Mindfulness
January 1, 2026
Manuella B Kury, Barbara L. Fredrickson, Patty van Cappellen et al.
People with lower self-compassion before starting meditation training tend to gain greater emotional and mental health benefits. In a randomized intervention, 217 adults received six weeks of either mindfulness meditation or loving-kindness meditation. Those who began with lower self-compassion showed larger reductions in depressive symptoms and greater improvements in positive emotions and social connectedness over the intervention period. Increases in self-compassion from before to after training explained the link between meditation and lower depression, but only for those initially low in self-compassion. The findings suggest that individual differences in self-compassion shape how much people benefit from meditation, with those lowest in self-compassion potentially gaining the most.
Annals of behavioral medicine : a publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine
January 4, 2025
Elissa S Epel, Brian P Don, Stefanie E Mayer et al.
All four stress-reduction interventions—mindfulness meditation, slow breathing with warm showers, fast-paced breathing with cold showers (the Wim Hof Method), and high-intensity interval training—reduced depressive symptoms by about 16% and perceived stress by about 10% after three weeks in women with high stress. No group outperformed the others immediately after the intervention. However, a post hoc analysis of participants who adhered to their assigned program suggested that the Wim Hof Method group maintained lower depression scores and greater daily positive affect three months later, a finding that requires replication with larger, more diverse samples.
Comprehensive psychoneuroendocrinology
November 1, 2024
Robin Blades, Wendy Berry Mendes, Brian P Don et al.
A three-week intervention comparing the Wim Hof Method (breathing technique inducing intermittent hypoxia plus cold showers) with slow-paced breathing and warm showers in 84 midlife women with high stress and depressive symptoms produced equivalent mental health improvements. Both groups showed a 24% reduction in depressive symptoms, a 27% reduction in anxiety symptoms, and a 20% reduction in perceived stress immediately after the intervention, with gains maintained at three months, when 46% reported mild or no depressive symptoms. Both conditions also reduced daily negative affect and peak cortisol reactivity to a laboratory stressor. However, the Wim Hof Method led to greater reductions in rumination after daily stressful events, a finding needing replication.
Emotion (Washington, D.C.)
September 1, 2022
Taylor N West, Brian P Don, Barbara L. Fredrickson
Insecurely attached midlife adults from low-SES backgrounds who practiced meditation experienced shifts in their daily emotional profiles. Over 10 weeks, 113 participants were randomly assigned to either loving-kindness or mindfulness meditation for 6 weeks. Those with high attachment anxiety who practiced mindfulness showed increases in positive emotions and decreases in negative emotions over time. Individuals high in attachment avoidance experienced decreases in negative emotions regardless of meditation type. On a daily basis, more anxious individuals showed the strongest dose-response relationship: longer meditation sessions were linked to same-day increases in positive emotions and decreases in negative emotions. The findings suggest meditation can improve emotional well-being in those at risk for chronic illness.
Mindfulness
May 1, 2022
Brian P Don, Patty van Cappellen, Barbara L. Fredrickson
Training in either mindfulness or loving-kindness meditation for six weeks reduced day-to-day fluctuations in social connectedness among 224 mid-life adults, beyond simply raising average levels of connectedness. This smoothing of social ups and downs was partly explained by a corresponding reduction in the variability of both positive and negative emotions. The results suggest meditation helps stabilize social well-being by calming emotional swings.
Mindfulness
March 1, 2021
Brian P Don, Sara B Algoe, Barbara L. Fredrickson
Loving-kindness meditation training directly reduced social avoidance goals and indirectly increased social approach goals by enhancing positive emotion. In a randomized intervention with 138 mid-life adults, those who received loving-kindness training reported lower avoidance goals compared to a wait-list control group, while mindfulness training did not produce these effects. The findings suggest that practicing loving-kindness meditation can shift people's motivational tendencies in ways that may improve their social relationships.