The Role of Meditation in Shaping Resilience.
Ran Mo, Chang Liu, Junyi Hao
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences May 1, 2026 DOI: 10.1111/nyas.70300 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Interventions | Focused attention meditation Open monitoring meditation |
| Topics | Meditation |
| Keywords | Focused attention meditation Open monitoring meditation Resilience |
| Key points | Proposes that focused attention meditation enhances recoverability via executive control and open monitoring meditation attenuates vulnerability and facilitates interactivity through decentering, with the two practices working synergistically. |
Abstract
Resilience-the capacity to adapt, recover, and engage dynamically with adversity-has emerged as a central construct for understanding psychological health. Although meditation offers a promising route for cultivating resilience, current scholarship rarely differentiates between the mechanisms of focused attention meditation (FAM) and open monitoring meditation (OMM), thereby obscuring their distinct contributions to adaptive functioning. This perspective article integrates contemporary resilience theory with cognitive-affective models of meditation to propose the Meditation-Resilience Interaction Model (MRIM). The MRIM conceptualizes resilience as a dynamic triad of recoverability, vulnerability, and interactivity, each mapping onto distinct neurocognitive and regulatory processes. Specifically, FAM enhances recoverability via executive control, whereas OMM attenuates vulnerability and facilitates interactivity through decentering. Importantly, these practices operate synergistically: FAM provides the essential attentional scaffold for OMM to exert its broader resilience-promoting effects. By unifying contemplative science and resilience theory, the MRIM advances a process-based framework that informs personalized meditation interventions and lays a robust conceptual foundation for future empirical validation.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mindfulness: A proposed operational definition. | 2004 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mechanisms of mindfulness | 2005 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| How Does Mindfulness Meditation Work? Proposing Mechanisms of Action From a Conceptual and Neural Perspective | 2011 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depression | 2006 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-transcendence (S-ART): a framework for understanding the neurobiological mechanisms of mindfulness | 2012 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
Citations in the library
Cites 42
- Neural correlates of attentional expertise in long-term meditation practitioners Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences June 28, 2007
- Investigating the phenomenological matrix of mindfulness-related practices from a neurocognitive perspective. American Psychologist October 1, 2015
- The varieties of contemplative experience: A mixed-methods study of meditation-related challenges in Western Buddhists PLoS One May 24, 2017
- Mindfulness meditation training alters stress-related amygdala resting state functional connectivity: a randomized controlled trial Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience June 5, 2015
- Psychological mechanisms driving stress resilience in mindfulness training: A randomized controlled trial. Health Psychology May 23, 2019
and 37 more in the library