Watching David Attenborough documentaries just as good for you as mindfulness, study finds

While mindfulness and meditation may have swept the nation, both practices actually have few benefits over watching a David Attenborough documentary, a new study claims.

Miguel Farias, a psychologist at Coventry University, along with scientists from New Zealand and the Netherlands, wanted to test whether the methods actually led to self-improvement.

Following 22 trials, they found no convincing evidence that either mindfulness and meditation promoted open-mindedness or empathy more than jogging and watching TV, reported The Times.

The researchers looked at previous studies that compared both techniques — famed for helping people concentrate — to other activities.

10 show all Blue Planet II – in pictures

1/10 Broadclub cuttlefish "A broadclub cuttlefish (Sepia latimanus) in Indonesia. Its skin contains millions of pigment cells with which it can create ever-changing colours and patterns to apparently mesmerise their prey." BBC

2/10 Coral spawning on the Great Barrier Reef, Australia "Once a year, responding to cues from the cycle of the moon and the temperature of the water, corals simultaneously release their eggs and sperm into the ocean. Tiny coral larvae drift in the ocean currents, some for days, some for weeks, before sinking back down to the ocean floor and settling to become new corals." BBC

3/10 An aggregation of marbled grouper (Epinephelus polyphekadion), French Polynesia "Thousands of groupers gather here in one of the few pristine spawning aggregations for this species remaining in the world. By taking up the position closest to a female, the male stands the best chance of fertilising her eggs." BBC

4/10 Saddleback clownfish (Amphiprion polymnus) "A male saddleback clownfish uses all the strength it can muster to push a coconut shell to its anemone in Borneo. Unlike their reef relatives, saddleback clownfish live around anemones that are found in the sand, far away from the solid structure of the coral reef. Male saddleback clownfish must use their ingenuity to find a hard substrate upon which the females can lay their eggs." BBC

5/10 Peters' monocle breams (Scolopsis affinis) "A group of Peters' monocle breams blow water-jets onto a hiding bobbit worm (Eunice aphroditois) to expose its ferocious jaws. In so doing, they alert other fish to the worm's location, ruining the predator’s chance of a surprise attack. This new behaviour was published for the first time by Jose Lachat and Daniel Haag-Wackernagel in 2016." BBC

6/10 Green turtles (Chelonia mydas) Green turtles in Sipadan, Borneo, jostling for their place at a cleaning station. Here, turtles are serviced by blennies and surgeonfish who rid them of algal growth, parasites and dead skin. In return, these fish receive a nutritious meal. BBC

7/10 Bumphead parrotfish (Bolbometopon muricatum) "Bumphead parrotfish feeding on coral and algae in Borneo. These parrotfish use their large forehead to ram corals, thereby breaking them into pieces that are more easily ingested. Each fish ingests over 5 tons of structural reef carbonates per year and after they digest the edible portions from the rock, they excrete it as sand, helping to create small islands and the sandy beaches." BBC

8/10 Coral garden "A fish's-eye view of a coral garden on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. New underwater probe lenses, developed for Blue Planet II, allow the viewer to immerse themselves into the coral reef city like never before." BBC

9/10 A coral grouper (Plectropomus leopardus) "A coral grouper on the Great Barrier Reef in Northern Australia. Groupers use a gesture dubbed the ‘headstand signal’ to reach across the vertebrate-invertebrate divide and encourage another species to help it hunt. Gestures such as this are thought to only occur in the largest-brained species. The discovery of this behaviour in groupers indicates that some fish are able to think flexibly to achieve their goals." BBC

10/10 Bigeye trevally (Caranx sexfasciatus) "A school of Bigeye trevally gather at the outer edge of the reef wall in Sipadan, Borneo. These trevally are a schooling species, widespread in the tropics and usually found in large- slow moving schools during the day. They eat a variety of smaller fish, crustaceans and marine invertebrates." BBC

Writing for Scientific Reports, they found those studies were often written by people who hosted classes on the practices, resulting in possibly biased outcomes.

Those results also appeared to show an increase in compassion, but no particular advantage over watching documentaries — such as those narrated by Attenborough — was found.

​Farias concluded that methods such as mindfulness show no measurable effect beyond what their teacher tells someone to expect, comparing the technique to religion and warning against “implicit magical beliefs” in meditation.

Due to the increasing popularity of mindfulness, there have been various studies on the practice in recent months, some finding it may make people 'selfish' while other conversely claim it can improve your sex life.