Effects of mindfulness on psychological and psychophysiological responses during self‐paced walking

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of an audio‐guided mindfulness (MF) single session on psychological and psychophysiological responses during an outdoor walking task. Twenty‐four participants (12 females and 12 males; Mage = 23.6, SD = 3.9 years) were required to walk 200 m at a pace of their choosing. Two experimental conditions (mindfulness meditation and mindlessness [ML] meditation) and a control condition (CO) were administered. Electrical activity in the brain was measured by the use of a portable electroencephalography (EEG) system during walking. Fast Fourier Transform was used to decompose the EEG samples into theta (5–7 Hz), alpha (8–14 Hz), and beta (15–29 Hz) frequencies. Brain connectivity analysis between frontal and temporo‐parietal electrode sites was conducted to explore functional interactions through the use of spectral coherence. Affective and perceptual responses were measured by the use of single‐item scales and questionnaires. The present findings indicate that MF was sufficiently potent to reallocate attention toward task‐related thoughts, downregulate perceived activation, and enhance affective responses to a greater degree than the other two conditions. Conversely, ML was sufficient to increase the use of dissociative thoughts, make participants less aware of their physical sensations and emotions, induce a more negative affective state, and upregulate perceived activation to a greater extent than MF and CO. The brain mechanisms that underlie the effects of MF on exercise appear to be associated with the enhanced inter‐hemispheric connectivity of high‐frequency waves between right frontal and left temporo‐parietal areas of the cortex.

Exploring the Use of Meditation as a Valuable Tool to Counteract Sedentariness

“…Also, there is the possibility of an additional effect where meditation practices might have the potential to facilitate execution of movements and enhance task performance. This is primarily based on the fact that meditation can rearrange the electrical frequency in the cerebral cortex (Berkovich-Ohana et al, 2013), influence the communication across brain regions (Brewer et al, 2011;Bigliassi et al, 2020), and facilitate emotional reappraisal (Lacaille et al, 2018). Such mechanism could lead to a series of subsequent effects on psychophysical (e.g., perceived exertion) and psychobiological (e.g., cortisol levels) parameters during the exercise session and, potentially, during the post-exercise recovery phase.…”

“…It has also become clear that the scientific evidence available to date in this particular topic is very scarce. The use of mindfulness training in the field of physical activity has been only seldom investigated (Kang et al, 2017;Bigliassi et al, 2020), but the results from adjacent domains such as cognitive psychology and behavioral medicine suggest that long-term interventions are highly successful (Daubenmier et al, 2016;Janssen et al, 2018). Future research is still necessary to elucidate the acute effects of mindfulnessbased interventions on affective responses (e.g., perceived enjoyment), fatigue-related symptoms (e.g., breathlessness and limb discomfort), arousal regulation, and task performance.…”

“…Redirecting attention toward the present moment can naturally prevent past and future events from entering focal awareness (van der Zwan et al, 2015). Thoughts about the past and future might serve primarily to induce rumination (i.e., the process of dwelling on stress) and elicit anxiety, given that only task-related thoughts are necessary to complete the exercise session successfully (Alderman et al, 2016;Bigliassi et al, 2020). Therefore, lack of self-regulatory skills can facilitate daydreaming, increase the occurrence of task-unrelated thoughts, elicit negative emotional responses, and potentially compromise the execution of movements.…”

“…Taking the present models into consideration (Figures 1, 2), researchers should monitor and report any environmental, personal, and exercise-related factors that might bear an influence on the effects of meditation. Finally, it is of paramount importance to standardize the experimental manipulations, so the studies are comparable to a certain degree (for details, see Bigliassi et al, 2020). Participants should be exposed to the same experimental protocol and the scripts used for each session should be provided as supplementary files whenever possible.…”

Psychological and Cardiovascular Effects of Meditation and Yoga

“…As a consequence of such psychological and psychosocial mechanisms, meditation and yoga may influence cardiovascular health to a certain degree [4,5]. It is of supreme importance to emphasize that short-term interventions are generally sufficient to influence emotional and behavioral outcomes [44]. Conversely, anatomical and physiological changes usually require individuals to engage in meditative practices for long periods of time [45].…”