Summary: Mindfulness is well known for its calming effects, but researchers now propose that different types of mindfulness practices may be more effective for specific types of anxiety. A new framework suggests that focused attention meditation may benefit those who worry chronically, while open monitoring may help individuals with hypervigilance and physical symptoms.
The key mechanism behind this benefit is improved cognitive control—the ability to manage thoughts and behaviors in alignment with goals. Anxiety disrupts this control, but mindfulness strengthens it, helping to break the cycle of worry.
Key Facts:
- Tailored Practices: Focused attention helps worriers; open monitoring helps the hypervigilant.
- Cognitive Control: Mindfulness improves goal-oriented thinking disrupted by anxiety.
- Scientific Support: Brain imaging confirms mindfulness alters areas linked to emotional regulation.
Source: WUSTL
If you’re anxious about work, finances, the state of the world, or anything else, you might try a moment of mindfulness.
Paying close attention to the present moment without judgment — the basic idea behind all mindfulness techniques — can help calm anxiety and improve focus, said Resh Gupta, a postdoctoral research associate with the Mindfulness Science and Practice research cluster.
“A lot of research has shown that mindfulness can reduce anxiety symptoms,” she said.
The calming power of mindfulness is well-known to people who have made the practice a part of their daily lives. Still, experts continue to investigate how it works and which types of mindfulness might be most useful for different types of anxiety, ranging from fleeting bouts of worry to more chronic, clinical anxiety disorders.
“We all experience anxiety, but it can manifest in many different ways,” Gupta said. “It’s a tough problem to pin down.”
In a paper published in Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, Gupta and co-authors laid out a new approach to understanding the relationship between mindfulness and anxiety.
Instead of taking a one-size-fits-all approach, they propose that different kinds of mindfulness practices might be helpful for different varieties of anxiety. The proposed framework should ultimately help us understand how to match anxiety sufferers with more precise treatments, Gupta said.
Todd Braver, the William R. Stuckenberg Professor in Human Values and Moral Development and a professor of psychological and brain sciences, is a co-author of the paper. The other co-author is Wendy Heller, a professor of psychology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
The work was supported in part by the Mindfulness Science and Practice cluster and the Arts & Sciences’ Incubator for Transdisciplinary Futures.
Braver said that the new paper is emblematic of the kinds of work being done by the cluster.
“There is a growing recognition that these practices can be incredibly useful in enhancing psychological well-being,” Braver said.
“But we still do not fully understand the mechanisms of action by which mindfulness can produce beneficial effects. That’s where the scientific research can be so valuable, by helping us more precisely identify why and how certain practices are effective.”
Gupta, Braver, and Heller suggest that mindfulness combats anxiety by improving a mental process called cognitive control.
“Cognitive control is the ability to regulate your thoughts and your actions in a way that helps you achieve your goals,” Gupta said.
“For example, if you know you have to go to the grocery store right after work, you can keep that goal in mind during the workday and turn down an offer to do something else after work.”
As Gupta explained, mindfulness and anxiety have opposite impacts on cognitive control. People who are more mindful generally perform better on tasks requiring cognitive control.
That observation is supported by neuroimaging studies, which have shown that mindfulness meditation can effectively modulate activity in brain regions that support cognitive control.
On the other hand, anxiety can worsen cognitive control.
“Worry occupies a lot of space in the brain’s working memory system,” Gupta said.
“This is where your goals are stored.” This impairment in cognitive control can intensify worry symptoms, but using mindfulness to improve cognitive control can help interrupt the harmful cycle of worry.
Depending on the type of anxiety people are experiencing, some approaches might work better than others, Gupta said. People who spend a lot of time worrying may especially benefit from a type of mindfulness meditation called focused attention.
“Focused attention teaches you to choose an anchor, such as your breath or a sound,” she said.
“You keep bringing your attention back to that anchor every time your mind wanders. Instead of focusing on the worry, you’re focusing on the present moment experience.”
People who are hypervigilant and experiencing a lot of physical symptoms of anxiety — rapid heartbeat, sweaty palms, tightness in the chest — may do better with a different approach.
“For this type of anxiety, a form of mindfulness meditation called open monitoring may be beneficial,” Gupta said.
“Instead of focusing on one thing, such as the breath, you can observe all internal and external experiences from moment to moment in a non-reactive, non-judgmental way.”
WashU’s Mindfulness Science & Practice cluster offers many resources for university and community members who want to add mindfulness to their lives. The cluster sponsors regular talks as well as other events, including those in which participants can learn mindfulness practices from trained practitioners.
“We’re dedicated to helping the WashU and greater St. Louis community get access to tools to learn about mindfulness science and practice,” Gupta said.
Braver is enthusiastic that recent research from the cluster and other institutions will help people gain a greater appreciation of the wide variety of practices that fall under the mindfulness umbrella.
“People have different options they can choose from, so it becomes easier to find one that best fits your particular temperament, concerns, or current situation,” he said.
“It’s quite empowering to learn these types of practices, and to feel like we can be in charge of how we use them to improve our quality of life.”
About this mindfulness and anxiety research news
Author: Chris Woolston
Source: WUSTL
Contact: Chris Woolston – WUSTL
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Open access.
“Reconceptualizing the relationship between anxiety, mindfulness, and cognitive control” by Resh Gupta et al. Neuroscience and Behavioral Reviews
Abstract
Reconceptualizing the relationship between anxiety, mindfulness, and cognitive control
Prior research has provided initial support for the claim that cognitive control mediates the relationship between anxiety and mindfulness; however, findings are often inconsistent.
In this review, we argue that the inconsistency may be due to a lack of both conceptual and methodological precision in terms of how anxiety, cognitive control, and mindfulness are operationalized and assessed, and that this imprecision may be a critical source of study confounds and ambiguous outcomes.
We unpack this argument by first decomposing anxiety, cognitive control, mindfulness, and relevant experimental paradigms into key dimensions in order to develop a non-unitary, multi-dimensional taxonomy of these constructs.
Subsequently, we review and reinterpret the prior experimental literature, focusing on studies that examine the relationship between anxiety and cognitive control, mindfulness and cognitive control, and the three-way relationship between anxiety, mindfulness, and cognitive control.
Across the reviewed studies, there was great variation in the dimensions being examined and the behavioral and/or neural measures employed; therefore, results were often mixed.
Based on this review of literature, we propose a conceptually and methodologically precise framework from which to study the effects of mindfulness on cognitive control in anxiety.
The framework theoretically aligns anxiety dimensions with specific mindfulness states and interventions, further suggesting how these will impact specific cognitive control dimensions (proactive, reactive).
These can be assessed with experimental paradigms and associated behavioral and neural metrics to index the relevant dimensions with high precision.
Novel experimental studies and tractable research designs are also proposed to rigorously test this theoretical framework.
