A single session of meditation reduces of physiological indices of anger in both experienced and novice meditators

The perceived benefits of an arts project for health and wellbeing of older offenders

“…In some cases, participants use the experience of reflection as a way of ‘forgetting’ prison life temporarily, or processing their own emotional reactions whilst being housed in prison. This has particularly been noted in prisoners who report issues with anger and self-management of their anger, which is consistent with developing literature (Fennell, Benau, & Atchley, 2016; Hirano & Yukawa, 2013). However, for older offenders, the practice of meditation has been raised as important by the population themselves, which is in keeping with previous studies of older female prisoners’ rates of depression and the use of religious meditation (Aday, Krabill, & Deaton-Owens, 2014), and older prisoners’ use of meditation and relaxation to manage emotions (Aday, 2006).…”

Cardiovascular and affective responses to speech and anger: Proactive benefits of a single brief session of mindfulness meditation

“…Overall, we have initial evidence that a 5-min single MM training session predicts less BP reactivity for speech and anger recall, supporting our first hypothesis. This result extends recent work where a 20-min MM training, mainly focused after the stressful event, produce beneficial BP effects (Fennell et al, 2016), as well as the work showing reduced cortisol for participants who performed a MBSR technique prior to a stress task (Cruess et al, 2015). The lack of BP improvements among the mindfulness intervention group in Grant et al's 1 After anger recall, participants were randomly assigned to one of two 10-min post-anger recall rest conditions: engage in MM or simply sit quietly and rest (i.e., control).…”

“…Consistently elevated BP reactivity across time (months and years) may be a major risk factor for several poor health concerns and chronic diseases, including CV disease (Low et al, 2009;Steptoe et al, 2016;Treiber et al, 2003), and elevated BP levels in everyday life are better predictors of future CV disease than resting clinic BP levels (Fagard et al, 2009;Perloff, Sokolow, & Cowan, 1983;Verdecchia, 2000). Thus, a single, brief MM session likely has short-term benefits for CV recovery to mental stress (Fennell et al, 2016;Shearer et al, 2016). Given this trend, we would argue that an even briefer or shorter interval of MM activity may be sufficient to produce immediate BP benefits in the context of acute stress exposure.…”

“…Shorter versions of MM programs have been developed, that range from a few days or sessions of training, which have shown a range of benefits, including improving mood, reducing self‐reported pain, and lessening CV reactivity to stressors (Creswell et al, ; Kabat‐Zinn et al, ; Rausch, Gramling, & Auerbach, ; Zeidan, Gordon, Merchant, & Goolkasian, ; Zeidan, Johnson, Diamond, David, & Goolkasian, ; Zeidan, Johnson, Gordon, & Goolkasian, ). However, only a few of these studies include CV stress reactivity as outcome measures, and very few studies have gone so far as to evaluate a single session of MM (Cruess et al, ; Fennell, Benau, & Atchley, ; Grant, Hobkirk, Persons, Hwang, & Danoff‐Burg, ; Shearer, Hunt, Chowdhury, & Nicol, ). Furthermore, a meta‐analysis of brief studies showed that even within a single study setting, attrition rates to treatment can range from 3% to 40% (Baer, ).…”

“…Since there are minimal studies using MM in this way (i.e., as a precursor to stress reactivity), we cannot fully assess related precedents. What we know from past studies is that MM after the stressor boosts CV recovery to that stressor (Fennell et al, 2016;Shearer et al, 2016). Yet, this process may not be optimal if one experiences acute stressors often with little breaks for recovery to those stressors.…”