Mindfulness May Be a Mediator of Anxiety When Responding to an Uncertain Threat –

The partnership amongst mindfulness and anxiousness might involve reactions to uncertainty. These findings had been published in the Journal of Anxiety Disorders.

Students (N=55) at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands had been recruited to participate in this study. The participants had been assessed for panic, social anxiousness, be concerned, obsessive compulsive symptoms, mindfulness, and uncertainty by a questionnaire and tested by the threat-of-shock process (NPU-threat test).

During the NPU-threat test, prompts on a pc screen indicated that no shock, predictable shocks, or unpredictable shocks would be administered by way of electrodes attached to the left hand. Reactions to the shocks had been assessed by 2 concerns following the prompts and by electrodes for facial electromyography.

Participants had been mainly females (n=32) who had been aged imply 23.25 (common deviation [SD], 3.87) years. Participants received monetary compensation (n=48) or they participated to fulfill a plan requirement (n=7).

During the NPU-threat test, situation (F_[294], 105.43 P &lt.001 h_p², .692), cue (F_[147], 80.256 P &lt.001 h_p², .631), and the interaction amongst the 2 (F_{[1.589,74.691]}, 50.091 P &lt.001 h_p², .516) had been considerable for startle magnitude and subjective anxiousness.

Compared with the no shock situation, each predictable (P =.001) and unpredictable (P &lt.001) shock situations elicited a higher startle magnitude.

Anxiety differed drastically through situation (F_{[1.666,78.287]}, 94.152 P &lt.001 h_p², .667) in which anxiousness was higher through predictable (P &lt.001) and unpredictable (P &lt.001) shock situations compared with the no shock remedy. Anxiety was highest through the unpredictable shock situation (P &lt.001).

Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) scores had been inversely associated with all measures of anxiousness (variety, -.27 to -.67 all P &lt.05) and intolerance and uncertainty (variety, -.53 to -.61 all P &lt.05). Measures of intolerance and uncertainty had been positively related with all anxiousness measures (variety, .29-.66 all P &lt.05) except for interoceptive worry (variety, .01-.14 P =.30).

FFMQ scores had been not related with response to uncertainty (r, -.176 P =.232) or startle (r, .073 P =.622).

Mindfulness mediation was observed to have a considerable direct impact on social anxiousness (-.592 SD, .121 P &lt.01), agoraphobia (-.256 SD, .094 P &lt.01), and be concerned (-.434 SD, .120 P &lt.01) but not on obsessive compulsive symptoms (.066 SD, .103).

These final results might have been biased by the tiny sample size, in particular simply because the investigators reported a higher quantity of response variability of the psychophysiological measures.

This study was the 1st to uncover a partnership of uncertainty with mindfulness and anxiousness, indicating mindfulness might be an critical therapeutic tool across a number of psychological issues. Future research are required to confirm this partnership amongst mindfulness and anxiousness.

Reference

Papenfuss I, Lommen MJJ, Grillon C, Balderston NL, Ostafin BD. Responding to uncertain threat: A possible mediator for the impact of mindfulness on anxiousness. J Anxiety Disord. 202077:102332. doi:10.1016/j.janxdis.2020.102332