Author Name: – Azra Rizvi, Diya Saini, Jyotirmayee Rathore, Bhumi Mankar, Pranjali Sharma, Ashvin Govil, Shubham Gawali, Somya Bharadwaj, Renu Nair
Date:- 29 September 2026
Abstract
Background: Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) are designed from a contemplative Buddhist tradition but are now offered primarily as a secular, manualised protocol, in a wide variety of clinical, educational and corporate settings. The question now facing researchers and practitioners is whether the removal of the explicit spiritual context changes how these practices impact cognition or whether they have effects on cognition that are independent of their original context. While there are a number of cognitive outcomes that have been discussed conceptually with respect to secularisation of mindfulness, none have systematically compared the cognitive outcomes reported in spiritually framed and secularised MBIs. This review aims to fill that gap by exploring the possibility that spiritual framing has an impact on cognitive outcomes of mindfulness practice.
Methodology: This review was carried out using the reporting principles of the PRISMA 2020. The APA PsycINFO, PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus, Web of Science Core Collection and Google Scholar databases were searched and reference lists were hand-coded. Studies were included if they reported cognitive outcomes such as attention, working memory, executive functioning, or cognitive flexibility after a mindfulness-based intervention (MBI) that was spiritually/traditionally framed versus secular/clinically framed. For methodological aspects that relate to evidentiary strength, they were analyzed from a narrative perspective, and the results were presented in a typological manner for synthesis.
Findings: The studies included in the results showed significant gains in sustained attention and executive functioning across both spiritually framed and secularized interventions, with some studies reporting larger effects and/or lasting changes, and few studies directly compared structural framing with cognitive outcomes. When there is direct framing comparison, it is mostly in respect of non-cognitive outcomes and the effects vary. There was significant variability in intervention duration, outcome measures, and culture across the literature reviewed, suggesting the need for culture-sensitive research designs.
