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<p>Contemplative practices are believed to alleviate psychological problems, cultivate prosocial behavior and promote self-awareness. In addition, psychological science has developed tools and models for understanding the mind and promoting well-being. Additional effort is needed to combine frameworks and techniques from these traditions to improve emotional experience and socioemotional behavior. An 8-week intensive (42 hr) meditation/emotion regulation training intervention was designed by experts in contemplative traditions and emotion science to reduce “destructive enactment of emotions” and enhance prosocial responses. Participants were 82 healthy female schoolteachers who were randomly assigned to a training group or a wait-list control group, and assessed preassessment, postassessment, and 5 months after training completion. Assessments included self-reports and experimental tasks to capture changes in emotional behavior. The training group reported reduced trait negative affect, rumination, depression, and anxiety, and increased trait positive affect and mindfulness compared to the control group. On a series of behavioral tasks, the training increased recognition of emotions in others (Micro-Expression Training Tool), protected trainees from some of the psychophysiological effects of an experimental threat to self (Trier Social Stress Test; TSST), appeared to activate cognitive networks associated with compassion (lexical decision procedure), and affected hostile behavior in the Marital Interaction Task. Most effects at postassessment that were examined at follow-up were maintained (excluding positive affect, TSST rumination, and respiratory sinus arrhythmia recovery). Findings suggest that increased awareness of mental processes can influence emotional behavior, and they support the benefit of integrating contemplative theories/practices with psychological models and methods of emotion regulation.</p>
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Contemplative practices are believed to alleviate psychological problems, cultivate prosocial behavior and promote self-awareness. In addition, psychological science has developed tools and models for understanding the mind and promoting well-being. Additional effort is needed to combine frameworks and techniques from these traditions to improve emotional experience and socioemotional behavior. An 8-week intensive (42 hr) meditation/emotion regulation training intervention was designed by experts in contemplative traditions and emotion science to reduce "destructive enactment of emotions" and enhance prosocial responses. Participants were 82 healthy female schoolteachers who were randomly assigned to a training group or a wait-list control group, and assessed preassessment, postassessment, and 5 months after training completion. Assessments included self-reports and experimental tasks to capture changes in emotional behavior. The training group reported reduced trait negative affect, rumination, depression, and anxiety, and increased trait positive affect and mindfulness compared to the control group. On a series of behavioral tasks, the training increased recognition of emotions in others (Micro-Expression Training Tool), protected trainees from some of the psychophysiological effects of an experimental threat to self (Trier Social Stress Test; TSST), appeared to activate cognitive networks associated with compassion (lexical decision procedure), and affected hostile behavior in the Marital Interaction Task. Most effects at postassessment that were examined at follow-up were maintained (excluding positive affect, TSST rumination, and respiratory sinus arrhythmia recovery). Findings suggest that increased awareness of mental processes can influence emotional behavior, and they support the benefit of integrating contemplative theories/practices with psychological models and methods of emotion regulation.
Attention to internal bodily sensations is a core feature of mindfulness meditation. Previous studies have not detected differences in interoceptive accuracy between meditators and nonmeditators on heartbeat detection and perception tasks. We compared differences in respiratory interoceptive accuracy between meditators and nonmeditators in the ability to detect and discriminate respiratory resistive loads and sustain accurate perception of respiratory tidal volume during nondistracted and distracted conditions. Groups did not differ in overall performance on the detection and discrimination tasks; however, meditators were more accurate in discriminating the resistive load with the lowest ceiling effect. Meditators were also more accurate during the nondistracted tracking task at a lag time of 1 s following the breath. Results provide initial support for the notion that meditators have greater respiratory interoceptive accuracy compared to nonmeditators.
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Cultivating Emotional Balance (CEB), an emotion skills and mindfulness intervention, improved wellbeing in a sample of teachers. Two studies examined whether such gain is associated with improvements in classrooms. Study 1 examined post-intervention differences in 20 dimensions of classroom climate (N = 21). CEB teachers were rated higher in productivity than controls. Study 2 was a randomized, controlled pilot trial of 35 teachers with longitudinal assessments of classroom climate, wellbeing, and attitudes towards challenging students. Although the CEB group reported more mindful observing compared to the control group at follow-up, the groups did not differ on classroom climate or attitudes. (Contains 6 tables and 1 figure.)
PurposeHIV induces a pro-inflammatory response that is linked to increased morbidity and mortality. Stress and depression have been associated with elevated inflammation. We sought to test whether Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) would improve high sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP) and D-dimer in HIV+ adults, and to explore the cross-sectional and longitudinal relationships between psychological state and these markers.
Methods
We randomized antiretroviral-untreated HIV+ adults with CD4+ counts >250 cells/µl to MBSR or an education/support control group. Baseline, 3, and 12 month measures included: Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ), State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), and Positive and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS+/-). Data were censored for starting antiretroviral therapy during follow-up.
Results
Of 177 participants, 132 (71 MBSR, 61 control) had complete specimen panels and were eligible for this sub-study. MBSR did not appear to have a substantial effect on change in hsCRP or D-dimer from baseline to 3, or 12 months (p>0.10), though CIs were wide. hsCRP at baseline was positively correlated with: PSS (β=0.18, p=0.034), BDI (β=0.21, p=0.014), PHQ (β=0.15, p=0.087), PANAS+/- (β=0.17, p=0.049), and STAI (β=0.19, p=0.030). hsCRP was correlated with BMI (β=0.25, p=0.004). After controlling for BMI, age, and viral load, hsCRP remained associated with BDI (β=0.19 p=0.03) and STAI (β=0.16 p=0.065). D-dimer showed no substantial baseline correlation with any scale (β<0.1, p>0.5). No substantial longitudinal relationships were found between change in hsCRP or D-dimer and change in any psychological measure (β<0.12, p>0.2).
Conclusion
MBSR did not appear to substantially improve hsCRP or D-dimer. Correlations between hsCRP and psychological measures were in hypothesized directions. The observation that hsCRP was associated with depression in multivariate analysis suggests a causal association between these processes. Interventional studies aimed at reducing inflammation, or improving mood, are needed to clarify this association and to identify future therapeutic strategies.