Intertemporal meditation regulates time perception and emotions: an exploratory fNIRS study.
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience January 18, 2025 Feng Xiao, Qimei Peng, XiaoTian Wang
Repeatedly imagining one's own future life up to its end, a practice called intertemporal meditation, shortens perceived time and increases feelings of peacefulness while reducing anxiety in young adults. Intertemporal meditation combines mindfulness meditation with episodic future thinking. Compared with mindfulness meditation alone, intertemporal meditation produced higher overall brain activity, especially in left-hemisphere regions involved in emotion regulation and cognitive control (dorsolateral prefrontal, anterior prefrontal, and orbitofrontal cortices) and in right-hemisphere areas linked to social cue processing and autobiographical memory (Broca's area and middle temporal gyrus). The findings suggest intertemporal meditation helps regulate emotions and may improve cognitive control.