Emotions

Improve Emotional Well-Being with Mindfulness

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Improve Emotional Well-Being with Mindfulness

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“Mindfulness is about offering a warm, kind, friendly, accepting awareness to your moment-by-moment experience (all positive emotions), whatever that may be. For this reason, any practice of mindfulness, in the long term, develops your ability to generate positive feeling towards your inner (thoughts, emotions) and outer (world) experience.” – Anonymous

 

Mindfulness practice has been shown to produce improved emotion regulation. Practitioners demonstrate the ability to fully sense and experience emotions, but respond to them in more appropriate and adaptive ways. In other words, mindful people are better able to experience yet control emotions. This is a very important consequence of mindfulness. Humans are very emotional creatures and these emotions can be very pleasant, providing the spice of life. But, when they get extreme they can produce misery and even mental illness. The ability of mindfulness training to improve emotion regulation is thought to be the basis for a wide variety of benefits that mindfulness provides to mental health and the treatment of mental illness especially depression and anxiety disorders.

 

Two types of meditation practices are the commonly used. Loving kindness meditation is designed to develop kindness and compassion to oneself and others. The individual systematically pictures different individuals from self, to close friends, to enemies and wishes them happiness, well-being, safety, peace, and ease of well-being. In mindfulness meditation, the individual either practices paying attention to a single meditation object, or the individual opens up awareness to everything that’s being experienced regardless of its origin. In both cases, the meditator learns to filter out distracting stimuli, including thoughts, staying focused on the present moment, and filtering out thoughts centered around the past or future. The meditator just observes the stimuli present and lets them arise, and fall away without paying them any further attention.

 

There has been very little research on the relative effectiveness of these two very different types of meditation practice. In addition, there has been little attention paid to the growth and development in the benefits of practice over time. In today’s Research News article “Positive Emotion Correlates of Meditation Practice: a Comparison of Mindfulness Meditation and Loving-Kindness Meditation.” (See summary below). Fredrickson and colleagues compare Loving kindness meditation to mindfulness meditation practice effects on the growth of positive emotions as practice continues.

 

They recruited meditation-naive adults between the ages of 34 to 64 years and randomly assigned them to a wait-list control group or to receive 1-hour once per week for 6 weeks training in either loving kindness meditation or mindfulness meditation. Participants were asked to practice at home 3 to 5 times per week. Beginning with the start of training, participants completed daily on-line reports for 9 weeks of their meditation practice and their emotional states of 10 positive emotions (amusement, awe, gratitude, hope, inspiration, interest, joy, love, pride, and serenity) and 10 negative emotions (anger, shame, fear, hate, disgust, embarrassment, guilt, sadness, scorn, and stress).

 

They found that the participants in both meditation conditions had significant increases in positive emotions and the groups did not differ. Negative emotions were not affected. Hence, both loving kindness meditation and mindfulness meditation improved the participants mood equivalently. The improvements in positive emotions increased linearly over the 9 weeks of measurement, with the emotional state becoming more and more positive every day. They also found that the more the participants practiced the larger the improvements in their positive emotional states.

 

These are interesting results that indicate that meditation, regardless of type, leads to greater happiness and the more practice, both in frequency and duration, the greater the benefit which grows day by day. It would be interesting in future studies to continue collecting data for a longer period of time to determine when the growth in benefits begins to taper off. The fact that there was no effect on negative emotions may have been due to the fact that these otherwise normal participants did not have very high levels of negative emotions to start with. Again, future research should include individuals with high levels of negative emotions. Regardless, it is clear that meditation practice incrementally improves mood with continued practice.

 

So, improve emotional well-being with mindfulness.

 

“Meditation gives you the wherewithal to pause, observe how easily the mind can exaggerate the severity of a setback, and resist getting drawn back into the abyss.”— Richie Davidson

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

 

Fredrickson, B.L., Boulton, A.J., Firestine, A.M. et al. Positive Emotion Correlates of Meditation Practice: a Comparison of Mindfulness Meditation and Loving-Kindness Meditation. Mindfulness (2017). doi:10.1007/s12671-017-0735-9

 

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to uncover the day-to-day emotional profiles and dose-response relations, both within persons and between persons, associated with initiating one of two meditation practices, either mindfulness meditation or loving-kindness meditation. Data were pooled across two studies of midlife adults (N = 339) who were randomized to learn either mindfulness meditation or loving-kindness meditation in a 6-week workshop. The duration and frequency of meditation practice was measured daily for 9 weeks, commencing with the first workshop session. Likewise, positive and negative emotions were also measured daily, using the modified Differential Emotions Scale (Fredrickson, Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 47:1–53, 2013). Analysis of daily emotion reports over the targeted 9-week period showed significant gains in positive emotions and no change in negative emotions, regardless of meditation type. Multilevel models also revealed significant dose-response relations between duration of meditation practice and positive emotions, both within persons and between persons. Moreover, the within-person dose-response relation was stronger for loving-kindness meditation than for mindfulness meditation. Similar dose-response relations were observed for the frequency of meditation practice. In the context of prior research on the mental and physical health benefits produced by subtle increases in day-to-day experiences of positive emotions, the present research points to evidence-based practices—both mindfulness meditation and loving-kindness meditation—that can improve emotional well-being.

Reduce Negative Emotions and Stress Sensitivity with Mindfulness

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Reduce Negative Emotions and Stress Sensitivity with Mindfulness

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“Mindfulness training teaches people to be fully attentive to their present experience in a nonjudgmental way, which is believed to help reduce the rumination common to mood disorders. A mindful perspective teaches people how to apply a brake between a single lonely thought and what could be a resulting chain of distressing thoughts and feelings,” – J. David Creswell

 

Mindfulness training has been shown to improve the psychological well-being of healthy people. It also has been shown to be beneficial for a variety of mental health problems, including anxiety, depression, Antisocial Personality Disorder, Borderline personality disorder, impulsivity, obsessive compulsive disorder, phobias, post-traumatic stress disorder, sexual dysfunction, suicidality and even with psychosis.  Mindfulness is thought to work in part by improving the physiological and psychological responses to stress. This increases the individual’s ability to withstand the negative effects of stress on emotions and to cope with it adaptively. It also appears to work by improving emotion regulation. This improves the individual’s ability to fully sense and experience emotions, but respond to them in more appropriate and adaptive ways. In other words, mindful people are better able to cope with stress and experience yet control emotions.

 

These is a very important consequence of mindfulness. Humans are very emotional creatures and emotions can be very pleasant, providing the spice of life. But, when they get extreme they can produce misery and even mental illness. Humans, particularly in the developed world, are also embedded in a high stress environment that can damage their health and well-being. So, it is important to understand, in depth, how mindfulness training may reduce responses to stress and improve the responses to emotions. It would also be useful to learn how these factors change over the course of treatment.

 

In today’s Research News article “The Shape of Change in Perceived Stress, Negative Affect, and Stress Sensitivity During Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction.” (See summary below). Snoppe and colleagues recruited people who had enrolled in a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program that met once a week for 2.5 hours for eight weeks and consisted of body scan, meditation, and yoga practice. Participants were also request to practice at home for 40 minutes each day. The participants completed pretraining measures and daily on-line diaries during the 8-weeks of the program which included measures of perceived stress, mindfulness practice, and negative emotions including depression, tension, anger, and fatigue.

 

They found that over the 8 weeks of the program negative emotions and perceived stress decreased in a linear fashion, improving day by day. They also found that the lower the daily levels of perceived stress, the lower the levels of negative emotions. In addition, they found that the degree of association between stress and negative emotions did not change over the 8 weeks. So, mindfulness training appeared to reduce their levels but did not decouple their mutual influences. Hence, day by day of mindfulness practice produces a progressive reduction in perceived stress and negative emotions.

 

It has been well established that mindfulness programs like MBSR are effective in reducing the physiological and psychological responses to stress and negative emotions such as depression, anxiety, anger, and fatigue. What is new in the present study is the documentation of the linear growth in these benefits. Each day of practice appeared to produce increased benefit. It would be interesting to follow this growth over a longer period of time to determine at what point do the benefits stabilize. But for now, it appears that the more practice the better.

 

So, reduce negative emotions and stress sensitivity with mindfulness.

 

“Instead of ‘turning away’ from pain in avoidance we can learn to gently ‘turn towards’ what we’re experiencing. We can bring a caring open attention towards the wounded parts of ourselves and make wise choices about how to respond to ourselves and to life. It’s a paradox that we all must understand: It is by turning towards negative emotions that we find relief from them – not by turning away.” – Melli O’Brien

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

 

Snippe, E., Dziak, J.J., Lanza, S.T., Nyklíček, I., Wichers, M.  The Shape of Change in Perceived Stress, Negative Affect, and Stress Sensitivity During Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction. Mindfulness (2017) 8: 728. doi:10.1007/s12671-016-0650-5

 

Abstract

Both daily stress and the tendency to react to stress with heightened levels of negative affect (i.e., stress sensitivity) are important vulnerability factors for adverse mental health outcomes. Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) may help to reduce perceived daily stress and stress sensitivity. The purpose of this study was to examine how change in perceived stress, negative affect (NA), and the decoupling between perceived stress and NA evolved over the course of a MBSR program, without making any a priori assumptions on the shape of change. Seventy-one adults from the general population participating in MBSR provided daily diary assessments of perceived stress and NA during MBSR. The time-varying effect model (TVEM) indicated that perceived stress and NA decreased in a linear fashion rather than in a nonlinear fashion, both as a function of time and as a function of the cumulative number of days of mindfulness practice. Both TVEM and multilevel growth modeling showed that the association between perceived stress and NA did not decrease over the course of MBSR. The findings support the hypothesis that MBSR reduces NA and also reduces the extent to which individuals perceive their days as stressful. Also, the results suggest that there is a dose-response relationship between the amount of mindfulness practice and reductions in daily stress and NA.

Reduce Mind Wandering and Negative Mood with Mindfulness

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Reduce Mind Wandering and Negative Mood with Mindfulness

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“being in a mind-wandering state – instead of aware of present moment activities – is not such a happy state. We are generally happier when we are not mind-wandering.” – Susan Smalley

 

We spend a tremendous amount of waking time with our minds wandering and not on the present environment or the task at hand. We daydream, plan for the future, review the past, ruminate on our failures, exalt in our successes. In fact, we spend almost half of our waking hours off task with our mind wandering. Mindfulness is the antithesis of mind wandering. When we’re mindful, we’re paying attention to what is occurring in the present moment. In fact, the more mindful we are the less the mind wanders and mindfulness training reduces mind wandering.

 

You’d think that if we spend so much time with the mind wandering it must be enjoyable. But, in fact research has shown that when our mind is wandering we are actually less happy than when we are paying attention to what is at hand. There are times when mind wandering may be useful, especially in regard to planning and creative thinking. But, for the most part, it interferes with our concentration on the present moment and what we’re doing and makes us unhappy. Hence, it makes sense to study the relationship of mindfulness to mind wandering and negative emotions.

 

In today’s Research News article “Does Mind Wandering Mediate the Association Between Mindfulness and Negative Mood? A Preliminary Study.” (See summary below). Wang and colleagues recruited meditation naïve college students. They completed measures of mindfulness, positive and negative moods, and mind wandering during a 15-minute breath following meditation period. Correlations and sophisticated mediation model analysis were conducted on the students’ responses.

 

They found that the higher the levels of mindfulness the higher the levels of positive emotions and the lower the levels of mind wandering and negative emotions. Hence, more mindful students had more positive and less negative emotions and less mind wandering. The mediation analysis revealed that mind wandering partially mediated the relationship between mindfulness and negative emotions but not positive emotions. In other words, mindfulness was directly related to less negative emotions and also indirectly by being related to less mind wandering which in turn was related to less negative emotions.

 

This is a correlational study, so no conclusions can be reached about causation. But there is evidence from other studies that mindfulness training improves mood. So, it is likely that mindfulness caused the greater positive emotions and lower negative emotions in the students in this study. These are interesting results that add to the understanding of how mindfulness affects human emotions. They show that mindfulness influences mood directly and also improves negative mood via reduced mind wandering.

 

So, reduce mind wandering and negative mood with mindfulness.

 

“mindfulness training may have protective effects on mind wandering for anxious individuals. . . . meditation practice appears to help anxious people to shift their attention from their own internal worries to the present-moment external world, which enables better focus on a task at hand.” – Mengran Xu

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

 

Yuzheng Wang, Wei Xu, Capella Zhuang, Xinghua Liu. Does Mind Wandering Mediate the Association Between Mindfulness and Negative Mood? A Preliminary Study. Psychological Reports, Vol 120, Issue 1, pp. 118 – 129, 2017. 10.1177/0033294116686036

 

Abstract

The aim of this study was to assess the relationship between trait mindfulness and mood and to examine whether the relationship is mediated by mind wandering. Eighty-two individuals (M age = 24.27 years, SD = 5.64, 18 men, 22%) completed a series of measures including the Five-Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire, the Profile of Mood States Questionnaire, and Meditation Breath Attention Exercise. Results showed that the level of mindfulness was significantly correlated with positive and negative mood, and the association between mindfulness and negative mood was mediated by mind wandering. This study indicated the important role of mind wandering in the relation between mindfulness and negative mood. Limitations and future research directions are discussed.

Improve Responses to Negative Emotions with Meditation

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Improve Responses to Negative Emotions with Meditation

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“Stress and anxiety can cause any number of mental health issues, which can in turn lead to physical health issues (substance abuse springs immediately to mind). We’ve known for some time that meditation can help with many of these problems.” – Anne Green

 

Mindfulness practice has been shown to produce improved emotion regulation. Practitioners demonstrate the ability to fully sense and experience emotions, but respond to them in more appropriate and adaptive ways. In other words, mindful people are better able to experience yet control emotions. This is a very important consequence of mindfulness. Humans are very emotional creatures and these emotions can be very pleasant, providing the spice of life. But, when they get extreme they can produce misery and even mental illness. The ability of mindfulness training to improve emotion regulation is thought to be the basis for a wide variety of benefits that mindfulness provides to mental health and the treatment of mental illness especially depression and anxiety disorders.

 

The nervous system is a dynamic entity, constantly changing and adapting to the environment. It will change size, activity, and connectivity in response to experience. These changes in the brain are called neuroplasticity. Over the last decade neuroscience has been studying the effects of contemplative practices on the brain and has identified neuroplastic changes in widespread areas. In other words, meditation practice appears to mold and change the brain, producing psychological, physical, and spiritual benefits. Hence, the ability of mindfulness practices to improve emotional regulation should be reflected in relatively permanent changes in the nervous system that should become evident in the responses of the nervous system to emotional stimuli.

 

Emotions are usually measured by self-report. But, because emotional reactivity includes physiological reactions, emotional responses can be measured with these reactions. An interesting index is the response of the pupil of the eye. The dilation (enlargement) of the pupil is controlled by the sympathetic nervous system, while its constriction (narrowing) is controlled by the parasympathetic nervous system. Since, sympathetic response reflects activation while the parasympathetic response reflects relaxation, the dilation and constriction of the pupil can provide a measure of the individual’s nervous system response to the immediate situation.

 

In today’s Research News article “Pupillary Response to Negative Emotional Stimuli Is Differentially Affected in Meditation Practitioners.” See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5413546/, Vasquez-Rosati and colleagues employ the pupillary response to gauge the nervous system response to emotional stimuli and how than may be modified in people who meditate. They compared meditators to non-meditators in their emotional ratings, heart rate, and pupillary response to pictures whose content was either emotionally positive, negative, or neutral.

 

They found that the meditators had a lower overall heart rate and rated all images as more positive than the non-meditators. In addition, the meditators rated the negative images as less activating. These results suggest that the meditators are more relaxed, generally respond more positively to everything, and are less reactive to negative situations. This was reflected in the pupillary response to negative images where the meditators showed initially a stronger constriction of the pupil followed by a weaker dilation than the non-meditators. This suggests that the meditators had a greater parasympathetic response and a diminished sympathetic response to negative stimuli than the non-meditators.

 

These results suggest that meditation practice alters the nervous system to produce greater relaxation and more positive responses to the world in general. This can be seen in the lower stress levels and better overall moods observed in meditators. Meditation also appears to alter the brains response to negative emotions, emphasizing parasympathetic responding, making it less responsive and activating. These are interesting results that suggest how mindfulness training may be altering nervous system responses to improve emotion regulation.

 

So, improve responses to negative emotions with meditation.

 

“there is viable evidence that practicing mindfulness meditation helps boost our defense against disease, and fosters wellness. —this research paves the way for the addition of a new wellness adage: “Meditation each day keeps the doctor away.” – Jennifer Wolkin

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

 

Vasquez-Rosati, A., Brunetti, E. P., Cordero, C., & Maldonado, P. E. (2017). Pupillary Response to Negative Emotional Stimuli Is Differentially Affected in Meditation Practitioners. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 11, 209. http://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2017.00209

 

Abstract

Clinically, meditative practices have become increasingly relevant, decreasing anxiety in patients and increasing antibody production. However, few studies have examined the physiological correlates, or effects of the incorporation of meditative practices. Because pupillary reactivity is a marker for autonomic changes and emotional processing, we hypothesized that the pupillary responses of mindfulness meditation practitioners (MP) and subjects without such practices (non-meditators (NM)) differ, reflecting different emotional processing. In a group of 11 MP and 9 NM, we recorded the pupil diameter using video-oculography while subjects explored images with emotional contents. Although both groups showed a similar pupillary response for positive and neutral images, negative images evoked a greater pupillary contraction and a weaker dilation in the MP group. Also, this group had faster physiological recovery to baseline levels. These results suggest that mindfulness meditation practices modulate the response of the autonomic nervous system, reflected in the pupillary response to negative images and faster physiological recovery to baseline levels, suggesting that pupillometry could be used to assess the potential health benefits of these practices in patients.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5413546/

Women Benefit More than Men from Mindfulness

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Women Benefit More than Men from Mindfulness

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“For people that tend to be willing to confront or expose themselves or turn toward the difficult, mindfulness is made for helping that process. For people who have been largely turning their attention away from the difficult, to suddenly bring all their attention to their difficulties can be somewhat counterproductive. While facing one’s difficulties and feeling one’s emotions may seem to be universally beneficial, it does not take into account that there may be different cultural expectations for men and women around emotionality.” – Willoughby Britton

 

Mindfulness training has been shown to be beneficial for a variety of mental health problems, including anxiety, depression, Antisocial Personality Disorder, Borderline personality disorder, impulsivity, obsessive compulsive disorder, phobias, post-traumatic stress disorder, sexual dysfunction, suicidality and even with psychosis. It also improves the psychological well-being of healthy people. Interestingly, there appears to be differences between men and women in the occurrence of various mental illnesses. Women have a much higher incidence of emotional issues than men such as anxiety and depression. On the other hand, men are more likely to have conduct disorders and substance abuse.

 

One of the ways that mindfulness appears to work to improve mental health is by improving emotion regulation. This increases the individual’s ability to fully experience emotions but react to and cope with them adaptively, in other words, not to be carried away by them. Since women are more likely to have emotional issues than men, and mindfulness is particularly effective in improving emotion regulation, it would seem reasonable to hypothesize that mindfulness would have greater psychological benefits for women than for men.

 

In today’s Research News article “Women Benefit More Than Men in Response to College-based Meditation Training.” See summary below or view the full text of the study at:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5397480/, Rojiana and colleagues recruited male and female university students and trained them for 12 weeks, 3 times per week for 1 hour, in focused and open monitoring meditation. They completed measurements before and after training of mindfulness, positive and negative emotions, and self-compassion. They then compared the effectiveness of the meditation training for men and women.

 

They found that after training both men and women improved in mindfulness and self -compassion, but women had greater improvements than men in mindfulness and the mindfulness facets of observing, describing, non-judging, and non-reacting. Women also showed greater decreases in negative emotions. For women, it was found that the greater the increase in mindfulness, the greater the decrease in negative emotions. Hence, they found that women tended to benefit more from the meditation training that the men.

 

These are interesting results that suggest that women respond to meditation training with greater improvements in emotions and mindfulness than men. This may well have occurred due to the facts that mindfulness is known to improve emotion regulation and women have greater problems with emotion regulation and thereby benefit more. The greater improvements in mindfulness in women are interesting and may be due to the fact that the women were lower in mindfulness, particularly non-reactivity, to begin with. The meditation simply increased their levels of mindfulness to those of the men. This suggests that women have a greater tendency to react emotionally and that mindfulness training by decreasing this reactivity has greater benefits for women.

 

The results might have been different had the study measured behavioral conduct and externalizing behaviors rather than emotions. In a sense, the study played right to the issues than most trouble women and didn’t measure those that are more characteristic of males. Had they measured these factors perhaps they would have seen greater improvement in men rather than women. Regardless, women appear to benefit more emotionally from mindfulness training than men.

 

“When thrown by their feelings, men tend to “externalize” their emotions by doing things like working out, playing video games or otherwise interacting with their outer worlds. Women tend to “internalize” by analyzing and ruminating over their emotional states, psychologists say. While many men go outward — and one might argue, distract themselves from their internal world — women go inward.” – Drake Baer

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

Rojiani, R., Santoyo, J. F., Rahrig, H., Roth, H. D., & Britton, W. B. (2017). Women Benefit More Than Men in Response to College-based Meditation Training. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 551. http://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00551

 

Abstract

Objectives: While recent literature has shown that mindfulness training has positive effects on treating anxiety and depression, there has been virtually no research investigating whether effects differ across genders—despite the fact that men and women differ in clinically significant ways. The current study investigated whether college-based meditation training had different effects on negative affect for men and women.

Methods: Seventy-seven university students (36 women, age = 20.7 ± 3.0 years) participated in 12-week courses with meditation training components. They completed self-report questionnaires of affect, mindfulness, and self-compassion before and after the course.

Results: Compared to men, women showed greater decreases in negative affect and greater increases on scales measuring mindfulness and self-compassion. Women’s improvements in negative affect were correlated to improvements in measures of both mindfulness skills and self-compassion. In contrast, men showed non-significant increases in negative affect, and changes in affect were only correlated with ability to describe emotions, not any measures of experiential or self-acceptance.

Conclusion: These findings suggest that women may have more favorable responses than men to school-based mindfulness training, and that the effectiveness of mindfulness-based interventions may be maximized by gender-specific modifications.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5397480/

Mindfulness is Associated with Improved Athletic Psychology in Elite Athletes

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Mindfulness is Associated with Improved Athletic Psychology in Elite Athletes

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“Meditation is becoming popular for many reasons, especially related to health. Athletes are also taking up the practice more and more because research has shown that meditation can be used as a tool to manage pain, decrease anxiety and improve focus.” – Kris Eiring

 

Athletic performance requires the harmony of mind and body. Excellence is in part physical and in part psychological. Without inheriting an athletic body and without many hours of training the individual will never reach an elite level. But, once there, the difference between winning and losing is psychological. That is why an entire profession of Sports Psychology has developed. “In sport psychology, competitive athletes are taught psychological strategies to better cope with a number of demanding challenges related to psychological functioning.” They use a number of techniques to enhance performance including anxiety or energy management, attention and concentration control (focusing), communication, goal setting, imagery, visualization, mental practice, self-talk, controlling negative emotions, team building, time management/organization.

 

Mindfulness training has been shown to enhance a number of the characteristics that are taught by Sports Psychologists. Mindfulness training improves attention and concentration and emotion regulation and reduces anxiety and worry and rumination, and the physiological and psychological responses to stress. As a result, mindfulness training, including meditation and yoga practices, have been employed by elite athletes and even by entire teams to enhance their performance. There have been, however, very few empirical tests of the efficacy of mindfulness training to enhance elite athletes’ performance or the mechanism of action.

 

In today’s Research News article “Mindfulness Mechanisms in Sports: Mediating Effects of Rumination and Emotion Regulation on Sport-Specific Coping.” (See summary below), Josefsson and colleagues examined the relationship of mindfulness effects on rumination and emotion regulation on athletic performance. They recruited a large sample of elite High School athletes from a variety of sports and requested that they complete measures of mindfulness, rumination, emotion regulation, and athletic coping skills. They analyzed the obtained data with correlation techniques and a sophisticated statistical technique called path analysis.

 

They found that, as has previous studies, that the higher the levels of mindfulness of the athletes the lower the levels of rumination and the higher the levels of emotion regulation. They also found with path analysis that mindfulness levels were associated with better athletic coping skills in two ways, directly and indirectly through mindfulness’ relationships with rumination and emotion regulation. In other words, the higher the levels of mindfulness the better the athletic coping skills. This occurred by a direct relationship of mindfulness on athletic coping skills and also due to the mindfulness’ association with lower rumination and improved emotion regulation and their relationships with improved athletic coping skills.

 

This study was correlational and causation cannot be determined. But the results suggest that mindfulness is an important asset for the elite athlete. They further suggest that mindfulness may enhance athletic performance by improving the athletes ability to cope with their emotions and by decreasing worry and rumination. It remains for future studies to actively train athletes in mindfulness skills and determine if emotion regulation, rumination, athletic coping skills, and athletic performance are enhanced. Regardless, it is clear that mindfulness skills help and athlete cope with the psychological demands of elite athletic performance.

 

“The application of mindfulness to sport performance has recently become a popular research endeavor. By enhancing current moment awareness, a critical component of peak sport performance, some research has suggested that mindfulness exercises can help to generate “flow”, or a state of complete focus on the task or event at hand . . . mindfulness-based interventions for sports are effective because they help athletes direct their attention to the current athletic task, while minimizing external distractions.” – Mitch Plemmons

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

Torbjörn Josefsson, Andreas Ivarsson, Magnus Lindwall, Henrik Gustafsson, Andreas Stenling, Jan Böröy, Emil Mattsson, Jakob Carnebratt, Simon Sevholt, Emil Falkevik. Mindfulness Mechanisms in Sports: Mediating Effects of Rumination and Emotion Regulation on Sport-Specific Coping. Mindfulness (2017). doi:10.1007/s12671-017-0711-4

 

Abstract

The main objective of the project was to examine a proposed theoretical model of mindfulness mechanisms in sports. We conducted two studies (the first study using a cross-sectional design and the second a longitudinal design) to investigate if rumination and emotion regulation mediate the relation between dispositional mindfulness and sport-specific coping. Two hundred and forty-two young elite athletes, drawn from various sports, were recruited for the cross-sectional study. For the longitudinal study, 65 elite athletes were recruited. All analyses were performed using Bayesian statistics. The path analyses showed credible indirect effects of dispositional mindfulness on coping via rumination and emotion regulation in both the cross-sectional study and the longitudinal study. Additionally, the results in both studies showed credible direct effects of dispositional mindfulness on rumination and emotion regulation. Further, credible direct effects of emotion regulation as well as rumination on coping were also found in both studies. Our findings support the theoretical model, indicating that rumination and emotion regulation function as essential mechanisms in the relation between dispositional mindfulness and sport-specific coping skills. Increased dispositional mindfulness in competitive athletes (i.e. by practicing mindfulness) may lead to reductions in rumination, as well as an improved capacity to regulate negative emotions. By doing so, athletes may improve their sport-related coping skills, and thereby enhance athletic performance.

Reduce Sensitivity to Rejection with Non-Judging Mindfulness

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Reduce Sensitivity to Rejection with Non-Judging Mindfulness

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“Simply acknowledging that rejection will hurt, whatever we do, can in itself be a relief. Much of our suffering comes from wishing that our experience was different to how it currently is. But mindfulness helps us to see and accept this moment, however we happen to find it, even if our moment is filled with feelings of unworthiness. The trick is to remember that unworthiness is a transitory feeling, never an absolute truth about us.” – The Mindfulness Project

 

Being rejected socially is a painful but common experience. Our sensitivity to rejection probably evolved to help maintain group cohesion which was essential during early human evolutionary development. So, it is normal and natural. But, being overly sensitive to rejection can be maladaptive not just to the individual but also to the group as it can accentuate withdrawal. Indeed, high sensitivity to rejection is characteristic of a number of mental illnesses including borderline personality disorder, avoidant personality disorder, depression, and social anxiety.

 

Mindfulness makes us more aware of ourselves and our emotions and improves our ability to cope with these emotions. As such, it may help with coping with rejection. Indeed, mindfulness has been shown to improve social relationships, including romantic relationships, and reduce our dependence on other people. Mindfulness has also been shown to improve the mental illnesses that are characterized by high levels of rejection sensitivity, including borderline personality disorder, depression, and social anxiety. So, it makes sense to hypothesize that mindfulness may be an antidote to high sensitivity to rejection.

 

In today’s Research News article “Dispositional mindfulness and rejection sensitivity: The critical role of nonjudgment.” See summary below or view the full text of the study at:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4809056/

Peters and colleagues examine the relationship of mindfulness to rejection sensitivity. They recruited college students and required them to complete online measures of five different facets of mindfulness, rejection sensitivity, and positive and negative emotions. They then preformed statistical analysis to determine the relationships between these variables.

 

They found that the mindfulness facets of acting with awareness, nonjudging, nonreactivity, and describing were all significantly negatively related to rejection sensitivity and negative emotions. When these mindfulness facets were included simultaneously in a multiple regression the mindfulness facets of acting with awareness, nonjudging, and nonreactivity remained as significant predictors of low rejection sensitivity, but nonjudging was by far the strongest predictor. In addition, nonjudging was found to moderate the relationship between rejection sensitivity and negative emotions, suggesting that nonjudging may protect the individual from the bad feelings produced by rejection.

 

It needs to be kept in mind that this study was correlational and thereby cannot determine causal connections. It is equally likely that rejection sensitivity interferes with mindfulness as that mindfulness reduces rejection sensitivity. Nevertheless, the results confirm the relationship between high levels of mindfulness, especially nonjudging and low levels of sensitivity to rejection. This relationship may occur by nonjudging protecting the individual from the negative emotions resulting from rejection. Judging experience can make it seem worse than it is and amplify the emotional consequences of the experience. So, by not judging an experience of rejection, the individual may be better able to keep the emotions elicited at a more normal and natural level.

 

So, reduce sensitivity to rejection with non-judging mindfulness.

 

“Rejections aren’t the end of the world but sometimes we can react as if they are. Being turned away from one opportunity makes you available for another. Ultimately, I encourage people not to take things so seriously. If that reaction arises, mindfulness practice can help people to back away from it and keep things in perspective.” – Arnie Kozak

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

Peters, J. R., Eisenlohr-Moul, T. A., & Smart, L. M. (2016). Dispositional mindfulness and rejection sensitivity: The critical role of nonjudgment. Personality and Individual Differences, 93, 125–129. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2015.06.029

 

Highlights

  • Examined relationships between facets of mindfulness and rejection sensitivity (RS)
  • RS was negatively associated with multiple mindfulness facets, especially nonjudging
  • Increased nonjudging reduced the association between RS and trait negative affect
  • Mindfulness, specifically nonjudging, may be protective against RS and its effects

Abstract

The pain of rejection is a crucial component of normal social functioning; however, heightened sensitivity to rejection can be impairing in numerous ways. Mindfulness-based interventions have been effective with several populations characterized by elevated sensitivity to rejection; however, the relationship between mindfulness and rejection sensitivity has been largely unstudied. The present study examines associations between rejection sensitivity and multiple dimensions of dispositional mindfulness, with the hypothesis that a nonjudgmental orientation to inner experiences would be both associated with decreased rejection sensitivity and attenuate the impact of sensitivity to rejection on general negative affect. A cross-sectional sample of undergraduates (n = 451) completed self-report measures of rejection sensitivity, dispositional mindfulness, and trait-level negative affect. Significant zero-order correlations and independent effects were observed between most facets of dispositional mindfulness and rejection sensitivity, with nonjudging demonstrating the largest effects. As predicted, rejection sensitivity was associated with negative affectivity for people low in nonjudging (β = .27, t = 5.12, p < .001) but not for people high in nonjudging (β = .06, t = .99, p = .324). These findings provide preliminary support for mindfulness, specifically the nonjudging dimension, as a protective factor against rejection sensitivity and its effects on affect.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4809056/

Improve Emotional Regulation, Thereby Improving Mental Illness Symptoms, with Mindfulness

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Improve Emotional Regulation, Thereby Improving Mental Illness Symptoms, with Mindfulness

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“Through mindfulness you can learn to turn your difficult emotions into your greatest teachers and sources of strength. Instead of ‘turning away’ from pain in avoidance we can learn to gently ‘turn towards’ what we’re experiencing. We can bring a caring open attention toward the wounded parts of ourselves and make wise choices about how to respond to ourselves and to life.” – Melissa O’Brien

 

Mindfulness practice has been shown to produce improved emotion regulation. Practitioners demonstrate the ability to fully sense and experience emotions, but respond to them in more appropriate and adaptive ways. In other words, mindful people are better able to experience yet control emotions. This is a very important consequence of mindfulness. Humans are very emotional creatures and these emotions can be very pleasant, providing the spice of life. But, when they get extreme they can produce misery and even mental illness. The ability of mindfulness training to improve emotion regulation is thought to be the basis for a wide variety of benefits that mindfulness provides to mental health and the treatment of mental illness especially depression and anxiety disorders.

 

In today’s Research News article “The Conditional Process Model of Mindfulness and Emotion Regulation: An Empirical Test.” See summary below or view the full text of the study at:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5340204/

Curtiss and colleagues examine potential emotional regulation intermediaries between different facets of mindfulness and improvements in mental health. They posit that mindfulness, particularly non-reactivity, produces increased emotion regulation and this in turn produces improvements in the symptoms of mental illness, while observation interferes with emotion regulation, resulting in exacerbation of symptoms. They recruited adults who self-reported medically diagnosed mental illnesses. The participants completed on-line measures of mindfulness and emotion regulation and the symptoms of mental illness of anxiety, feeling evaluated by others, depression, obsessions, and compulsions.

 

They found that, as predicted, the higher the levels of mindful non-reactivity, the lower the levels of mental illness symptoms while the higher the levels of mindful observing, the higher the levels of symptoms. They then performed sophisticate statistical modelling to determine if the cognitive strategies of emotion regulation of suppression and reappraisal acted as intermediaries. They found that there were small effects of observing on both suppression and reappraisal but the main influence was a direct effect of observing of increasing symptoms. Non-reacting, on the other hand had a strong positive effect only on reappraisal which in turn lowered symptoms.

 

The cognitive emotion regulation strategy of suppression is a dampening maladaptive strategy involving attempts to inhibit unwanted thoughts or outward displays of emotion. Enhancing suppression is maladaptive and ineffective and results in heightened symptoms of mental illness. Only the mindfulness facet of observing increases suppression. Observing is an attentional process. It may heighten suppression by making the individual more aware of the symptoms, eliciting attempts to keep them in check. But, this is counterproductive, actually making things worse.

 

On the other hand, the cognitive emotion regulation strategy of reappraisal is an augmenting adaptive emotion regulation strategy, involving developing alternative or benign interpretations of a stressful situation to reduce distress. Reappraisal is particularly effective for people with mental illnesses in that these individuals often have interpretations of situations that reinforce and exacerbate the illness. Enhancing reappraisal, then, is adaptive, especially for people with mental illnesses, resulting in a lessening of the symptoms of mental illness. The mindfulness characteristic of non-reacting strongly increases reappraisal and thereby lessens symptoms. Non-reacting involves refraining from responding to emotions or thoughts in a reactive manner. This allows for reappraisal and thereby symptom improvement.

 

The study’s results are very interesting and support a model of an indirect effect of the mindfulness facet of non-reacting; improving the symptoms of mental illness by encouraging reappraisal. On the other hand, the mindfulness facet of observing makes symptoms worse directly and by increasing the maladaptive suppression strategy. Hence, the results suggest that mindfulness training should focus on non-reacting and minimize observing to improve mental health.

 

So, improve emotional regulation, thereby improving mental illness symptoms, with mindfulness.

 

“When we build awareness, such as through the practice of mindfulness, we notice our emotions more clearly and with less resistance. We recognize our mental habits and actively choose to leave things alone for a moment instead. ‘I’m in a bad mood, it’s not my fault or anyone else’s, and it will pass.’” – Mark Bertin

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

Curtiss, J., Klemanski, D. H., Andrews, L., Ito, M., & Hofmann, S. G. (2017). The Conditional Process Model of Mindfulness and Emotion Regulation: An Empirical Test. Journal of Affective Disorders, 212, 93–100. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2017.01.027

 

Abstract

Background

The conditional process model (CPM) of mindfulness and emotion regulation posits that specific mediators and moderators link these constructs to mental health outcomes. The current study empirically examined the central tenets of the CPM, which posit that nonreactivity moderates the indirect effect of observation on symptoms of emotional disorders through cognitive emotion regulation strategies.

Methods

A clinical sample (n=1667) of individuals from Japan completed a battery of self-report instruments. Several path analyses were conducted to determine whether cognitive emotion regulation strategies mediate the relationship between observation and symptoms of individual emotional disorders, and to determine whether nonreactivity moderated these indirect effects.

Results

Results provided support the CPM. Specifically, nonreactivity moderated the indirect effect of observation on symptoms through reappraisal, but it did not moderate the indirect effect of observation on symptoms through suppression.

Limitations

Causal interpretations are limited, and cultural considerations must be acknowledged given the Japanese sample

Conclusions

These results underscore the potential importance of nonreactivity and emotion regulation as targets for interventions.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5340204/

Improve Emotional Reactivity and Stress Responding with Mindfulness

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Improve Emotional Reactivity and Stress Responding with Mindfulness

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“There are moments in life that are hard, painful, scary and difficult to endure. There are times when we feel anger, anxiety, grief, embarrassment, stress, remorse or other negative emotions. Through mindfulness you can learn to turn your negative emotions into your greatest teachers and sources of strength.” – Melli O’Brien

 

Mindfulness practice has been shown to produce improved emotion regulation. Practitioners demonstrate the ability to fully sense and experience emotions, but respond to them in more appropriate and adaptive ways. In other words, mindful people are better able to experience yet control emotions and not overreact to them. This is a very important consequence of mindfulness. Humans are very emotional creatures and these emotions can be very pleasant, providing the spice of life. But, when they get extreme they can produce misery and even mental illness. The ability of mindfulness training to improve emotion regulation is thought to be the basis for a wide variety of benefits that mindfulness provides to mental health and the treatment of mental illness especially depression and anxiety disorders.

 

Stress is an integral part of life. In fact, I’ve quipped that the definition of death is when stress ceases. People often think of stress as a bad thing. But, it is in fact essential to the health of the body. If we don’t have any stress, we call it boredom. In fact, we invest time and resources in stressing ourselves, e.g. ridding rollercoasters, sky diving, competing in sports, etc. If stress, is high or is prolonged, however, it can be problematic. It can damage our physical and mental health and even reduce our longevity, leading to premature deaths. So, it is important that we employ methods to either reduce or control our responses to it. Mindfulness practices have been found routinely to reduce the psychological and physiological responses to stress.

 

Mindfulness practices improve physiological and psychological responses to stress and also improve emotional reactivity. In today’s Research News article “Dispositional Mindfulness Uncouples Physiological and Emotional Reactivity to a Laboratory Stressor and Emotional Reactivity to Executive Functioning Lapses in Daily Life.” See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4831864/

Feldman and colleagues examine the relationships between mindfulness, emotional reactivity, and stress responses in two experiments employing female undergraduate students. In the first experiment, they measured the students’ mindfulness and the levels of negative emotions. They were then required to complete a very stressful difficult laboratory task (mirror tracing) during which heart rate was measured as an indication of the physiological effects of stress. After completing the task, they were again measured for negative emotions. They found that mindfulness moderated the effect of physiological stress (heart rate) on negative emotions such that with low levels of mindfulness high physiological stress produced high negative emotions while at high levels of mindfulness there was no increase in negative emotions. So, “dispositional mindfulness was found to uncouple the association between degree of physiological arousal and subjective distress.”

 

In the second experiment, a new group of female students were measured for mindfulness and then completed measures daily of negative emotions and executive function lapses, things such as “I procrastinated on an important task,” “I forgot to do an important task.” “I had difficulty motivating myself,” “I was late for something important” and “I said something to someone that I later regretted.“ They found that on days when mindfulness was high negative emotions tended to be low. In addition, they found that mindfulness moderated the effect of executive function lapses on negative emotions such that with low levels of mindfulness executive function lapses produced high negative emotions while at high levels of mindfulness there was no increase in negative emotions.

 

These findings suggest that mindfulness uncouples the associations between degree of either physiological arousal or executive function lapses and negative emotions. This further suggests that being high in mindfulness is associated with a greater ability for emotional regulation, lowering emotional reactivity in the face of either physiological or psychological stress. This is another interesting example of how mindfulness improves the individual’s ability to cope effectively with stress and regulate their emotions. This should have ramifications for improving the individual’s physical and mental health.

 

So, improve emotional reactivity and stress responding with mindfulness.

 

“Then I see what is happening. Ah, agitation is here. By making time for meditation, I get to more consciously connect with myself and my state of being, and I realize that my sense of urgency is actually fuelled from a physical state of tension and stress.” – Elise Bialylew

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are a also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

Feldman, G., Lavalle, J., Gildawie, K., & Greeson, J. M. (2016). Dispositional Mindfulness Uncouples Physiological and Emotional Reactivity to a Laboratory Stressor and Emotional Reactivity to Executive Functioning Lapses in Daily Life. Mindfulness, 7(2), 527–541. http://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-015-0487-3

 

Abstract

Both dispositional mindfulness and mindfulness training may help to uncouple the degree to which distress is experienced in response to aversive internal experience and external events. Because emotional reactivity is a transdiagnostic process implicated in numerous psychological disorders, dispositional mindfulness and mindfulness training could exert mental health benefits, in part, by buffering emotional reactivity. The present studies examine whether dispositional mindfulness moderates two understudied processes in stress reactivity research: the degree of concordance between subjective and physiological reactivity to a laboratory stressor (Study 1); and the degree of dysphoric mood reactivity to lapses in executive functioning in daily life (Study 2). In both studies, lower emotional reactivity to aversive experiences was observed among individuals scoring higher in mindfulness, particularly non-judging, relative to those scoring lower in mindfulness. These findings support the hypothesis that higher dispositional mindfulness fosters lower emotional reactivity. Results are discussed in terms of implications for applying mindfulness-based interventions to a range of psychological disorders in which people have difficulty regulating emotional reactions to stress.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4831864/

Improve Emotions in Quitting Smokers by Increasing Relaxation with Mindfulness

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Improve Emotions in Quitting Smokers by Increasing Relaxation with Mindfulness

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“Depressed individuals tend to smoke at higher rates; at the same time, depressive symptoms make it more difficult to quit. Consequently, depressed individuals suffer from a higher rate of smoking-related diseases. Developing and implementing effective smoking cessation interventions for this vulnerable population is a public health priority.” – Haruka Minami

 

“Tobacco use remains the single largest preventable cause of death and disease in the United States. Cigarette smoking kills more than 480,000 Americans each year, with more than 41,000 of these deaths from exposure to secondhand smoke. In addition, smoking-related illness in the United States costs more than $300 billion a year. In 2013, an estimated 17.8% (42.1 million) U.S. adults were current cigarette smokers.”  (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).

 

There are a wide variety of methods and strategies to quit smoking which are to only a very limited extent effective. According to the National Institutes of Health, about 40% of smokers who want to quit make a serious attempt to do so each year, but fewer than 5% actually succeed. Most people require three or four failed attempts before being successful. One problem is that nicotine is one of the most addictive substances known and withdrawal from nicotine is very stressful, producing many physical and psychological problems, including negative emotional states and depression. In essence the addict feels miserable without the nicotine. This promotes relapse to relieve the discomfort.

 

Better methods to quit which can not only promote quitting but also prevent relapse are badly needed. Mindfulness practices have been found to be helpful in treating addictions, including nicotine addiction, and reducing the risk of relapse. But, it is not known how mindfulness produces these beneficial effects. One possibility is that mindfulness training helps to relieve the stress, negative emotions, and depression that accompanies nicotine withdrawal. In today’s Research News article “Coping Mediates the Association of Mindfulness with Psychological Stress, Affect, and Depression Among Smokers Preparing to Quit.” See summary below or view the full text of the study at:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5296771/

Vidrine and colleagues examine this issue by studying the relationship of mindfulness to stress, negative emotions, and depression in smokers entering a smoking cessation treatment program. They recruited adult smokers from an urban population who were willing to partake in a mindfulness-based quitting smoking program. Prior to the therapy program the participants completed measures of nicotine dependence, mindfulness, coping mechanisms, positive and negative emotions, and depression.

 

Analyzing these responses, they found that the higher the levels of mindfulness the lower the levels of perceived stress, negative emotions, and depression and the higher the levels of positive emotions. In other words, being mindful was associated with better emotional health. In addition, they found that that the higher the levels of mindfulness the greater use of coping methods of catharsis, seeking social support, religion, and relaxation. Hence, mindful people used adaptive methods to cope with discomfort and stress. Employing a sophisticated statistical technique of mediation analysis, they were able to demonstrate that mindfulness increased coping through relaxation which resulted in reduced perceived stress and depression, and higher positive emotions. They were also able to demonstrate that coping with catharsis was able to magnify the association of mindfulness with lower negative emotions.

 

These results are very interesting and suggest that mindfulness may be able to assist in smoking cessation by reducing the negative consequences of nicotine withdrawal, in particular by increasing relaxation which in turn reduces perceived stress and depression, and heightens positive feelings. They also suggest that the coping strategy of catharsis acts by amplifying the ability of mindfulness to reduce negative feelings. These findings have implications for smoking cessation. They suggest that including relaxation and catharsis practices in a mindfulness-based smoking cessation treatment program might strengthen its ability to assist the smoker to quit.

 

So, improve emotions in quitting smokers by increasing relaxation with mindfulness.

 

“Mindfulness seems to be beneficial by helping smokers cope with craving. Cigarette craving can be a powerful motivator, and one of the major reasons for relapse. But mindfulness is effective at helping people cope with strong emotions, such as those experienced with depression, anxiety, and pain.” – Cecilia Westbrook

 

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

Jennifer Irvin Vidrine, Michael S. Businelle, Lorraine R. Reitzel, Yumei Cao, Paul M. Cinciripini, Marianne T. Marcus, Yisheng Li, David W. Wetter. Coping Mediates the Association of Mindfulness with Psychological Stress, Affect, and Depression Among Smokers Preparing to Quit. Mindfulness (N Y),  2015 Jun; 6(3): 433–443. doi: 10.1007/s12671-014-0276-4

 

Abstract

It is not surprising that smoking abstinence rates are low given that smoking cessation is associated with increases in negative affect and stress that can persist for months. Mindfulness is one factor that has been broadly linked with enhanced emotional regulation. This study examined baseline associations of self-reported trait mindfulness with psychological stress, negative affect, positive affect, and depression among 158 smokers enrolled in a smoking cessation treatment trial. Several coping dimensions were evaluated as potential mediators of these associations. Results indicated that mindfulness was negatively associated with psychological stress, negative affect and depression, and positively associated with positive affect. Furthermore, the use of relaxation as a coping strategy independently mediated the association of mindfulness with psychological stress, positive affect, and depression. The robust and consistent pattern that emerged suggests that greater mindfulness may facilitate cessation and attenuate vulnerability to relapse among smokers preparing for cessation. Furthermore, relaxation appears to be a key mechanism underlying these associations.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5296771/