Journaling vs meditation — which has stronger evidence?

Despite similar popularity in wellness culture, these don't perform equally in the actual trial evidence. Meditation has real, if modest, randomized-trial support: a 2014 JAMA Internal Medicine meta-analysis found moderate evidence for improvements in stress, anxiety and depression symptoms, and separate RCTs of Transcendental Meditation specifically found reduced blood pressure and cardiovascular risk markers in high-risk patients. Journaling's evidence is notably weaker: a meta-analysis of 16 randomized controlled trials in cancer patients found no statistically significant effect on psychological health, physical health, or quality of life — a null result echoed across individual trials testing the classic expressive-writing approach. Journaling may still be personally valuable for reflection, but on the current trial evidence, meditation has the more consistently demonstrated health benefit.