The stress-reductive effect of mindfulness practice is well-established, yet less is known about the cognitive mechanisms underlying this salutary outcome. We conducted a prospective observational study of 339 participants (mean age 45.7 ± 13.4) undergoing an 8-week mindfulness-based stress and pain management course and found support for our hypotheses that a) pre-post intervention increases in dispositional mindfulness are reciprocally linked with increases in positive reappraisal coping and b) the stressreductive effects of increases in dispositional mindfulness are mediated by increases in positive reappraisal independent of changes in catastrophizing. Positive reappraisal and mindfulness appear to serially and mutually enhance one another, creating the dynamics of an upward spiral. Through mindfulness practice, individuals may engender a broadened state of awareness that facilitates empowering interpretations of stressful life events, leading to substantially reduced distress. Study findings have implications for cognitive therapy that couples mindfulness practices with restructuring techniques oriented toward benefit finding and positive reappraisal.

Theory suggests that heightening state mindfulness in meditation practice over time increases trait mindfulness, which benefits psychological health. We prospectively examined individual trajectories of state mindfulness in meditation during a mindfulness-based intervention in relation to changes in trait mindfulness and psychological distress. Each week during the eight-week intervention, participants reported their state mindfulness in meditation after a brief mindfulness meditation. Participants also completed pre- and post-intervention measures of trait mindfulness and psychological symptoms. Tests of combined latent growth and path models suggested that individuals varied significantly in their rates of change in state mindfulness in meditation during the intervention, and that these individual trajectories predicted pre-post intervention changes in trait mindfulness and distress. These findings support that increasing state mindfulness over repeated meditation sessions may contribute to a more mindful and less distressed disposition. However, individuals’ trajectories of change may vary and warrant further investigation.

Mindfulness meditation is increasingly well known for therapeutic efficacy in a variety of illnesses and conditions, but its mechanism of action is still under debate in scientific circles. In this paper we propose a hypothetical causal model that argues for the role of mindfulness in positive reappraisal coping. Positive reappraisal is a critical component of meaning-based coping that enables individuals to adapt successfully to stressful life events. Mindfulness, as a metacognitive form of awareness, involves the process of decentering, a shifting of cognitive sets that enables alternate appraisals of life events. We review the concept of positive reappraisal in transactional stress and coping theory; then describe research and traditional literature related to mindfulness and cognitive reappraisal, and detail the central role of mindfulness in the reappraisal process. With this understanding, we present a causal model explicating the proposed mechanism. The discussion has implications for clinical practice, suggesting how mindfulness-based integrative medicine interventions can be designed to support adaptive coping processes.

Mindfulness training may disrupt the risk chain of stress-precipitated alcohol relapse. In 2008, 53 alcohol-dependent adults (mean age = 40.3) recruited from a therapeutic community located in the urban southeastern U.S. were randomized to mindfulness training or a support group. Most participants were male (79.2%), African American (60.4%), and earned < $20,000 annually (52.8%). Self-report measures, psychophysiological cue-reactivity, and alcohol attentional bias were analyzed via repeated measures ANOVA. 37 participants completed the interventions. Mindfulness training significantly reduced stress and thought suppression, increased physiological recovery from alcohol cues, and modulated alcohol attentional bias. Hence, mindfulness training appears to target key mechanisms implicated in alcohol dependence, and therefore may hold promise as an alternative treatment for stress-precipitated relapse among vulnerable members of society.

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a prevalent functional disorder characterized by abdominal pain and hypervigilance to gastrointestinal sensations. We hypothesized that mindfulness training (MT), which promotes nonreactive awareness of emotional and sensory experience, may target underlying mechanisms of IBS including affective pain processing and catastrophic appraisals of gastrointestinal sensations. Seventy five female IBS patients were randomly assigned to participate in either 8 weeks of MT or a social support group. A theoretically grounded, multivariate path model tested therapeutic mediators of the effect of MT on IBS severity and quality of life. Results suggest that MT exerts significant therapeutic effects on IBS symptoms by promoting nonreactivity to gut-focused anxiety and catastrophic appraisals of the significance of abdominal sensations coupled with a refocusing of attention onto interoceptive data with less emotional interference. Hence, MT appears to target and ameliorate the underlying pathogenic mechanisms of IBS.