Feeling fatigued—lacking energy and motivation— is a universal human experience.
While sometimes it can be a symptom of a medical condition, it is often caused by lifestyle choices, stress, environment, or psychological factors.
Whatever the cause, fatigue has been linked to intensified negative emotions and impaired emotional processing.
However, new research from Shenzhen University in China suggests that mindfulness meditation might help alleviate the negative impact of fatigue on emotional processing.
Exploring the Power of Mindfulness Meditation
Previous studies have shown that mindfulness meditation, which involves being present in the moment and observing feelings, emotions, and sensations, can reduce the intensity of negative feelings and facilitate healthy emotional processing.
Researchers Jialin Fan, Wenjing Li and their colleagues sought to explore whether mindfulness could mitigate the negative link between fatigue and emotions.
A Fresh Approach to Studying Emotional Responses
The research team used a technique known as event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine the relationship between fatigue and emotions.
ERPs are small electrical voltages in the brain that are generated in response to specific events or stimuli.
By measuring these voltages, researchers can gain insight into people’s emotional and physiological responses to various experiences.
How the Study Was Conducted
In the study, 145 participants were divided into two groups.
The first group completed a 15-minute guided mindfulness meditation, focusing on their breath and different body parts. The second group simply rested with their eyes closed for the same period.
All participants then completed an image processing task, during which their ERPs were recorded. They were also asked to rate their level of fatigue and emotional state both before and after the experiment.
Key takeaways
The researchers examined the data to see if the mindfulness practice had any effect on the participants’ emotional state and brain ERPs.
They specifically looked at a neural indicator of emotional stimulus attention called the late positive potential (LPP).
They found that fatigued individuals in the mindfulness group didn’t report a significant improvement in their emotional state after the mindfulness session.
However, their brain signals showed that the meditation improved their brain’s processing of emotional stimuli compared to fatigued individuals who only rested.
The study results suggest that mindfulness meditation may help fatigued individuals maintain their responsiveness to emotional stimuli. The researchers noted, “Our study demonstrates that mindfulness meditation, to some extent, offsets the negative association of fatigue with the neural activation of emotions.”
This research opens a new avenue in understanding the potential benefits of mindfulness meditation.
Future studies could delve further into this topic using different experimental methods, such as including more accurate measures of fatigue and longer or repeated meditation sessions.
If you care about wellness, please read studies about exercise that are vital to improving longevity in older people, and this dieting method could help increase longevity.
For more information about wellness, please see recent studies about vaccines that can block COVID-19 and variants, plus other coronaviruses, and results showing this type of exercise may slow down bone aging.
The study was published in Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience.
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