The effects of intensive mindfulness meditation training on mental health: evidence of effectiveness and safety from a matched-controlled intervention study

We sought to address a growing debate regarding the adverse and salutary impact of unusual, extraordinary or intense subjective experiences during meditation-based interventions. To do so, we empirically characterized such peak experiences during an intensive meditation intervention and their impact postintervention. We conducted a preregistered prospective intervention study among 96 adults who registered for 6-day insight (Vipassana) mindfulness meditation retreats and 47 matched controls. Controls were selected from a pool of 543 people recruited from the same community of meditators as retreat participants and systematically matched to retreat participants on age and lifetime meditation experience. Measures included the novel Peak Meditative Experience Scale and the Impact of PMES. Seventeen peak experiences that were primarily pleasant (e.g., deep and unusual peace, aha! Moment) occurred more frequently among retreat participants than among matched controls in daily living (ps < .05; mean ϕ = .33). In contrast, 14 peak experiences that were mostly unpleasant (e.g., flashbacks, overwhelming sadness) occurred at similar rates in both groups (ps > .05). At 2-week follow-up, the perceived impact of all pleasant and most unpleasant peak experiences was more salutary than adverse (ps ≤ .015; M Cohen's d = 1.61). Peak experiences that resulted from meditation retreats were primarily pleasant and had a large salutary impact postretreat. Inconsistent with conclusions from uncontrolled retrospective studies, findings document that intensive insight mindfulness meditation training in retreats may not contribute to unpleasant peak experiences and even when they occurred their impact was typically more salutary than adverse. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Secular Mindfulness-Based Interventions: Efficacy and Neurobiology.

BackgroundMindfulness meditation training interventions have been shown to improve markers of health, but the underlying neurobiological mechanisms are not known. Building on initial cross-sectional research showing that mindfulness meditation may increase default mode network (DMN) resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) with regions important in top-down executive control (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex [dlPFC]), here we test whether mindfulness meditation training increases DMN-dlPFC rsFC and whether these rsFC alterations prospectively explain improvements in interleukin (IL)-6 in a randomized controlled trial. MethodsStressed job-seeking unemployed community adults (n = 35) were randomized to either a 3-day intensive residential mindfulness meditation or relaxation training program. Participants completed a 5-minute resting-state scan before and after the intervention program. Participants also provided blood samples at preintervention and at 4-month follow-up, which were assayed for circulating IL-6, a biomarker of systemic inflammation. ResultsWe tested for alterations in DMN rsFC using a posterior cingulate cortex seed-based analysis and found that mindfulness meditation training, and not relaxation training, increased posterior cingulate cortex rsFC with left dlPFC (p < .05, corrected). These pretraining to posttraining alterations in posterior cingulate cortex-dlPFC rsFC statistically mediated mindfulness meditation training improvements in IL-6 at 4-month follow-up. Specifically, these alterations in rsFC statistically explained 30% of the overall mindfulness meditation training effects on IL-6 at follow-up. ConclusionsThese findings provide the first evidence that mindfulness meditation training functionally couples the DMN with a region known to be important in top-down executive control at rest (left dlPFC), which, in turn, is associated with improvements in a marker of inflammatory disease risk.

Does the experience of being pregnant, giving birth and becoming a mother affect women’s mental health over their reproductive life course? Much of the research on maternal mental health has focused on the perinatal period. In recent times, research has extended to patterns of women’s mental health over the years following the birth of their baby. In this thesis, associations between women’s experiences around pregnancy and giving birth, and patterns of their mental health impairment in the years following the baby’s birth, are examined. Participants: Three datasets were used for this thesis. The primary dataset was the Mater and University of Queensland Study of Pregnancy (MUSP) longitudinal birth cohort which recruited 6753 pregnant women between 1981 and 1984. Data-collection phases occurred at women’s first clinic visit, at three to five days, six months and five, 14, 21 and 27 years post-birth. The second dataset was accessed from Brisbane’s Mater Mothers’ Hospital (MMH) public obstetric database and consisted of routinely collected data from women attending MMH. Six years of de-identified data from 19699 women, from 2001 to 2006, were analysed. The third dataset comprised a cohort of women from the ‘Thirty year study of the health and lifestyle of pregnant women’ project. These 2156 pregnant women were recruited at their MMH booking visit between 2011 and 2012. Methods: Six studies are the core contribution of this body of research. These studies, five cohort studies and one cross-sectional study, addressed the thesis’ aims and objectives. Studies’ outcome measures generally related to women’s mental health, rated by the Delusions-Symptoms-States-Inventory: state of Anxiety and Depression (DSSI/sAD) (Bedford et al., 1976) and assessed at time-points post-birth. In three studies, women’s DSSI depression measures at various time-points were combined to create depressive-symptoms trajectories. The Mental Disorder Screening Tool (MDST), constructed from women’s DSSI/sAD responses (Saiepour et al., 2014) and measuring mental health impairment, was an outcome measure for one study. Another study’s outcomes were based on women’s reported alcohol consumption before pregnancy and at their first clinic visit. A broad range of predictor and potential confounding variables, taken at different MUSP survey phases, were included in the studies’ analyses. Descriptive and inferential analyses were used. Univariate and multivariable regression analysis derived odds ratios and relative risk ratios with 95% confidence intervals. Findings: The majority of women studied experienced few mental health problems during pregnancy and over their reproductive life course (spanning 30 years), while a sub-group of women continued to experience symptoms of depression in the years following their baby’s birth. Patterns of women’s depressive symptoms over 21 and 27 years were identified. Pregnancy and birth events were found to contribute little to women’s experience of depression. Pregnant women who experienced stressful life events (that is, financial, housing and relational events), were at higher risk of having depressive symptoms over the 27-year period. The proportion of women with mental health impairment was higher at 21 years post birth than at six months post birth. Women whose offspring had behaviour problems were themselves at risk of mental health impairment at 21 years post birth. As well, mental health problems in pregnancy; young motherhood; not completing high school and low family income; and having poor social networks around baby’s birth, and marital discord in pregnancy, predicted women’s poorer mental health over time. Today’s pregnant women are more likely to be older and have higher body mass indexes, more likely to be anxious but not depressed, and more are sure about wanting to be pregnant, compared to pregnant women from previous decades. Today’s pregnant women are also less likely to be smokers but are more often consuming alcohol prior to pregnancy, though they substantially reduce their alcohol consumption in pregnancy. Socio-economic disadvantage and psychosocial problems in pregnancy increase women’s risk of long-term mental health problems. Conclusions: Being pregnant and giving birth per se triggered few long-term mental health consequences for women. Rather, pregnant women’s characteristics and psychosocial factors (that is, measures of poor mental and physical health, socioeconomic disadvantage and disturbed social environments) were associated with mental health consequences over time. Having strong support networks and positive partner relationships could abrogate the negative social-environments that arise from women experiencing stressful events, mental health impairment and poor social economy. These findings add to what is already known by showing that factors impacting on the mental health of pregnant women are more extensive in duration than has been previously reported. These findings provide maternity services with further evidence of the need for comprehensive, perinatal screening to identify women at risk and the prospect of disrupting patterns of mental health impairment over their life course. Midwifery researchers are well-placed to study the perinatal risks associated with women’s long-term mental health problems, causal pathways, and the interplay between pregnant women’s physical and mental health, and their biological responses to social adversity.

ObjectivesResearch demonstrates that meditation interventions tend to positively influence social well-being. Yet, prior research has exclusively examined meditation in relation to average levels of social outcomes (e.g., social connectedness), despite other work demonstrating variability or fluctuations in social functioning play a distinct role in contributing to well-being. This study examined the hypothesis that training in mindfulness meditation and loving-kindness meditation would predict lower variability in social connectedness, even accounting for their positive influence on average levels of social connectedness. Moreover, this study also examined the hypothesis that lower variability in positive and negative emotions would mediate the link between training in meditation and reduced variability in social connectedness.MethodsThese hypotheses were tested using a randomized study of 224 mid-life adults. Participants received training in either mindfulness or loving-kindness meditation for 6 weeks. They reported their daily social connectedness and emotions for 2 weeks prior to the training, 6 weeks during the training, and 3 weeks after the training.ResultsConsistent with hypotheses, results demonstrated that participants in both meditation groups reported lower variability in social connectedness across the course of the intervention, even accounting for average levels of connectedness. Moreover, lower positive and negative affective variability partially mediated the association between time (training in meditation) and reduced variability in social connectedness.ConclusionsThese results suggest that (a) meditation may help to smooth social ups and downs across time and that (b) it may do so via its association with reduced affective variability.

Informal carers represent a substantial proportion of the population in many countries and health is an important factor in their capacity to continue care-giving. This study investigated the impact of care-giving on the mental and physical health of informal carers, taking account of contextual factors, including family and work. We examined health changes from before care-giving commenced to 2 and 4years after, using longitudinal data from the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey. The sample comprised 424 carers and 424 propensity score-matched non-carers. Health was self-assessed, measured with the SF-36 Health Survey Mental Health (MH) and Physical Functioning (PF) scales. Care-giving was classified as non-carer, low (<5hours/week), moderate (5-19hours/week) and high (20 or more hours/week). PF and MH change scores were regressed on baseline scores, care-giving, covariates (including work, family and socio-demographic characteristics) and interactions to identify impacts for subgroups. The physical and mental health impacts differed by gender, and care-giving hours and carer work hours were important contextual factors. Deterioration in both PF and MH was worse for females after 2years and deterioration in MH was worse for males after 4years. Among carers aged 40-64years, there was a 17-point decline in PF (P=0.009) and a 14-point decline in MH (P<0.0001) after 2years for female high caregivers working full-time and 9.3 point improvement (P=0.02) for non-working male high caregivers. Change was not significant for non-carers. The study found that not all carers suffer adverse health impacts; however, the combination of high levels of care-giving with workforce participation can increase the risk of negative physical and mental health effects (particularly in female carers). Working carers providing high levels of care represent a vulnerable subgroup where supportive and preventive services might be focused.

Mindfulness and emotion regulation in clinically depressed youth

Effects of brief mindfulness meditation training on attention and dispositional mindfulness in young adult males

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

When should we intervene in adolescent depression and with whom?

Appropriate regulation of emotions is vital to daily functioning. Previous studies have shown that regulating negative emotions can improve health and wellbeing. However, the relationship between positive and negative emotion regulation and their interactions with positive and negative affect, life satisfaction, and health is not well understood. In addition, no studies have investigated the role of attention control and trait mindfulness in positive and negative emotion regulation. This study examined the associations between positive and negative emotion regulation abilities and health, affect, life satisfaction, attention control, and trait mindfulness. A total of 490 participants (284 females and 206 males, mean age = 25.8 ± 2.9 years, range = 20–29 years) completed questionnaires and attention measuring tasks. Multiple regression analyses revealed that negative emotion regulation ability was associated with affect, life satisfaction, and health, whereas positive emotion regulation ability was related to negative affect and mental and physical health. Additionally, negative rather than positive emotion regulation ability was more strongly associated with trait mindfulness and attention control. Positive emotion regulation may benefit those who have difficulty in regulating negative emotions. By focusing on both negative and positive emotion regulation, this study elucidates the relationship between emotion regulation ability, positive and negative affect, life satisfaction, health, mindfulness, and attention control.

What Have You Survived?

Mindfulness meditation training has been previously shown to enhance behavioral measures of executive control (e.g., attention, working memory, cognitive control), but the neural mechanisms underlying these improvements are largely unknown. Here, we test whether mindfulness training interventions foster executive control by strengthening functional connections between dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC)-a hub of the executive control network-and frontoparietal regions that coordinate executive function. Thirty-five adults with elevated levels of psychological distress participated in a 3-day randomized controlled trial of intensive mindfulness meditation or relaxation training. Participants completed a resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging scan before and after the intervention. We tested whether mindfulness meditation training increased resting state functional connectivity (rsFC) between dlPFC and frontoparietal control network regions. Left dlPFC showed increased connectivity to the right inferior frontal gyrus (T = 3.74), right middle frontal gyrus (MFG) (T = 3.98), right supplementary eye field (T = 4.29), right parietal cortex (T = 4.44), and left middle temporal gyrus (T = 3.97, all p < .05) after mindfulness training relative to the relaxation control. Right dlPFC showed increased connectivity to right MFG (T = 4.97, p < .05). We report that mindfulness training increases rsFC between dlPFC and dorsal network (superior parietal lobule, supplementary eye field, MFG) and ventral network (right IFG, middle temporal/angular gyrus) regions. These findings extend previous work showing increased functional connectivity among brain regions associated with executive function during active meditation by identifying specific neural circuits in which rsFC is enhanced by a mindfulness intervention in individuals with high levels of psychological distress. Clinicaltrials.gov,NCT01628809.

Since 2022, there has been a growing concern about massive amount of losing rent deposit, which is called Jeonse fraud in South Korea. In response to the growing risk, a series of policies and institutional improvements have been implemented. While previous studies have focused largely on examining the descriptive patterns of individual losing-rent-deposit cases and potential influencing factors, there is little research on under what conditions households placed at the risk of losing rent deposit are more adversely affected. We examine which household characteristics are likely to exacerbate mental health, physical health, and credit status of households facing the rent deposit crisis, particularly investigating how health and credit status changes differ depending on the different types of situations and different responses to such risk. We analyzed survey data collected from 249 households in Gangseo-gu, Seoul, that are placed at the risk of losing rent deposit. The analysis revealed that households not eligible for emergency livelihood support, with annual incomes not exceeding 70 million won, and with higher percentages of rental deposit loans were likely to indicate deterioration in mental and physical health. Furthermore, households applying for publicly supported loans were found to have experienced more deterioration in mental health or credit status. Particularly, having the rental deposit return guarantee insurance mitigated the deterioration in mental health, suggesting the importance of preventive policy measures to minimize invisible damages to victims.

The objectives of this study were to examine the prevalence and associations of mindfulness meditation use and also its perceived mental health effects during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using repeated cross-sectional data from broad online samples weighted to be representative of the adult population in Britain, we estimated the prevalence of mindfulness meditation use and employed logistic regression models to investigate sociodemographic and political associations of mindfulness meditation use and also its perceived mental health effects during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings suggest that 16 percent of adults in Britain had learnt to practice mindfulness in 2021. In covariate-adjusted regression models, having learnt to practice mindfulness was more common among young and middle-aged adults, residents in London, and respondents who voted for the Liberal Democrats. Among mindfulness meditation users who reported having practiced mindfulness during the COVID-19 pandemic, 60 percent reported that it positively affected their mental health and 24 percent reported that it negatively affected their mental health. Notably, 41 percent of respondents with children under 18 (versus 13 percent of those without minors) reported negative mental health effects. In covariate-adjusted regression models, negative mental health effects from mindfulness practice during the COVID-19 pandemic were not concentrated in any particular groups, except for respondents with children under 18. Mindfulness meditation has become widespread in Britain, but the results in this study suggest that mindfulness meditation use may be concentrated in certain sociodemographic and political groups. The results also suggest that practicing mindfulness during the COVID-19 pandemic had positive mental health effects for a majority of users, but approximately one-quarter of users reported negative mental health effects. It is therefore important for future research to continue monitoring the prevalence of mindfulness meditation use in society and to investigate under what circumstances, for whom, and in what ways mindfulness-based practices may have negative effects on mental health.