American Psychologist
August 7, 2025
J. David Creswell, Simon B. Goldberg
14 citations
Smartphone-based meditation training has jumped onto the world stage, shifting how millions of people learn and practice meditation. This review examines the rapid proliferation of meditation apps and synthesizes current scientific findings on their usage patterns, efficacy, mechanisms of action, and safety. Though research lags well behind public adoption, recent randomized controlled trials...
Emotion
November 21, 2024
Emily K. Lindsay, Shinzen Young, J. David Creswell
9 citations
= .21). Results suggest that mindfulness training, and acceptance training in particular, can broaden awareness to include more positive affective experiences. This work has important implications for understanding coping and affect dynamics following mindfulness interventions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).
Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Science
2023
Ceci Westbrook, Janine M. Dutcher, Susan Kusmierski et al.
7 citations
Uncontrollable worry is a hallmark of generalized anxiety disorder and a transdiagnostic feature of psychopathology. Mindfulness-based strategies show promise for treating worry, but it is unknown which specific strategies are most beneficial, and how these skills might operate on a neurobiological level. We recruited 40 participants with clinically significant worry to undergo functional...
May 3, 2022
Ceci Westbrook, Janine M. Dutcher, Susan Kusmierski et al.
preprint
Uncontrollable worry is a hallmark of generalized anxiety disorder and a transdiagnostic feature of psychopathology. Mindfulness-based strategies show promise for treating worry, but neural mechanisms of mindful disengagement remain incompletely characterized. We recruited 40 participants with clinically significant worry to undergo fMRI while engaging in real-time, idiographic worry and...
Brain Behavior and Immunity
April 12, 2022
Janine M. Dutcher, Steve W Cole, Adrian Williams et al.
29 citations
Mindfulness meditation training has been shown to be an effective stress reduction strategy, but less is known about its immunoregulatory impact. In a randomized controlled trial of stressed customer service workers, the present study tested whether a 30-day smartphone-based mindfulness meditation training program (compared to a problem-solving control program) would affect pro-inflammatory...
Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience
July 23, 2021
Hadley Rahrig, James M. Bjork, Camila Tirado et al.
17 citations
Reactive aggression, a hostile retaliatory response to perceived threat, has been attributed to failures in emotion regulation. Interventions for reactive aggression have largely focused on cognitive control training, which target top-down emotion regulation mechanisms to inhibit aggressive impulses. Recent theory suggests that mindfulness training (MT) improves emotion regulation via both...
Psychosomatic Medicine
March 3, 2021
Emily K. Lindsay, J. David Creswell, Harrison J. Stern et al.
18 citations
OBJECTIVE: Mindfulness interventions have been effective for improving a range of health outcomes; however, pathways underlying these effects remain unclear. Inflammatory processes may play a role, possibly through increased resistance of immune cells to the anti-inflammatory effects of glucocorticoids (i.e., glucocorticoid resistance, or GCR). Here, we conducted an initial examination of...
Journal of Experimental Psychology General
September 24, 2020
Brian Chin, Emily K. Lindsay, Carol M. Greco et al.
49 citations
Mindfulness interventions have been shown to improve several subcomponents of attention; however, the psychological mechanisms driving these improvements are unknown. Mindfulness interventions train individuals to monitor present moment experiences while adopting an attitude of acceptance toward these experiences. We conducted a theoretically driven randomized controlled trial to test the...
October 5, 2019
Emily K. Lindsay, J. David Creswell
11 citations
Experiential acceptance—an orientation of receptivity and noninterference with present-moment experiences—is described as central to mindfulness interventions, yet little experimental work has tested acceptance as a mechanism for mindfulness intervention effects. Guided by Monitor and Acceptance Theory (MAT), this review situates acceptance as an emotion regulation mechanism and reviews...
PLoS One
July 11, 2019
Daniella K. Villalba, Emily K. Lindsay, Anna L. Marsland et al.
59 citations
Mindfulness interventions have garnered significant attention as a complementary health treatment for many physical and psychological conditions. While some research has shown that mindfulness training can decrease psychological and physiological stress responses, it remains unclear whether mindfulness training impacts inflammation-a predictor of poor health outcomes. In addition, little...
Health Psychology
May 23, 2019
Brian Chin, Emily K. Lindsay, Carol M. Greco et al.
107 citations
OBJECTIVE: Mindfulness interventions have been shown to reduce stress; however, the mechanisms driving stress resilience effects are not known. Mindfulness interventions aim to teach individuals how to: (a) use attention to monitor present moment experiences; with (b) an attitude of acceptance and equanimity. A randomized controlled dismantling trial (RCT) was conducted to test the prediction...
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
December 1, 2018
Emily K. Lindsay, Brian Chin, Carol M. Greco et al.
221 citations
Mindfulness meditation interventions-which train skills in monitoring present-moment experiences with a lens of acceptance-have shown promise for increasing positive emotions. Using a theory-based approach, we hypothesized that learning acceptance skills in mindfulness interventions helps people notice more positive experiences in daily life, and tested whether removing acceptance training from...
Journal of Occupational Health Psychology
October 18, 2018
Jeremiah Slutsky, Brian Chin, Julianna Raye et al.
103 citations
Organizations are turning toward behavioral interventions with the aim of improving employee well-being and job performance. Mindfulness training has been suggested as one type of intervention that can achieve these goals, but few active treatment randomized controlled trials have been conducted. We conducted a randomized controlled trial among employees of a midwestern marketing firm (n = 60)...
August 21, 2018
Emily K. Lindsay, Brian Chin, Carol M. Greco et al.
9 citations
Mindfulness meditation interventions – which train skills in monitoring present-moment experiences with a lens of acceptance – have shown promise for increasing positive emotions. Using a theory-based approach, we hypothesized that learning acceptance skills in mindfulness interventions helps people notice more positive experiences in daily life, and tested whether removing acceptance training...
INDIGO
June 30, 2018
J. David Creswell
44 citations
In order to consider how this capacity of the mind (‘mindfulness’) impacts our biology, this chapter is divided into three parts. First, I formalize an account for how mindfulness might affect health: the mindfulness stress-buffering hypothesis—and then consider the available evidence for this account. Second, I will ground this stress buffering account in an evidence-based biological model...
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology
June 25, 2018
Maya C. Schumer, Emily K. Lindsay, J. David Creswell
321 citations
OBJECTIVE: Over the last 10 years, there has been a dramatic increase in published randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of brief mindfulness training (from single-session inductions to multisession interventions lasting up to 2 weeks), with some preliminary indications that these training programs may improve mental health outcomes, such as negative affectivity. This meta-analysis aimed to...
September 28, 2017
Emily K. Lindsay, Shinzen Young, Joshua M. Smyth et al.
9 citations
preprint
Objective: Mindfulness interventions, which train practitioners to monitor their present-moment experience with a lens of acceptance, are known to buffer stress reactivity. Little is known about the active mechanisms driving these effects. We theorize that acceptance is a critical emotion regulation mechanism underlying mindfulness stress reduction effects. Method: In this three-arm parallel...
Psychosomatic Medicine
March 22, 2017
Adrienne A. Taren, Peter J. Gianaros, Carol M. Greco et al.
212 citations
OBJECTIVE: Mindfulness meditation training has been previously shown to enhance behavioral measures of executive control (e.g., attention, working memory, cognitive control), but the neural mechanisms underlying these improvements are largely unknown. Here, we test whether mindfulness training interventions foster executive control by strengthening functional connections between dorsolateral...
Emotion
November 7, 2016
Hayley Rahl, Emily K. Lindsay, Laura E. Pacilio et al.
171 citations
Mindfulness meditation programs, which train individuals to monitor their present-moment experience in an open or accepting way, have been shown to reduce mind wandering on standardized tasks in several studies. Here we test 2 competing accounts for how mindfulness training reduces mind wandering, evaluating whether the attention-monitoring component of mindfulness training alone reduces mind...
Annual Review of Psychology
September 30, 2016
J. David Creswell
1,669 citations
Mindfulness interventions aim to foster greater attention to and awareness of present moment experience. There has been a dramatic increase in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of mindfulness interventions over the past two decades. This article evaluates the growing evidence of mindfulness intervention RCTs by reviewing and discussing (a) the effects of mindfulness interventions on health,...
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
June 5, 2015
Adrienne A. Taren, Peter J. Gianaros, Carol M. Greco et al.
232 citations
Recent studies indicate that mindfulness meditation training interventions reduce stress and improve stress-related health outcomes, but the neural pathways for these effects are unknown. The present research evaluates whether mindfulness meditation training alters resting state functional connectivity (rsFC) of the amygdala, a region known to coordinate stress processing and physiological...
Current Directions in Psychological Science
December 1, 2014
J. David Creswell, Emily K. Lindsay
548 citations
Initial well-controlled studies have suggested that mindfulness training interventions can improve a broad range of mental and physical health outcomes (e.g., HIV pathogenesis, depression relapse, inflammation, drug abuse), yet the underlying pathways linking mindfulness and health are poorly understood. In this article, we offer a mindfulness stress buffering account to explain these health...
PLoS One
May 22, 2013
Adrienne A. Taren, J. David Creswell, Peter J. Gianaros
127 citations
Mindfulness, a psychological process reflecting attention and awareness to what is happening in the present moment, has been associated with increased well-being and decreased depression and anxiety in both healthy and patient populations. However, little research has explored underlying neural pathways. Recent work suggests that mindfulness (and mindfulness training interventions) may foster...
NeuroImage Clinical
2013
Britta K. Hölzel, Elizabeth A Hoge, Douglas N. Greve et al.
285 citations
Mindfulness training aims to impact emotion regulation. Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) symptoms can be successfully addressed through mindfulness-based interventions. This preliminary study is the first to investigate neural mechanisms of symptom improvements in GAD following mindfulness training. Furthermore, we compared brain activation between GAD patients and healthy participants at...
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
November 22, 2011
Cecilia Westbrook, J. David Creswell, Golnaz Tabibnia et al.
278 citations
An emerging body of research suggests that mindfulness-based interventions may be beneficial for smoking cessation and the treatment of other addictive disorders. One way that mindfulness may facilitate smoking cessation is through the reduction of craving to smoking cues. The present work considers whether mindful attention can reduce self-reported and neural markers of cue-induced craving in...