Overview
The study will examine the effects of online meditation training on stress and anxiety in healthy participants. It will also examine the dose-response relationship between the amount of daily focused attention meditation practice and established mental health outcome measures.
Description
This is a 16-week study with an 8-week meditation intervention, with a requirement of a minimum of 10 minutes of meditation practice each day. This study will recruit ~200 healthy subjects (18+ years) with no current or previous diagnosis of psychiatric or neurological disorders who are interested in learning about meditation but don't have long-term experience with meditation. Half of the participant pool will be randomly assigned to the meditation intervention, and the other half will get the wait-list control assignment. The control group will later receive its intervention, likely a few weeks after the completion of the active group's intervention. A focused-attention meditation technique (SOS meditation) will be used to train participants.
Changes in participants' physiological markers (e.g., HRV, physical activity, respiration rate, sleep quality) will be evaluated using passive activity monitoring devices (e.g., Fitbit). Intervention-related changes in mental health will be assessed using web-based mental health and well-being surveys. Improvements in cognitive functioning will be assessed using web-based psychological tasks.
Eligibility
Inclusion Criteria:
- Age ≥ 18 years
- Able to follow basic instructions for prescreening and scheduling
- Compliant with investigator instructions during the consent process and participation in the study
- Is not already a regular meditation practitioner
Exclusion Criteria:
- Age <18
- People with a current diagnosis of psychiatric or neurological disorders
- Be in current psychiatric treatment or medications
- Hospitalized for psychiatric disorders in the past year or so.
- Regular and long-term meditation practitioners
- Non-English speaking
- Non-USA mailing address to receive the activity tracker device
- Vision or hearing impairment severe enough to interfere with study participation