Mindfulness Meditation Targets Transdiagnostic Symptoms Implicated in Stress-Related Disorders: Understanding Relationships between Changes in Mindfulness, Sleep Quality, and Physical Symptoms.
Jeffrey M Greeson, Haley Zarrin, Moria J Smoski, Jeffrey Brantley, Thomas R Lynch, Daniel M Webber, Martica H Hall, Edward C Suarez, Ruth Q. Wolever
Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2018 DOI: 10.1155/2018/4505191 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Prospective observational study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 213 |
| Population | Participants in an 8-week MBSR program |
| Intervention | Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) |
| Duration | 8-week program |
| Topics | Meditation |
| Key findings | Increased mindfulness after MBSR was directly correlated with decreased sleep disturbance (r = -0.21) and decreased stress-related physical symptoms (r = -0.38). Changes in rumination, intrusive thoughts, thought suppression, experiential avoidance, emotion suppression, and cognitive reappraisal each uniquely accounted for up to 32% of the mindfulness-sleep correlation and up to 30% of the mindfulness-symptom correlation. The authors suggest MBSR's stress-reducing effects are due partly to improvements in perseverative cognition and emotion regulation. |
Abstract
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) is an 8-week meditation program known to improve anxiety, depression, and psychological well-being. Other health-related effects, such as sleep quality, are less well established, as are the psychological processes associated with therapeutic change. This prospective, observational study (n = 213) aimed to determine whether perseverative cognition, indicated by rumination and intrusive thoughts, and emotion regulation, measured by avoidance, thought suppression, emotion suppression, and cognitive reappraisal, partly accounted for the hypothesized relationship between changes in mindfulness and two health-related outcomes: sleep quality and stress-related physical symptoms. As expected, increased mindfulness following the MBSR program was directly correlated with decreased sleep disturbance (r = -0.21, p = 0.004) and decreased stress-related physical symptoms (r = -0.38, p < 0.001). Partial correlations revealed that pre-post changes in rumination, unwanted intrusive thoughts, thought suppression, experiential avoidance, emotion suppression, and cognitive reappraisal each uniquely accounted for up to 32% of the correlation between the change in mindfulness and change in sleep disturbance and up to 30% of the correlation between the change in mindfulness and change in stress-related physical symptoms. Results suggest that the stress-reducing effects of MBSR are due, in part, to improvements in perseverative cognition and emotion regulation, two "transdiagnostic" mental processes that cut across stress-related disorders.
Comparable studies
Other observational and cohort studies on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Using Self-Report Assessment Methods to Explore Facets of Mindfulness Undergraduate students | 2006 | Observational cohort | |
| Effectiveness of a meditation-based stress reduction program in the treatment of anxiety disorders Patients with generalized anxiety disorder or panic disorder with or without agoraphobia | 1992 | Observational cohort | n = 22 |
| Meditation experience is associated with increased cortical thickness Participants with extensive Insight meditation experience and matched controls | 2005 | Observational cohort | n = 20 |
| Meditation experience is associated with differences in default mode network activity and connectivity Experienced meditators and matched meditation-naive controls | 2011 | Observational cohort | |
| Long-term meditators self-induce high-amplitude gamma synchrony during mental practice Long-term Buddhist practitioners and controls | 2004 | Observational cohort |
Citations in the library
Cited by 19
- The (In)flexible self: Psychopathology, mindfulness, and neuroscience. International journal of clinical and health psychology : IJCHP 2023
- Dispositional Mindfulness and Psychotic Symptoms in Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders: The Mediating Roles of Rumination and Negative Emotion Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment 2022
- Enhanced dehydroepiandrosterone levels are positively correlated with N3 sleep stage in long-term mindfulness meditation practitioners. Sleep Science 2022
- Effects of online mindfulness-based stress reduction training on depression and anxiety symptoms among psychiatric healthcare workers in a randomized controlled trial: the mediating role of emotional suppression. BMC Psychiatry June 4, 2025
- ENIGMA-Meditation: Worldwide Consortium for Neuroscientific Investigations of Meditation Practices. Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging April 1, 2025
and 14 more in the library
Cites 10
- Meditation Programs for Psychological Stress and Well-being JAMA Internal Medicine January 6, 2014
- Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for Stress Management in Healthy People: A Review and Meta-Analysis The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine May 1, 2009
- An empirical study of the mechanisms of mindfulness in a mindfulness‐based stress reduction program Journal of Clinical Psychology March 6, 2009
- The Many Facets of Mindfulness and the Prediction of Change Following Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Journal of Clinical Psychology August 16, 2017
- How do mindfulness-based cognitive therapy and mindfulness-based stress reduction improve mental health and wellbeing? A systematic review and meta-analysis of mediation studies. Clinical Psychology Review April 1, 2015
and 5 more in the library