Altered Traits Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body

I would describe the book as meeting almost all criteria associated with the gold standard of communication of science to wider masses. The book offers a comprehensive overview of the academic study of meditation. The authors offer a brief history of how the field evolved over time. They go on to describe the methodology employed in the field and how to assess the quality of individual studies. In line with these guidelines, the authors present only findings from studies that satisfy the highest standards of evidence and highlight any findings that should be viewed with caution. The reader is being presented with both individual mechanisms that connect individual practices of meditation to a range of benefits and the corresponding evidence. The fact that individual study results were only described as either showing statistical significance or not is somewhat disappointing. Providing effect sizes could have helped the reader in determining whether any particular practice of meditation really does provide a benefit that is clinically meaningful and worth pursuing. Overall, the authors have struck a fantastic balance of providing a reasonably comprehensive overview of the scientific literature, maintaining a great level of insight and knowledge while managing to keep the book to c.300 pages.