Trait-Like Mindfulness Promotes Healthy Self-Regulation of Stress

Abstract

A number of experts have described mindfulness as a naturally occurring quality in the human mind that is present to some degree in all people, even without training in mindfulness or meditation. This study examined whether trait mindfulness is associated with reduced stress response activation and enhanced self-regulatory activity with recurrent stress. Self-ratings of mindfulness and continuous measures of physiological reactivity before, during, and after an interview about a recurrent stressful issue were collected from 47 undergraduate participants to examine our primary objective. Findings indicated that mindful individuals were less likely to engage in metabolically costly physiological activation in response to an emotionally challenging task, but were more likely to engage parasympathetic responding following the task, a response which is associated with effective downregulation following stress. Results from our study suggest that Bnatively mindful^individuals have the ability to engage self-regulatory physiological responding associated with improved adaptability and flexibility in a changing environment. Thus, mindfulness may be associated with physical indices of emotional well-being. Furthermore, our data adds evidence for the validity of self-report measures of mindfulness.

Dispositional Mindfulness Uncouples Physiological and Emotional Reactivity to a Laboratory Stressor and Emotional Reactivity to Executive Functioning Lapses in Daily Life

“…Although this set of findings may suggests that the attentional and awareness aspects of mindfulness may be less relevant to emotional reactivity than acceptance, such an interpretation would be contradicted by a range of studies finding that scores on the MAAS are associated with lower emotional reactivity to a range of stressors (e.g., Arch & Craske, 2010; Brown et al, 2012; Kadziolka et al 2015; Marks et al, 2010; Neimeiec et al, 2010). It may be that because the MAAS assesses mindful attention/awareness (or its absence) in a larger variety of daily contexts than the briefer FFMQ Act with Awareness scale, it is more robust to detecting reactivity to a variety of stressors.…”

“…In addition, findings were observed across two distinct measures of dispositional mindfulness, the CAMS-R and facets of the FFMQ relevant to the study of negative affective states in non-clinical samples (Baer et al, 2006). Indeed, a strength of the present study is the use of two distinct questionnaires to measure mindfulness whereas prior laboratory and naturalistic research on emotional reactivity have largely included only a single questionnaire (see Kadziolka et al (2015) for a recent exception). Despite similar content coverage, the two questionnaires capture somewhat different aspects of dispositional mindfulness.…”

“…Specifically, individuals with higher dispositional mindfulness scores show reduced subjective as well as physiological reactivity to a variety of physical, interpersonal, and emotional stressors (Arch & Craske, 2010; Brown et al, 2012; Kadziolka, Di Pierdomenico, & Miller, 2015; Skinner, 2008). Similarly, mindfulness training of various lengths has also been found to produce reduced physiological and subjective reactivity to various laboratory stressors (Creswell et al, 2014; Britton et al, 2012; Hoge et al, 2013, Nyklíček et al, 2013, Steffen & Larson, 2014).…”

“…These two physiological indices are widely-used in previous physiological-subjective concordance studies. Furthermore, prior laboratory stress studies have found that individual differences in mindfulness are associated with lower reactivity in both heart rate (Skinner, 2008) and skin conductance (Kadziolka et al, 2015). We hypothesized that mindfulness will moderate the association of subjective arousal (negative affect) and physiological reactivity to a laboratory stressor such that subjective-physiological concordance will be higher among individuals low in mindfulness.…”

The mindful attention and awareness scale is associated with lower levels of high‐frequency heart rate variability in a laboratory context

“…In their investigation of 269 undergraduates, the acting with awareness subscale of the Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness was not associated with HRV during a resting baseline condition. Holt () and Kadziolka, Pierdomenico, and Miller () found an increase in total HRV during the recovery phase of a stressor among participants scoring higher on the MAAS and on the Observe and Awareness subscales of the Five Factor Mindfulness Questionnaire, respectively. Brzozowski et al () also reported a significant decrease in HRV during the recovery phase of a stressor for those scoring higher on the MAAS relative to those scoring lower on the MAAS.…”