Awareness-based compassion meditation (ABCM) training reduced anxiety and right amygdala activity during negative emotion processing compared to relaxation training. Participants who practiced more compassion showed stronger reductions in right amygdala activity. These changes occurred while participants viewed emotional images in a non-meditative state, suggesting that the effects of meditation on emotional reactivity carry over into everyday life. The findings indicate that meditation practice may help manage stress by lowering distress responses even when not actively meditating.
Changes in awareness can moderate the relationship between brain activity and cortisol levels. In a longitudinal study, 21 Chinese participants practiced either Awareness-based compassion meditation (ABCM) or relaxation. Those who showed greater changes in awareness also showed stronger associations between hippocampal changes and cortisol changes. A negative link was found between plasma cortisol changes and resting-state synchrony of the right hippocampus and insular-frontal-operculum regions. These findings suggest that planned behavioral experiences, such as meditation, can influence how the brain regulates cortisol, potentially informing interventions for cortisol-related disorders.