Differential Effects of Mindful Breathing and Loving-Kindness Meditation Exercises on College Students\u27 Mental Health

Mindfulness and loving-kindness are two concepts with associated meditation exercises that have been evaluated as part of mindfulness-based treatment approaches (MBTAs) to improve mental health. A common MBTA, Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) includes multiple component exercises including mindful breathing meditation (MBM), and loving-kindness meditation (LKM). The purpose of the present study was to examine differential effects of MBM and LKM on the proposed process variables of social connectedness, cognitive fusion and experiential avoidance, present moment awareness, affect, and compassion for self and others, as well as across outcomes measures of general anxiety, social anxiety, depression, and wellbeing. Additionally the study determined if changes in outcomes were predicted by changes in theoretically related process variables. Differences in, and effects of, previous meditation experience (PME), treatment integrity (TI), and treatment acceptability (TA) by condition were also explored. The research design was a randomized controlled trial with four conditions: MBM, LKM, Combined (MBM and LKM), and Relaxation. The interventions consisted of a once daily 10-minute audio-assisted exercise, completed for two weeks. Findings revealed a statistically significant therapeutic effect of time regardless of condition. Consideration of effect sizes further indicated that MBM and LKM had greater therapeutic effects than Combined and Relaxation, with therapeutic differences between conditions ranging from small to large. Results for the total sample also showed that changes in process variables predicted changes in various outcomes. Finally, although PME, TI, and TA did not differ between conditions, TA did predict changes in depression. Implications for future research and practice are discussed

Differential Effects of Mindful Breathing and Loving Kindness Meditations: A Component Analysis Study

Objective: Mindful breathing meditation (MBM) and loving-kindness meditation (LKM) are common components of effective mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs). This study examined the differential effects of MBM and LKM on purported therapeutic process variables and mental health outcomes via component analysis. Method: The research design was a randomized controlled trial with four conditions: MBM, LKM, combined (MBM + LKM), and a relaxation control. All conditions consisted of 10-min. audio-recorded guided meditations that were self-implemented over the course of two weeks. Participants were college undergraduates (N = 52). Results: Findings indicated statistically significant and very large main effects of time, regardless of condition. Statistically significant time by condition interactions were only observed for one process variable (i.e., defusion) and one mental health outcome (i.e., depression). Follow-up descriptive evaluation of between-group effect sizes indicated patterns of favorable effects for MBM and LKM over the combined and relaxation control conditions. Treatment integrity and treatment acceptability data indicated very favorable social validity across conditions. Discussion: We conclude that our findings make a modest yet value-added contribution to the MBI component analysis literature, suggesting differentiated performance among isolated MBM and LKM exercises compared to combined and control conditions. Yet further research is warranted to improve upon the limitations of this study