It matters what you practice: differential training effects on subjective experience, behavior, brain and body in the ReSource Project.

@article{Singer2018ItMW,
  title={It matters what you practice: differential training effects on subjective experience, behavior, brain and body in the ReSource Project.},
  author={Tania Singer and Veronika Engert},
  journal={Current opinion in psychology},
  year={2018},
  volume={28},
  pages={
          151-158
        }
}
View on PubMed
doi.org
54 Citations
Background Citations
19
Methods Citations
1

54 Citations

Investigating the impact of distinct contemplative mental trainings on daily life stress, thoughts and affect—Evidence from a nine-month longitudinal ecological momentary assessment study
Effects of compassion training on brain responses to suffering others
TLDR
CM increased brain responses to suffering others in the medial orbitofrontal cortex relative to both the placebo and familiarity control conditions, and in the nucleus accumbens relative to the familiarity control condition.
Plasma oxytocin is modulated by mental training, but does not mediate its stress-buffering effect
Investigating differential effects of socio-emotional and mindfulness-based online interventions on mental health, resilience and social capacities during the COVID-19 pandemic: The study protocol
TLDR
The present study will serve as a first step for future application of scalable, low-cost interventions at a broader level to reduce stress and loneliness, improve mental health and build resilience and social capacities in the face of global stressors.
Not all types of meditation are the same: Mediators of change in mindfulness and compassion meditation interventions.
The plasticity of well-being: A training-based framework for the cultivation of human flourishing
TLDR
This synthesis highlights key insights, as well as important gaps, in the scientific understanding of well-being and how it may be cultivated, thus highlighting future research directions.
Visualizing compassion: Episodic simulation as contemplative practice
Contemplative interventions designed to cultivate compassion are receiving increasing empirical attention. Accumulating evidence suggests that these interventions bolster prosocial motivation and…
Understanding Meditation Based on the Subjective Experience and Traditional Goal: Implications for Current Meditation Research
TLDR
This paper wants to emphasize that, although these techniques and practices may appear different on the periphery, eventually, they seem to subject one to the same experience at the end, a natural meditative state, and offers some interesting ideas based on the traditional insights into meditation.
Cultivating the Compassionate Self: an Exploration of the Mechanisms of Change in Compassionate Mind Training
Objectives The current study aimed to examine the mechanisms of change that mediate the impact of a compassionate mind training (CMT) intervention, in particular, whether changes in compassion, fears…
Compassion: From Its Evolution to a Psychotherapy
TLDR
This paper outlines an evolution informed biopsychosocial, multicomponent model to caring behavior and its derivative “compassion” that underpins newer approaches to psychotherapy and suggests that it is the way recent human cognitive competencies give rise to different types of “mind awareness” and “knowing intentionality’ that transform basic caring motives into potentials for compassion.
...
...

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 50 REFERENCES
Differential benefits of mental training types for attention, compassion, and theory of mind
Phenomenological Fingerprints of Four Meditations: Differential State Changes in Affect, Mind-Wandering, Meta-Cognition, and Interoception Before and After Daily Practice Across 9 Months of Training
TLDR
Comparing the effects of four common meditation practices on measures of state change in affect, mind-wandering, meta-cognition, and interoception suggests that although different meditation practices may have common beneficial effects, each practice can also be characterized by a distinct short-term psychological fingerprint.
Differential Effects of Attention-, Compassion-, and Socio-Cognitively Based Mental Practices on Self-Reports of Mindfulness and Compassion
TLDR
Examining the differential effects of three different 3-month mental training modules on subscales of mindfulness and compassion questionnaires concluded that only socio-cognitive and compassion-based practices led to broad changes in ethical-motivational qualities like a nonjudgmental attitude, compassion, and self-compassion.
Structural plasticity of the social brain: Differential change after socio-affective and cognitive mental training
Training to understand the feelings and thoughts of others induces structural changes in two divergent social brain networks. Although neuroscientific research has revealed experience-dependent brain…
The neuroscience of mindfulness meditation
TLDR
Research over the past two decades broadly supports the claim that mindfulness meditation exerts beneficial effects on physical and mental health, and cognitive performance, but the underlying neural mechanisms remain unclear.
Conceptual and methodological issues in research on mindfulness and meditation.
TLDR
Key topics are the role of first-person experience and how it can be best studied, the challenges posed by intervention research designs in which true double-blinding is not possible, the nature of control and comparison conditions for research that includes mindfulness or other meditation-based interventions, and considerations regarding the structure of study design and data analyses.
Differential pattern of functional brain plasticity after compassion and empathy training.
TLDR
It is concluded that training compassion may reflect a new coping strategy to overcome empathic distress and strengthen resilience.
Socioaffective versus sociocognitive mental trainings differentially affect emotion regulation strategies.
TLDR
C cultivating present-moment focused attention might not be sufficient to change emotion regulation strategies, and different types of mental practices focusing on either cognitive perspective taking or sociomotivational capacities lead to adaptive emotion regulation via different strategies.
Effects of Contemplative Dyads on Engagement and Perceived Social Connectedness Over 9 Months of Mental Training: A Randomized Clinical Trial
TLDR
Contemplative dyads elicited engagement similar to classical contemplative practices and increased perceived social connectedness in participants who experience loneliness and in many psychopathologies.
Specific reduction in cortisol stress reactivity after social but not attention-based mental training
TLDR
It is shown that all three practice types markedly reduced self-reported stress reactivity in healthy participants, and that short daily intersubjective practice may be a promising method for minimizing the incidence of chronic social stress–related disease, thereby reducing individual suffering and relieving a substantial financial burden on society.
...
...