Meditation and breathwork on anxiety in Parkinson's disease: A pilot randomized controlled trial.

Randomized trialJournal of Parkinson's disease· Aug 2026

Meditation and breathwork on anxiety in Parkinson's disease: A pilot randomized controlled trial.

Akila Rayapuraju, Preeti U Reed, Jennifer Liu … Balachundhar Subramaniam

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Movement DisordersRandomized trialTreatmentQ1IF 4.9

Meditation and breathwork reduced anxiety in Parkinson's disease after 6 weeks.

Meditation and breathwork on anxiety in Parkinson's disease: A pilot randomized controlled trial.

Akila Rayapuraju … Balachundhar Subramaniam

Journal of Parkinson's disease · Aug 2026 · Q1 in Neurology

Background

Anxiety and other non-motor symptoms can greatly diminish quality of life in people with Parkinson's Disease (PD).

Purpose

To assess the feasibility and impact of brief, remotely-delivered meditation and breathwork on neuropsychiatric symptoms in people with PD.

Methods

Were assessed for weekly compliance trends (primary outcome) and changes in anxiety (primary outcome), depression, perceived stress, and other non-motor symptoms at 6-week intervals: baseline and weeks 6 (T2), 12 (T3), and 18 (T4).

n = 17

Results

anxiety dropped more with meditation and breathwork than with usual care

MD -5 (95% CI -9.50 to -0.49)

null 0

-9.50

-0.49

CI excludes the null - significant

More results

Within-group analysis further confirmed a significant reduction in anxiety (MD = -4.7, 95% CI [2.10,7.33], P < .001) in the intervention group (n = 28).

Thirty-one percent of participants met the compliance definition.

“

Conclusion · 1 of 3

Remotely-delivered meditation and breathwork through the BSM program significantly reduced anxiety in individuals with PD in our study and may be a promising non-pharmacological therapy.

Conclusion · 2 of 3

A larger randomized controlled trials with continuous wellness coaching is warranted to more rigorously assess efficacy and optimize protocols.

Conclusion · 3 of 3

Clinical trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT05335850, https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05335850.

Meditation and breathwork on anxiety in Parkinson's disease: A pilot randomized controlled trial.

Meditation and breathwork on anxiety in Parkinson's disease: A pilot randomized controlled trial.

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