Effects of mindfulness and fatigue on emotional processing: an event-related potentials study.
Jialin Fan, Wenjing Li, Mingping Lin, Xinqi Li, Xinmei Deng
Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 2023 DOI: 10.3389/fnbeh.2023.1175067 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Randomized controlled trial Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 145 |
| Population | Adult participants (145) completing an emotional processing task |
| Intervention | Mindfulness meditation |
| Measures | Late positive potential (LPP) |
| Topics | Meditation |
| Keywords | Emotion processing Event-related potentials Fatigue |
| Key findings | In the non-mindfulness group, more fatigued individuals showed lower LPP amplitudes across early, mid, and late windows, whereas the mindfulness group showed no such association. The authors suggest mindfulness meditation helps maintain responsiveness to emotional stimuli during fatigue. |
Abstract
Fatigue is a common experience in everyday life. People who experience fatigue will have more intense negative emotions, and at the same time, their positive emotions will decrease, impairing the individual's emotional processing ability. In previous research, mindfulness meditation reduces the intensity of negative emotional stimuli. However, if individuals continue to be affected by negative emotions when they are fatigued, it is unclear whether mindfulness can buffer the negative association between fatigue and emotions. This study examined whether mindfulness meditation affects the association between fatigue and emotions, using event-related potentials (ERPs). One hundred and forty-five participants completed the experiment. They were randomly assigned to the Mindfulness or Non-mindfulness group; and they were presented with positive, neutral, or negative pictures in an emotional processing task before and after mindfulness or rest. Late positive potential (LPP) is an important indicator of emotional stimuli perceived by individuals, and positive or negative pictures can induce an increase in LPP amplitude more than neutral pictures. Our findings suggest that fatigue significantly affected individuals' LPP amplitudes in the early, mid, and late windows in the Non-mindfulness group, specifically, the more fatigued individuals had lower LPP amplitudes, but not in the Mindfulness group. These results suggest that in a state of fatigue, mindful individuals are able to maintain responsiveness to emotional stimuli by maintaining LPP amplitude. Our study has demonstrated that mindfulness meditation, to some extent, offsets the negative association of fatigue with the neural activation of emotions.
Comparable studies
Other randomized controlled trials on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alterations in Brain and Immune Function Produced by Mindfulness Meditation Healthy employees in a work environment | 2003 | Randomized controlled trial | n = 41 |
| Prevention of relapse/recurrence in major depression by mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. Recovered recurrently depressed patients | 2000 | Randomized controlled trial | n = 145 |
| Open hearts build lives: Positive emotions, induced through loving-kindness meditation, build consequential personal resources. Working adults | 2008 | Randomized controlled trial | n = 139 |
| Short-term meditation training improves attention and self-regulation Undergraduate Chinese students | 2007 | Randomized controlled trial | n = 40 |
| Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression: Replication and Exploration of Differential Relapse Prevention Effects. Recovered recurrently depressed patients | 2004 | Randomized controlled trial | n = 73 |
Citations in the library
Cited by 2
- Implementation Readiness and Initial Effects of a Brief Mindfulness Audio Intervention Compared With a Brief Music Control During Daily Radiation Therapy for Prostate Cancer: A Randomized Pilot Study. Global Advances in Integrative Medicine and Health 2024
- Electroencephalography-Based Measures to Understand Meditation and Mindfulness: Bibliometric Scoping Review of Randomized Controlled Trials. Global Advances in Integrative Medicine and Health 2026
Cites 12
- Mechanisms of mindfulness Journal of Clinical Psychology December 29, 2005
- Alterations in Brain and Immune Function Produced by Mindfulness Meditation Psychosomatic Medicine July 1, 2003
- Dispositional mindfulness and the attenuation of neural responses to emotional stimuli Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience January 17, 2012
- The impact of mindfulness on well-being and performance in the workplace: an inclusive systematic review of the empirical literature European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology April 19, 2017
- Differences in frontal EEG asymmetry during emotion regulation between high and low mindfulness adolescents. Biological Psychology December 3, 2020
and 7 more in the library