A brief loving-kindness meditation exercise, lasting only a few minutes, increased feelings of social connection and positivity toward strangers, as measured by both explicit and implicit measures, compared to a closely matched control task. The findings suggest that this simple technique may help reduce social isolation and increase positive social emotions.
A reanalysis of longitudinal data provides evidence for the mindfulness-to-meaning theory, which proposes that mindfulness promotes positive emotion regulation by increasing the ability to notice and savor positive experiences. The findings suggest that mindfulness training enhances positive emotions through this mechanism, supporting the theory's predictions about how mindfulness fosters well-being.
A nine-week compassion meditation program reduced mind wandering to neutral topics and increased self-directed caring behaviors among 51 adults. More frequent meditation practice was linked to less mind wandering to unpleasant topics and more mind wandering to pleasant topics, and both changes were associated with increased caring behaviors for oneself and others. Overall, mind wandering did not mediate the relationship between meditation frequency and caring behaviors when all topics were combined, but topic-specific mind wandering did play a role.