Elsevier

Psychoneuroendocrinology

Volume 44, June 2014, Pages 1-12
Psychoneuroendocrinology

Brief mindfulness meditation training alters psychological and neuroendocrine responses to social evaluative stress

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2014.02.007Get rights and content

Summary

Objective

To test whether a brief mindfulness meditation training intervention buffers self-reported psychological and neuroendocrine responses to the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) in young adult volunteers. A second objective evaluates whether pre-existing levels of dispositional mindfulness moderate the effects of brief mindfulness meditation training on stress reactivity.

Methods

Sixty-six (N = 66) participants were randomly assigned to either a brief 3-day (25-min per day) mindfulness meditation training or an analytic cognitive training control program. All participants completed a standardized laboratory social-evaluative stress challenge task (the TSST) following the third mindfulness meditation or cognitive training session. Measures of psychological (stress perceptions) and biological (salivary cortisol, blood pressure) stress reactivity were collected during the social evaluative stress-challenge session.

Results

Brief mindfulness meditation training reduced self-reported psychological stress reactivity but increased salivary cortisol reactivity to the TSST, relative to the cognitive training comparison program. Participants who were low in pre-existing levels of dispositional mindfulness and then received mindfulness meditation training had the greatest cortisol reactivity to the TSST. No significant main or interactive effects were observed for systolic or diastolic blood pressure reactivity to the TSST.

Conclusions

The present study provides an initial indication that brief mindfulness meditation training buffers self-reported psychological stress reactivity, but also increases cortisol reactivity to social evaluative stress. This pattern may indicate that initially brief mindfulness meditation training fosters greater active coping efforts, resulting in reduced psychological stress appraisals and greater cortisol reactivity during social evaluative stressors.

Section snippets

Participants

We recruited 73 healthy male and female students from the Carnegie Mellon University and University of Pittsburgh campus communities. Inclusion criteria for study participation were being between the ages of 18 and 30 years, being mentally and physically healthy (i.e., no medical diagnosis of any ongoing disease), and not currently taking any form of oral contraceptive (i.e., birth control). We excluded one participant who was administered the wrong study training on day two and three

Preliminary analyses

Randomization was successful in equalizing the mindfulness and cognitive training control groups at baseline; they did not differ significantly on age (t(64) = −.05, p = .96), gender (χ2(1) = 1.81, p = .18), ethnicity (χ2(4) = 5.89, p = .21), prior exposure to meditation or mind-body practices (χ2(1) = .33, p = .57), or day one dispositional mindfulness (t(63) = −1.36, p = .18). Likewise, on the day three TSST session, there were no group differences in time of day of first cortisol sample (t(64) = −.43, p = .67).

Did

Discussion

The present study is the first to demonstrate that a small dose of mindfulness meditation training (75 min over three days) reduces self-reported psychological stress reactivity to the TSST. Notably, this same psychological stress buffering effect was observed for participants who had high levels of dispositional mindfulness upon study entry. These results are consistent with previous studies indicating that eight weeks of mindfulness training or high levels of dispositional mindfulness are

Conclusions

The present study offers new insights into how brief mindfulness meditation training and dispositional mindfulness can impact stress reactivity to an acute stress challenge. Compared to an active cognitive analytic control training, we provide initial evidence that a brief mindfulness meditation training program (75 min) buffers self-reported psychological stress reactivity and increases cortisol reactivity to the TSST. We postulate that this pattern reflects greater engagement and active coping

Role of the funding source

This research was supported by the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse Opportunity Fund.

Conflicts of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest.

Acknowledgments

We thank Fadel Zeidan for sharing his mindfulness meditation scripts, which we adapted for this study, the research assistants in the Health and Human Performance Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University, and Sheldon Cohen for feedback.

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