The improvement of emotion and attention regulation after a 6-week training of focused meditation: a randomized controlled trial.
Self-regulatory trainings can be an effective complementary treatment for mental health disorders. We investigated the effects of a six-week-focused meditation training on emotion and attention regulation in undergraduates randomly allocated to a meditation, a relaxation, or a wait-list control group. Assessment comprised a discrimination task that investigates the relationship between attentional load and emotional processing and self-report measures. For emotion regulation, results showed greater reduction in emotional interference in the low attentional load condition in meditators, particularly compared to relaxation. Only meditators presented a significant association between amount of weekly practice and the reduction in emotion interference in the task and significantly reduced image ratings of negative valence and arousal, perceived anxiety and difficulty during the task, and state and trait-anxiety. For attention regulation, response bias during the task was analyzed through signal detection theory. After training, meditation and relaxation significantly reduced bias in the high attentional load condition. Importantly, there was a dose-response effect on general bias: the lowest in meditation, increasing linearly across relaxation and wait-list. Only meditators reduced omissions in a concentrated attention test. Focused meditation seems to be an effective training for emotion and attention regulation and an alternative for treatments in the mental health context.
Faculdade de Psicologia, Universidade Federal de Pelotas, Avenida Duque de Caxias 250, 96030-001 Pelotas, RS, Brazil ; Laboratório de Psicologia Experimental, Neurociências e Comportamento, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Ramiro Barcelos 2600, Sala 105, 90035-003 Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil.
Carolina Baptista
CB
Menezes
Maria Clara
MC
de Paula Couto
Luciano G
LG
Buratto
Fátima
F
Erthal
Mirtes G
MG
Pereira
Lisiane
L
Bizarro