KEY POINTS:
Recent studies have suggested that months to years of intensive meditation can improve attention and lower stress.
Researchers now believe that less than one week of practice with the integrative body-mind meditation training method can produce noteworthy improvement in attention and state of mind.
The study of 40 Chinese undergraduates found that participation in 20-minute integrative meditation sessions over five days showed greater improvement in attention and overall mood, and lower levels of anxiety, depression, anger and fatigue, compared with students in a control group who participated in relaxation training.
Dr Yi-Yuan Tang from the University of Oregon and colleagues report their research in the latest issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Integrative meditation, they explain, "incorporates several key components - body and mind techniques including body relaxation, breathing adjustment, mental imagery, and mindfulness training, which have shown broad positive effects in attention, emotions, and social behaviours in previous studies."
This combination may amplify the effect over the use of only one of these components.
After just five days, students in the integrative meditation group showed significantly improved reaction to a mental stressor, as evidenced by a significant decrease in stress-related cortisol levels.
"The findings in this study highlight the potential value of integrative meditation for stress management, body-mind health, and improvement in cognitive performance and self-regulation," Dr Tang's team notes.
"Our study is consistent with the idea that attention, effective processes and the quality of moment-to-moment awareness are flexible skills that can be trained," they add.
- Reuters
