Contemplative Training and Psychological Stress: an Analysis of First-person Accounts
Mindfulness June 5, 2021 Liudmila Gamaiunova, Pierre-Yves Brandt, Matthias Kliegel 6 citations
Meditation practitioners reported using humor, positive affect, combined emotion regulation strategies, and adaptive attention allocation during a stressful laboratory task, compared to non-meditators. Interviews with 25 meditators and 20 controls after the Trier Social Stress Test revealed five themes: primary experiences, reasons for stress, affect, emotion regulation, and attention allocation. The findings suggest that contemplative training may alter the subjective experience of psychological stress, offering new insights into how meditation attenuates stress responses.