Fasting x meditation - The Big Question:
Can We Measure Inner Calm?
Thirty years ago, meditation still sat largely at the margins of mainstream biomedical research. Today, leading universities — Harvard among them — are studying it from multiple angles. Neuroscience is looking at attention, emotional regulation and brain plasticity; other teams are examining stress hormones, inflammation, cognition, sleep, telomeres and biological processes associated with ageing. Researchers such as Harvard neuroscientist Sara Lazar have helped bring the idea of meditation as a form of mental training into the scientific mainstream.
The field is still evolving, and different meditation techniques cannot be treated as interchangeable, but the shift is clear. What was once studied mainly through subjective experience is now being investigated through brain imaging, physiological measurements, biomarkers and clinical outcomes. Interest has also moved well beyond universities and hospitals: meditation and mindfulness programmes are now used in corporate settings and have also been introduced in parts of the US military.
Fasting, meanwhile, has undergone its own scientific journey. Buchinger research has examined metabolic changes, physical and emotional well-being and autonomic regulation during prolonged fasting. In one observational study, 1,422 participants fasted for between four and 21 days; other work has explored how the autonomic nervous system changes over the course of a fast.
And this is where the map suddenly becomes surprisingly empty.
Fasting and meditation have travelled together for centuries in religious and contemplative traditions, yet their combined effects during prolonged therapeutic fasting have barely been studied under controlled conditions. The closest randomised study identified by the Buchinger research team combined mindfulness with time-restricted eating. Participants, however, continued to eat every day and therefore did not enter the sustained metabolic state associated with a prolonged fast.
As Dr Robin Mesnage, Scientific Director of the Buchinger Wilhelmi Clinics, explains: “For centuries, fasting and meditation have travelled together as if their alliance were self-evident — yet modern science has barely examined what actually happens when we combine them.”
That is the gap Buchinger now wants to explore.
From 2 December 2026 to 31 January 2027, guests in both Überlingen and Marbella will be invited to take part in an exploratory study looking at the relationship between prolonged fasting and meditation.
Participants will be recommended to follow a short, standardised meditation practice of around 20 to 25 minutes a day, combining focused attention, open monitoring and acceptance. The study will rely primarily on questionnaires and will explore how fasting combined with meditation may be associated with changes in mental clarity, positive emotions, sleep, well-being and meaning or purpose, and how these may relate to the amount of meditation actually practised.
The scientific question is not whether science can finally prove an ancient tradition “right”. It is both simpler and more interesting.
If fasting is already improving well-being and reducing stress levels, what happens when meditation is added? Do the effects simply coexist? Do they reinforce one another? Do they emerge at the same moment, or follow different timelines? And can something as apparently intangible as calm or mental clarity leave a measurable trace?
That is the question Buchinger is preparing to investigate.
Interested in taking part?
The study will take place at Buchinger Überlingen and Buchinger Marbella from 2 December 2026 to 31 January 2027. Guests staying at either clinic during this period will be able to participate in the study, which will be based primarily on questionnaires and a recommended daily meditation practice.
