Comparing Mindfulness-Based Intervention Strategies: Differential Effects of Sitting Meditation, Body Scan, and Mindful
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Comparing Mindfulness-Based Intervention Strategies: Differential Effects of Sitting Meditation, Body Scan, and Mindful Yoga Shannon E. Sauer-Zavala & Erin C. Walsh & Tory A. Eisenlohr-Moul & Emily L. B. Lykins # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012
Abstract We investigated whether three different meditation practices that are commonly used in mindfulness-based interventions lead to differential changes in psychological health outcomes when presented separately. Participants included 141 undergraduates assigned to a sitting meditation, body scan, or mindful yoga condition. Participants in all conditions attended three weekly 1-h sessions (105 min of guided meditation and 75 min of discussion) in addition to pre- and post-intervention questionnaires collected in separate sessions. Participants reported significant improvements in the tendency to describe one’s experience, rumination, self-compassion, and psychological well-being regardless of condition. The following between-group differences in change over time emerged: (1) mindful yoga was associated with greater increases in psychological wellbeing than the other two practices, (2) sitting meditation and mindful yoga were both associated with greater decreases in difficulties with emotion regulation than the body scan, and (3) sitting meditation was associated with greater increases in the tendency to take a nonevaluative stance toward observed stimuli than the body scan. Keywords Mindfulness . Mindfulness-based interventions . Well-being . Meditation . Yoga . Body scan S. E. Sauer-Zavala (*) Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders, Department of Psychology, Boston University, 648 Beacon ST, Boston, MA 02215, USA e-mail: [email protected] E. C. Walsh : T. A. Eisenlohr-Moul Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA E. L. B. Lykins Department of Psychology, Eastern Kentucky University, Richmond, KY, USA
Introduction Intervention dismantling studies are necessary for illuminating which components of a treatment program produce change (Shapiro & Carlson, 2009). This type of investigation may be particularly important for mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs), which typically employ several distinct training techniques. Influenced by Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR; Kabat-Zinn, 1982, 1990), MBIs often consist of three main meditation practices (Chiesa & Serretti, 2011). These include (1) body scan, in which participants sequentially and non-judgmentally focus their attention on parts of the body; (2) sitting meditation, in which participants focus their attention on their breathing, sounds in the environment, body sensations, and their stream of thoughts and emotions; and (3) mindful yoga, in which participants cultivate mindful awareness of the body while it is moving, stretching, or holding a position. In their entirety, MBIs have been shown to lead to increased levels of self-reported mindfulness and improvements in psychological functioning (Astin, 1997; Shapiro, Schwartz, & Bonner, 1998; Carmody &
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