Trait and State Equanimity: The Effect of Mindfulness-Based Meditation Practice

International audienceObjectives: Buddhist and scientific theories have described equanimity as a generaloutcome of mindfulness practices. Equanimity is a calm and balanced state of mind regardlessof the valence of situations or objects and is a decoupling between the evaluation of thisvalence and the resulting common automatic approach or avoidance reactions. The relationbetween the practice of mindfulness and equanimity still remain to be empirically explored.Methods: We conducted a correlational study (N = 106) to investigate the relationbetween hours of mindfulness practice among former mindfulness-based stress reductionprogram participants and two components of equanimity: even-minded state of mind andhedonic independence, using the EQUA-S. A second study (N = 86) investigatedexperimentally the effect of two meditation practices on equanimity among noviceparticipants.Results: The results of the first study revealed positive correlations between thecomponents of equanimity and both formal and informal mindfulness practices. Results fromthe second study revealed that the increase in even-minded state of mind during theexperimental session was significantly greater in the mindfulness practice condition than inthe active control condition. Hedonic independence was not significantly affected by the shortmindfulness practice.Conclusions: These results confirmed the importance of empirically studying equanimityat both trait and state levels, and identifying its relation and specificities with meditation andrelated phenomena