Meditation Practices Proven to Reduce Stress

Prolonged stress: Meditation lowers cortisol concentration

Meditation (from the Latin word “to ponder, to reflect”) includes a variety of methods, often very old and religiously based. Meanwhile, several scientific studies have shown that meditation can have positive health effects. Now a new study shows that meditation training reduces long-term stress.

Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Cognitive and Neurosciences (MPI CBS) in Leipzig and the Social Neurosciences Research Group of the Max Planck Society in Berlin have found that mental training that promotes skills such as mindfulness, gratitude or compassion, promotes concentration. Lowers the stress hormone cortisol in the hair. The amount of cortisol in the hair tells how strong a person is the stress is a burden.

reduce everyday stress over the long term

like it Message According to a study by Techniker Krankenkasse (TK), 23 percent of people in Germany suffer from frequent stress.

Not only does this condition put a burden on people’s well-being, but it is also linked to a number of physical ailments, including diabetes, heart disease, and psychological disorders such as depression, being one of the leading causes of disease burden in the world.

So looking for effective methods that will reduce everyday stress in the long run. It is considered a promising option mindfulness trainingIn which participants train their cognitive and social skills, including meditation, gratitude and compassion, through various mindfulness and behavioral exercises.

Various studies have already shown that even healthy people feel less stressed after an eight-week normal exercise program. Until now, however, it was unclear how much training actually contributed to reducing continued exposure to everyday stress.

The problem with many previous studies on chronic stress: Study participants usually must self-assess their stress level after training. However, this self-assessment using questionnaires may distort the effects and make the results appear more positive than they actually were.

distorted statement

The reason for such bias: The test subjects were aware that they were training their mindfulness, and a reduction in stress levels was the desired effect of this training. This awareness itself has an effect on the information given later.

“If you are asked if you are stressed after stress-reducing training, dealing with this question can also distort statements,” explains Lara Puhlman, a doctoral student at MPI CBS and first author of the underlying publication. was recently published in the expert journal “psychosomatic therapy“has been released.

Factors such as social desirability and the placebo effect played a role here. Unlike pharmacological studies, for example, in which study participants do not know whether they have actually received the active ingredient, a so-called ophthalmic examination is not possible during mental training.

“Participants know they are taking an ‘antidote,'” Puhlman says. “In mindfulness research, we are therefore using more objective, i.e., physical methods to be able to more accurately measure the stress-reducing effect.”

Cortisol concentration in the hair

According to experts, the concentration of cortisol in the hair is an appropriate measurement variable for persistent stress exposure. Cortisol is a hormone that is released when, for example, you face an overwhelming challenge. In a related situation, the stress hormone helps to keep the body alert and mobilize energy to deal with the challenge.

The longer the stress lasts, the longer the increased concentration of cortisol in the body – and more of it, is stored in the hair, which grows an inch a month on average. To measure the participants’ stress levels during nine months of training, the researchers, in collaboration with Clemens Kirschbaum’s working group at the University of Dresden, analyzed the amount of cortisol in the first three centimeters of hair every three months. on the scalp.

The psychic training program consisted of three three-month units, each aimed at training a specific skill area with the help of Western and Far Eastern psychic exercises. Attention was focused either on factors of attention and mindfulness, on social-effective skills such as compassion and gratitude, or on so-called social-cognitive skills, specifically the ability to take perspective of one’s own and others’ thoughts. .

Three groups of approximately 80 subjects completed the training modules in different order. Training was carried out for nine months, 30 minutes a day, six days a week.

In fact, it was found that the amount of cortisol in the participants’ hair was reduced by an average of 25 percent after six months of training. According to the information, there was a slight effect in the first three months, which intensified in the subsequent three months. In the last third, the concentration remained at a very low level.

The researchers therefore assume that only sufficiently long training leads to the desired stress-reducing effects. The effect did not seem to depend on the content of the training. So it is possible that many of the tested mental approaches are equally effective in improving coping with chronic daily stress.

counteract the effects of chronic stress

In an earlier study, researchers examined the effects of training on dealing with acutely stressful situations. Participants were put into a stressful job interview and asked to solve difficult math tasks under observation.

Here it was shown: Those who completed social-cognitive or social-effective training emitted 51 percent less cortisol under stress than those who were untrained. In this case, it was not measured the amount of cortisol in the hair, but rather the acute attacks of cortisol in the saliva.

Overall, the scientists concluded that training can improve handling of acute, particularly stressful social situations and chronic daily stress.

“We believe that different training aspects are particularly helpful for these different forms of stress,” says Veronica Engert, head of the research group “Social Stress and Family Health” at MPI CBS.

“There are many diseases around the world, including depression, that are directly or indirectly related to long-term stress,” says Puhlman. “We have to work on preventively preventing the effects of chronic stress. Our study uses physiological measurements to show that meditation-based training interventions can reduce normal stress levels even in healthy people.”( advertisement)