Breath-Counting Task Enhances the Sensitivity of Fear Acquisition.
Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) February 24, 2025 Xu Li, Yong Yang, Ranran Wang et al.
A brief breath-counting mindfulness exercise can improve how people learn to distinguish dangerous from safe cues during fear conditioning. In a discriminative fear conditioning experiment, participants who practiced breath counting gave lower shock-expectancy ratings to a safety signal (CS−) than those who read freely, indicating less overgeneralization of fear to safe stimuli. The mindfulness group also showed reduced skin conductance responses overall, yet the groups did not differ in their overall fear acquisition effect. The findings suggest that breath-counting tasks enhance sensitivity to conditioned fear acquisition by reducing exaggerated fear responses to safety signals, offering insights for preventing anxiety disorders.