Effects of audio guided loving kindness meditation on psychological well being and laboratory stress responsiveness in healthy university students

Key Findings

This study investigated the efficacy of a two-week online audio-guided loving-kindness meditation (LKM) program compared with mindfulness meditation (MF) and an active control (AC) group in a healthy university population. The study consisted of an overarching trial (N = 130), with a nested laboratory stress testing (N = 50). The full-sample subjective outcomes involved psychological distress, social approach and avoidance motivation, self-compassion, social connectedness, and positive and negative emotion. The nested laboratory testing examined the stress responsiveness to the socially evaluated cold pressor test, in terms of subjective stress, salivary cortisol, and blood pressure. All groups showed significant improvements in psychological distress, self-compassion, social connectedness, and negative emotion; however, no significant group differences were observed. For stress responsiveness, no significant differences were found across groups in average cortisol, blood pressure, or subjective stress levels. However, subsequent exploratory analyses yielded preliminary signals that the MF group, but not the LKM group, showed more attenuated cortisol activation and a higher completion rate on the cold pressor test than the AC group, which provides hypothesis-generating insights for future research. Overall, the findings did not support the relative superiority of LKM over MF and AC on both subjective indices and biological stress responsiveness.

Why This Matters for Body-Mind Practice

[Draft — editorial context needed]

Source

• Effects of audio guided loving kindness meditation on psychological well being and laboratory stress responsiveness in healthy university students. — Scientific reports