TY - JOUR
T1 - Mindfulness Meditation Targets Transdiagnostic Symptoms Implicated in Stress-Related Disorders
T2 - Understanding Relationships between Changes in Mindfulness, Sleep Quality, and Physical Symptoms
AU - Greeson, Jeffrey M.
AU - Zarrin, Haley
AU - Smoski, Moria J.
AU - Brantley, Jeffrey G.
AU - Lynch, Thomas R.
AU - Webber, Daniel M.
AU - Hall, Martica H.
AU - Suarez, Edward C.
AU - Wolever, Ruth Q.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the National Center for Complementary & Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), now the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), to Jeffrey M. Greeson (Grant K99 AT004945) and by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) to Moria J. Smoski (Grant K23 MH087754). Additional support was provided by a research infrastructure grant from the Fannie E. Rippel foundation. The authors thank the expert instructors at Duke Integrative Medicine who taught MBSR classes during the study period (Mary Matthews Brantley, M.A., LMFT; Sasha Loring, M.Ed., LCSW; Maya McNeilly, Ph.D.; Jeanne van Gemert, M.A., M.F.A., LMBT, and LPC; and Ron Vereen, M.D.) for their contributions to study design and data interpretation. They also thank all of the MBSR study participants for taking the time to complete their survey. Finally, they thank Gabrielle Chin for constructive feedback on the final version of this paper.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Jeffrey M. Greeson et al.
PY - 2018
Y1 - 2018
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
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U2 - 10.1155/2018/4505191
DO - 10.1155/2018/4505191
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85047833382
SN - 1741-427X
VL - 2018
JO - Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine
JF - Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine
M1 - 4505191
ER -