Abstract Emerging evidence suggests that adults with a history of early life adversity (ELA), while more susceptible to psychopathology, may also be particularly sensitive to the benefits of contemplative practices. In the present study, we examined whether ELA was associated with greater mental health benefits following a contemplative-based social resilience training program, administered as...
To cope with chronic stress, which can contribute to depression, humans often pursue arousal-reducing activities. Yet, hormetic stressors (intermittent, acute stressors) might also reduce chronic stress. We compared the effects of arousal-reducing and arousal-enhancing interventions on depressive symptoms and perceived stress. Female adults (N = 141; predominantly White, 63%, and Asian, 34%)...
Mindfulness meditation may improve well-being among employees; however, effects of digital meditation programs are poorly understood. To evaluate the effects of digital meditation vs a waiting list condition on general and work-specific stress and whether greater engagement in the intervention moderates these effects. This randomized clinical trial included a volunteer sample of adults (aged...
Stress is a driver of depression, and people with depression often struggle to cope with stress and anxiety. This study directly compares the mental health effects of a Wim Hof Method intervention to an active control condition (slow breathing) in women with high stress and high depressive symptoms. We randomized 84 healthy midlife women with high stress and high depressive symptoms to either:...
High ventilation breathwork with retention (HVBR) has been growing in popularity over the past decade and might be beneficial for mental and physical health. However, little research has explored the potential therapeutic effects of brief, remotely delivered HVBR and the tolerability profile of this technique. Accordingly, we investigated the effects of a fully-automated HVBR protocol, along...
Abstract High ventilation breathwork with retention (HVBR) might be beneficial for mental/physical health and has been growing in popularity over the past decade. However, little research has investigated the potential therapeutic effects of brief, remotely delivered HVBR and the tolerability profile of this technique. This study (NCT06064474) was the largest blinded randomised-controlled trial...
Given its putative roles in mediating prosocial behavior, attachment bonds, and stress physiology, oxytocin modulation has been hypothesized to be a biological correlate of the salubrious effects of meditation practice. Here we investigated the effects of a month-long silent meditation retreat on changes in oxytocin, and the related hormone and vasopressin, in relation to psychosocial changes...
Engaging in contemplative practice like meditation, yoga, and prayer, is beneficial for psychological and physical well-being. Recent research has identified several underlying psychological and biological pathways that explain these benefits. However, there is not yet consensus on the underlying overlapping physiological mechanisms of contemplative practice benefits. In this article, we...
Mindfulness meditation may improve well-being at work; however, effects on food cravings and metabolic health are not well known. We tested effects of digital meditation, alone or in combination with a healthy eating program, on perceived stress, cravings, and adiposity. We randomized 161 participants with overweight and moderate stress to digital meditation ('MED,' n = 38), digital meditation...
Engaging in contemplative practices like meditation, yoga, and prayer, is greatly beneficial for psychological and physical well-being. Recent research has identified some of the underlying psychological and biological pathways that explain these benefits. However, an overarching model has yet to be developed that incorporates the latest research from intervention and experimental studies with...
Objective: To determine the effects of ESRT (an iteratively adapted and tailored MBI) on perceived stress, executive cognitive function, psychosocial well-being (ie, burnout, mindfulness), and pro-inflammatory gene expression in surgical (ESRT-1) and mixed specialty (ESRT-2) PGY-1 volunteers. Summary of background and data: Tailored MBIs have proven beneficial in multiple high-stress and...
Both theoretical and empirical work support the notion that meditation training can improve telomere regulation, which may ultimately contribute to healthy aging. Yet, the psychological and biological mechanisms underlying these changes remain underspecified, as do the contexts and boundary conditions in which these changes occur. Here we summarize studies investigating the effects of various...
BACKGROUND: Diet patterns have a profound influence on glycemic control for individuals with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), and craving-related eating is an important obstacle to dietary adherence. A growing body of research suggests that carbohydrate-restricted (CR) diets can improve glycemic control and reduce medication dependence in T2DM. However, limited data speak to the effects of...
Evidence links depression and stress to more rapid progression of HIV-1 disease. We conducted a randomized controlled trial to test whether an intervention aimed at improving stress management and emotion regulation, mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), would improve immunological (i.e. CD4+ T-cell counts) and psychological outcomes in persons with HIV-1 infection. We randomly assigned...
a Center for Mind and Brain, University of California, Davis, 267 Cousteau Place, Davis, CA 95618, United States Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, 135 Young Hall, Davis, CA 95616, United States c Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics, University of California, San Francisco, 600 16th St, San Francisco, CA 94158, United States d Center for Neuroscience, University of...
BACKGROUND: Pregnancy is a time of high risk for excessive weight gain, leading to health-related consequences for mothers and offspring. Theory-based obesity interventions that target proposed mechanisms of biobehavioral change are needed, in addition to simply providing nutritional and weight gain directives. Mindfulness training is hypothesized to reduce stress and non-homeostatic eating...
A growing body of evidence suggests that meditation training may have a range of salubrious effects, including improved telomere regulation. Telomeres and the enzyme telomerase interact with a variety of molecular components to regulate cell-cycle signaling cascades, and are implicated in pathways linking psychological stress to disease. We investigated the effects of intensive meditation...
Behavioral MedicineNovember 7, 2017Kelly M Carpenter, Katrina A Vickerman, Erica E Salmon et al.
This study evaluated the feasibility and efficacy of integrating mindfulness training into a phone-based weight loss program to improve outcomes in those with high levels of emotional eating. Participants were 75 enrollees into an employer-sponsored weight loss program who reported high levels of overeating in response to thoughts and feelings. Seventy-five overweight and obese participants...
Background and objective: Sleep disturbance is a common problem among adults with obesity. Mindfulness interventions have been shown to improve sleep quality in various populations but have not been investigated in adults with obesity. The aim of this study was to compare the effects of a mindfulness-based weight-loss intervention with an active control on self-reported sleep quality among...
Meditation is becoming increasingly practiced, especially for stress-related medical conditions. Meditation may improve cellular health; however, studies have not separated out effects of meditation from vacation-like effects in a residential randomized controlled trial. We recruited healthy women non-meditators to live at a resort for 6 days and randomized to either meditation retreat or...
We evaluated changes in mindful eating as a potential mechanism underlying the effects of a mindfulness-based intervention for weight loss on eating of sweet foods and fasting glucose levels. We randomized 194 obese individuals (M age = 47.0 ± 12.7 years; BMI = 35.5 ± 3.6; 78% women) to a 5.5-month diet-exercise program with or without mindfulness training. The mindfulness group, relative to...
Cognitive perseverations that include worry and rumination over past or future events may prolong cortisol release, which in turn may contribute to predisease pathways and adversely affect physical health. Meditation training may increase self-reported mindfulness, which has been linked to reductions in cognitive perseverations. However, there are no reports that directly link self-reported...
Psychological distress and elevated cortisol secretion promote abdominal fat, a feature of the Metabolic Syndrome. Effects of stress reduction interventions on abdominal fat are unknown. Forty-seven overweight/obese women (mean BMI =31.2) were randomly assigned to a 4-month intervention or waitlist group to explore effects of a mindfulness program for stress eating. We assessed mindfulness,...
Telomerase activity is a predictor of long-term cellular viability, which decreases with chronic psychological distress (Epel et al., 2004). Buddhist traditions claim that meditation decreases psychological distress and promotes well-being (e.g., Dalai Lama and Cutler, 2009). Therefore, we investigated the effects of a 3-month meditation retreat on telomerase activity and two major contributors...
Understanding the malleable determinants of cellular aging is critical to understanding human longevity. Telomeres may provide a pathway for exploring this question. Telomeres are the protective caps at the ends of chromosomes. The length of telomeres offers insight into mitotic cell and possibly organismal longevity. Telomere length has now been linked to chronic stress exposure and...