Posted 09.27.2018 | by AMRA
Meditation practice reliably demonstrates beneficial effects for memory, attention, mood, and emotional regulation. It is unclear, however, whether there is a minimum dosage necessary to attain these benefits.
Basso et al. [Behavioural Brain Research] measured the benefits of meditation in a group of meditation-naïve participants by assigning them to either daily brief guided meditations or to a control group, and measuring their changes in mood and cognition over time.
The researchers randomly assigned 72 meditation-naïve participants to either a meditation audio or a podcast audio. The meditation group listened to 13-minute guided meditations daily for 8 weeks. The meditations included breath-focused exercises and a body scan practice. The podcast group listened to 13-minute excerpts from NPR’s Radiolab podcast daily for 8 weeks.
Participants underwent neuropsychological and psychological evaluations and salivary cortisol (a stress hormone) assessments at baseline, 4 weeks, and 8 weeks. Computer-administered neuropsychological tests included measures of attention, working and recognition memory, and response inhibition. The psychological tests measured mindfulness (Mindful Attention Awareness Scale or MAAS), mood, stress, depression, anxiety, rumination, sleep quality, fatigue, quality of life, self-esteem, and life satisfaction.
Following the final assessments, participants were subjected to a stress-inducing task. They were told to prepare for a job interview and deliver a five-minute presentation on why they should be hired in front of two stone-faced judges. They were then told to perform a difficult serial subtraction problem. Whenever they made an arithmetic mistake, they were instructed to start the problem over from the beginning.
Subjective measures of anxiety were taken at baseline, immediately after, and at 10, 20, and 30-minute intervals after the stress-inducing tasks. Salivary cortisol levels were also assessed at each of […]