A mindfulness-based program combining meditation, dietary advice, and yoga reduced stress and improved well-being, emotional regulation, resilience, and attention among medical students. In a randomized trial with 362 Italian medical students, those who participated in the 10-session intervention showed significantly lower perceived stress, less mind-wandering, and better emotional regulation compared to controls. The program also enhanced mental well-being, resilience, and attentional control, while reducing overall distress. These results suggest that such integrative interventions can help mitigate the psychological strain common in medical education.
An 8-week mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program lowered perceived stress, anxiety, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, salivary cortisol, and the pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-6 and IL-8, while increasing awareness and plasma carotenoid levels in 42 adult volunteers. Changes in stress and anxiety correlated with changes in IL-8 and awareness. The program appears to reduce nervous system activation and cortisol, thereby lowering inflammation and oxidative stress, which may help manage hypertension and other stress-related conditions.
During Italy's March 2020 COVID-19 lockdown, a short online mindfulness-based meditation program (Integral Meditation, IM) was tested in healthy adults. The quasi-experimental study matched 84 participants into treated and control groups. Linear mixed-effect models showed that IM significantly improved wellbeing (WEMWBS score increased by 4.61 points) and reduced state anxiety (STAI-X1 score decreased by 8.24 points) only among those with higher baseline trait anxiety. No significant effect on perceived stress was found. The program may benefit mental health specifically for people prone to anxiety.