There is a moment in the day when everything seems urgent at the same time. The to-do list, the message to reply to, the meeting, the project, the expectations — one’s own and others’. The mind accelerates, the body follows. Breathing shortens. You stop feeling.
This is not weakness. It is the natural response of a nervous system that interprets every commitment as a threat to be managed. The problem is not stress itself — it is that we often do not even realise we are in that state, until we are already exhausted.
Stopping, in that moment, seems impossible. And yet that is precisely when it becomes necessary.
What happens to the body under stress
When the mind perceives a situation of pressure, the body activates the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, increasing the production of cortisol — the primary stress hormone. In acute conditions, this response is adaptive: it prepares us to face the situation. The problem arises when activation becomes chronic: cortisol remains elevated, emotional regulation deteriorates, and the capacity for concentration declines.
It is a state that many recognise, even without knowing it has a physiological name.
What the research says
Over recent decades, the scientific community has devoted growing attention to the relationship between meditative practices and the stress response. The results, despite inevitable differences between studies, converge on several points.
A meta-analysis published in JAMA Internal Medicine in 2014 — conducted by Goyal et al. across 47 randomised studies and over 3,500 participants — found moderate evidence that mindfulness meditation programmes are associated with reductions in symptoms of anxiety, depression, and pain, and evidence of improvement in perceived psychological stress and mental quality of life. The authors note that these effects, though moderate in size, are comparable to those of antidepressants in primary care, but without the associated toxicities. (Goyal M. et al., JAMA Internal Medicine, 2014; 174(3):357–368)
A systematic review and meta-analysis published in Psychoneuroendocrinology (Pascoe et al., 2017), which analysed 42 randomised controlled trials on the effects of practices including yoga and MBSR on physiological measures of stress, found that such interventions are associated with reductions in evening cortisol, morning cortisol, systolic blood pressure, and resting heart rate, compared to active control groups. The researchers concluded that these practices appear to be associated with improved regulation of the sympathetic nervous system and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis across diverse populations. It should be noted that the interventions analysed were heterogeneous, which suggests caution in extrapolating the results to mindfulness meditation alone.
A study on healthcare workers conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic — published in Healthcare in 2025 — evaluated the effect of an 8-week MBSR programme, documenting a significant reduction in cortisol levels in the short term and an improvement in attention and awareness, with benefits maintained at follow-up.
An analysis conducted by Brand et al. in 2012, published in Neuropsychobiology, compared long-term meditators and novices undergoing an 8-week MBSR course: in both groups, a decrease in morning cortisol levels was observed, accompanied by an improvement in self-reported sleep quality. (Brand S. et al., Neuropsychobiology, 2012; 65:109–118)
A methodological note
Research in this field is growing but not without limitations: variability in study designs, populations analysed, and cortisol measurement methods makes it difficult to draw universal conclusions. The phrasing used on this page — “is associated with”, “several studies show” — is not euphemistic: it reflects the actual state of the literature, which points to plausible and promising directions without yet being able to establish definitive causality.
Meditatina is not a therapy. It is a gesture. What science suggests is that this gesture, if repeated, is not without effect.