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Mindfulness Meditation Targets Transdiagnostic Symptoms Implicated in Stress-Related Disorders: Understanding Relationships between Changes in Mindfulness, Sleep Quality, and Physical Symptoms.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Greeson, JM; Zarrin, H; Smoski, MJ; Brantley, JG; Lynch, TR; Webber, DM; Hall, MH; Suarez, EC; Wolever, RQ
Published in: Evid Based Complement Alternat Med
2018

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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Published In

Evid Based Complement Alternat Med

DOI

ISSN

1741-427X

Publication Date

2018

Volume

2018

Start / End Page

4505191

Location

United States

Related Subject Headings

  • Complementary & Alternative Medicine
  • 4208 Traditional, complementary and integrative medicine
  • 3214 Pharmacology and pharmaceutical sciences
  • 1104 Complementary and Alternative Medicine
 

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Greeson, J. M., Zarrin, H., Smoski, M. J., Brantley, J. G., Lynch, T. R., Webber, D. M., … Wolever, R. Q. (2018). Mindfulness Meditation Targets Transdiagnostic Symptoms Implicated in Stress-Related Disorders: Understanding Relationships between Changes in Mindfulness, Sleep Quality, and Physical Symptoms. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med, 2018, 4505191. https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/4505191
Greeson, Jeffrey M., Haley Zarrin, Moria J. Smoski, Jeffrey G. Brantley, Thomas R. Lynch, Daniel M. Webber, Martica H. Hall, Edward C. Suarez, and Ruth Q. Wolever. “Mindfulness Meditation Targets Transdiagnostic Symptoms Implicated in Stress-Related Disorders: Understanding Relationships between Changes in Mindfulness, Sleep Quality, and Physical Symptoms.Evid Based Complement Alternat Med 2018 (2018): 4505191. https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/4505191.
Greeson JM, Zarrin H, Smoski MJ, Brantley JG, Lynch TR, Webber DM, et al. Mindfulness Meditation Targets Transdiagnostic Symptoms Implicated in Stress-Related Disorders: Understanding Relationships between Changes in Mindfulness, Sleep Quality, and Physical Symptoms. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2018;2018:4505191.
Greeson, Jeffrey M., et al. “Mindfulness Meditation Targets Transdiagnostic Symptoms Implicated in Stress-Related Disorders: Understanding Relationships between Changes in Mindfulness, Sleep Quality, and Physical Symptoms.Evid Based Complement Alternat Med, vol. 2018, 2018, p. 4505191. Pubmed, doi:10.1155/2018/4505191.
Greeson JM, Zarrin H, Smoski MJ, Brantley JG, Lynch TR, Webber DM, Hall MH, Suarez EC, Wolever RQ. Mindfulness Meditation Targets Transdiagnostic Symptoms Implicated in Stress-Related Disorders: Understanding Relationships between Changes in Mindfulness, Sleep Quality, and Physical Symptoms. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2018;2018:4505191.
Journal cover image

Published In

Evid Based Complement Alternat Med

DOI

ISSN

1741-427X

Publication Date

2018

Volume

2018

Start / End Page

4505191

Location

United States

Related Subject Headings

  • Complementary & Alternative Medicine
  • 4208 Traditional, complementary and integrative medicine
  • 3214 Pharmacology and pharmaceutical sciences
  • 1104 Complementary and Alternative Medicine