The largest-ever analysis of research on the subject of "mindfulness" has just been completed, and the results will not surprise anyone who has ever benefited by taking some time to meditate. The researchers concluded that training the brain to deal with negative emotions using techniques such as meditation, breathing exercises and yoga were as effective as some anti-depressant drugs – with no evidence of side-effects.

People suffering from depression were found to be 31 percent less likely to suffer a relapse if they were treated with mindulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), the study found. The results were just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Professor Willem Kuyken, an Oxford University clinical psychologist and director of the Oxford Mindfulness Centre, was the lead author of the report. He was quick to rule out mindfulness as some kind of panacea or silver bullet for depression, and stressed that different people required different treatments and mindfulness should be viewed as one option alongside drugs and other forms of therapy.

Mindfulness has been on a roll. It has won the backing of NHS advisory body, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, and the Mental Health Foundation research charity. A study published in the Lancet last year also found mindfulness could be as effective as drugs.

Kuyken aso made a point of disassociating MBCT from "contemplative traditions," such as Buddhism, offering that although mindfulness shared a "lineage" with certain religions, MBCT itself was "entirely secular."

The study's conclusion that MBCT engendered no side effects would seem to refute the thesis of psychologists Dr. Miguel Farias and Dr. Catherine Wikholm, whose recent book The Buddha Pill: Can Meditation Change You? proposed that mindfulness could have negative effects for some people.

Kuyken and his team are not done. They plan to continue their reseacrh, with an aim of getting recovery rates closer to 100 percent and to help prevent the first onset of depression, earlier in life.