beginner should meditate found short sessions did no worse than long ones. An app can supply the timer and the guidance; the research on whether meditation apps work says what to expect from one.

4. Review against the skill, then keep, adjust or switch

At the end of the two weeks, ask whether the skill you named has moved at all in daily life, not whether the sessions felt pleasant. If a practice leaves you worse, stop it and talk to a doctor.

WiserHours

Two weeks, one practice

• Write down the one skill I want to build
• Check that nothing in my health history calls for a clinician first
• Pick one practice from the family that trains that skill
• Tie a short daily session to a routine I already keep
• After two weeks, judge the skill, then keep, adjust or switch

Find this checklist online:
https://wiserhours.com/mindfulness/types-of-meditation/#checklist-types-of-meditation-trial

Now, soon or before you start: where to turn for help

A crisis calls for urgent help, not a different meditation practice, and distress that outlasts your sessions deserves a doctor’s view. The three tiers below sort advice from three health bodies, the NIMH and the NCCIH in the US and the NHS in the UK; the sorting is ours.

• Now: if anyone is in immediate danger, phone your local emergency number first; if suicidal thoughts arise, contact a crisis line. US readers can call or text 988, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, which the National Institute of Mental Health lists for suicidal thoughts or emotional distress, alongside 911 for life-threatening situations.¹⁴ For UK readers, the NHS advises dialing 999 or going to A&E when someone’s life is in danger, and Samaritans answer on 116 123.¹⁵ If you live elsewhere, look up your own country’s crisis lines.
• Within days: if panic, a sense of unreality, poor sleep or traumatic memories keep returning after practice, stop that practice and book a doctor. In England, the NHS points to NHS 111, which has a mental health option, or an urgent GP appointment.¹⁵
• Before your first session: any current mental health condition, or past trauma, is worth raising with a clinician. The NCCIH cautions against letting meditation take the place of conventional care or delay a visit to a health care provider.¹¹

The bottom line

The types of meditation differ in what they train: holding attention, opening it, or building a quality such as kindness. No trial has crowned one type as best, and the evidence for single practices is thinner than for the courses that combine them. Pick the family that trains the skill you want, start with focused attention if you are new, test it for two weeks at a length you can keep, and if you have a psychiatric or trauma history, get a clinician’s view before you begin.