The effects of brief mindfulness meditation training on mood, cognitive, and cardiovascular variables

This study examined whether a brief mindfulness meditation intervention, a style of meditative practice marked by focusing on the sensations of the breath without judgment, would affect mood, cognition, and cardiovascular measures. Participants with no prior meditation experience participated in four sessions that involved training in either meditation training (N = 24) or listening to a book recording (N = 23). Both conditions were found to be similarly effective at improving mood. Meditation was more effective at reducing fatigue, reducing anxiety, improving visuo-spatial processing, and working memory performance, in comparison to the book listening group. The meditation group also reduced systolic blood pressure following meditation training, whereas the book listening group did not. These results indicate that brief meditation has beneficial effects on some measures of mood, cognition, and blood pressure. Brief mindfulness meditation training effectively enhanced participants’ ability to sustain attention, evidenced by improvements on cognitive measures. Our findings suggest that the benefits of meditation can be realized after a brief training regimen