Objectives Psychosocial stress is an inherent part of modern lifestyle, and many suffer from chro... more Objectives Psychosocial stress is an inherent part of modern lifestyle, and many suffer from chronic stress exposure and the subsequent development of stress-related diseases. In searching for efficient low-cost interventions to reduce stress, we investigated the effects of regular contemplative mental practice on diurnal cortisol activity as an indicator of the basal, everyday stress load. Method Data were collected in the context of the ReSource Project, an open-label efficacy trial comprising three distinct 3-month training modules targeting attention and interoception (Presence Module), socio-affective (Affect Module) or socio-cognitive abilities (Perspective Module) through dyadic exercises and secularized meditation practices. Diurnal cortisol activity was assayed at four time points: pre-training and after 3, 6, and 9 months. As outcome measures, the cortisol awakening response (CAR), cortisol slope over the course of the day, and total daily cortisol output were computed. Re...
ObjectiveThis study had the objective to investigate the effect of regular contemplative mental t... more ObjectiveThis study had the objective to investigate the effect of regular contemplative mental training on endocrine indices of long-term stress.MethodsAn open-label efficacy trial comprising three distinct 3-month modules targeting attention and interoception, socio-affective or socio-cognitive abilities through dyadic exercises and secularised meditation practices was designed and carried out in 332 healthy meditation-naive adults. Participants underwent the training for up to 9 months or were assigned to a retest control cohort. Chronic stress indices were assayed at four timepoints, i.e., pre-training and following each module. The main outcome measures were cortisol and cortisone concentration in hair and self-reported chronic stressResultsN=362 initial individuals were randomized, of whom n=30 dropped out before study initiation, n=4 before first sampling and n=2 were excluded. N=99 participants did not provide hair samples. Data from three separate training cohorts revealed ...
Growing evidence suggests that chronic low-grade inflammation can be reduced through mindfulness-... more Growing evidence suggests that chronic low-grade inflammation can be reduced through mindfulness-based mental training interventions. However, these results are inconsistent and based on patient populations with heterogeneous conditions. Similar research in healthy adults is lacking. Moreover, common intervention protocols involve varying combinations of different contemplative practices, such that it remains unclear which types of training most effectively influence biomarkers of inflammation. The present study investigated the effect of three distinct 3-month training modules cultivating a) interoception and present-moment focus (Presence), b) socio-affective skills (Affect), or c) socio-cognitive skills (Perspective) on the inflammatory biomarkers interleukin-6 (IL-6) and high sensitive C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) in 298 healthy adults. We observed no group-level effect of training on either biomarker, but trend-level interactions of training type and participant sex. In addition...
Experience and thoughts that are unrelated to the external surroundings are pervasive features of... more Experience and thoughts that are unrelated to the external surroundings are pervasive features of human cognition. Research under the rubric of mind-wandering suggests that such internal experience is context-dependent, and that the content of ongoing thought differentially influences a range of associated outcomes. However, evidence on how the extent of mind-wandering and its content translate from the laboratory to daily life settings is scarce. Furthermore, the relationship between such patterns of thought with markers of stress in daily life remains underexplored. In the current study, we examined multiple aspects of mind-wandering of ninety-three healthy participants (47 women, 25.4 ± 3.9 years) in both the laboratory and daily life and explored two questions: (a) how are mind-wandering extent and content correlated across both settings, and (b) what are their relationships with subjective stress and salivary cortisol levels in daily life? Our results suggest that the extent of...
Daily life stress is an omnipresent phenomenon in modern society. Research has linked prolonged a... more Daily life stress is an omnipresent phenomenon in modern society. Research has linked prolonged activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis to psychiatric and somatic diseases. Everyday stressors substantially contribute to these health risks. Despite the notion that the physiological stress response is highly dependent on concurrent psychological processes, investigations associating diurnal cortisol levels with subjective experience have primarily focused on affective states. The impact of everyday cognitive processes including thought content has been largely neglected. To investigate this link, moment-to-moment associations of psychological experience including subjective stress, thought content and affect, and cortisol levels were assessed throughout the daily routines of 289 healthy adult participants. We found that subjective stress interacted with current thought content and affect in predicting cortisol release: more negative and future-directed thoughts were asso...
To gain a comprehensive understanding of the multidimensional complex systems structure of the st... more To gain a comprehensive understanding of the multidimensional complex systems structure of the stress response and related health outcomes, we utilized network analysis in a sample of 328 healthy participants in two steps. In a first step, we focused on associations between measures of basal hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis functioning and subjective stress perceptions. In a second step, we linked these diverse stress-related measures to biomarkers and self-reports of health and sleep. Overall, measures clustered depending on their method of assessment, with high correlations between different saliva-based indices of diurnal cortisol regulation, between cortisol and cortisone levels in hair, between different biological health indicators (systemic inflammatory activity and body mass index), between state (experience sampling) and trait (questionnaire-based) self-reports of stress and wellbeing, and between different self-reports of sleep. Bridges between clusters suggested that i...
Psychosocial stress is a public health burden in modern societies. Chronic stress-induced disease... more Psychosocial stress is a public health burden in modern societies. Chronic stress-induced disease processes are, in large part, mediated via the activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and the sympathetic-adrenal-medullary system. We asked whether the contemplative mental training of different practice types targeting attentional, socio-affective (for example, compassion), or socio-cognitive abilities (for example, perspective-taking) in the context of a 9-month longitudinal training study offers an effective means for psychosocial stress reduction. Using a multimethod approach including subjective, endocrine, autonomic, and immune markers and testing 313 participants in a standardized psychosocial laboratory stressor, we show that all three practice types markedly reduced self-reported stress reactivity in healthy participants. However, only the training of intersubjective skills via socio-affective and socio-cognitive routes attenuated the physiological stress ...
Animal models and human studies using paradigms designed to stimulate endogenous oxytocin release... more Animal models and human studies using paradigms designed to stimulate endogenous oxytocin release suggest a stress-buffering role of oxytocin. We here examined the involvement of stress-induced peripheral oxytocin secretion in reactivity and recovery phases of the human psychosocial stress response. Healthy male and female participants (N=114) were subjected to a standardized laboratory stressor, the Trier Social Stress Test. In addition to plasma oxytocin, cortisol was assessed as a marker of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA-) axis activity, alpha-amylase and heart rate as markers of sympathetic activity, high frequency heart rate variability as a marker of vagal tone and self-rated anxiety as an indicator of subjective stress experience. On average, oxytocin levels increased by 51% following psychosocial stress. The stress-induced oxytocin secretion, however, did not reduce stress reactivity. To the contrary, higher oxytocin secretion was associated with greater cortisol reacti...
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a childhood psychiatric condition characterize... more Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a childhood psychiatric condition characterized by severe impulsiveness, inattention and overactivity. Methylphenidate (MPH), a psychostimulant affecting both the dopaminergic and the noradrenergic systems, is one of the most frequently prescribed treatments for ADHD. Despite the widespread use of MPH and its proven effectiveness, its precise neurochemical mechanisms of action are under debate. For the most part, MPH's influence on subcortical dopamine neurotransmission is thought to play a crucial role in its behavioral and cognitive effects. In their hypothesis of biphasic MPH action, Seeman and Madras [42, 43] suggest that therapeutic doses of MPH elevate tonic dopamine while inhibiting phasic transmitter release in subcortical structures, leading to reduced postsynaptic receptor stimulation and psychomotor activation in response to salient stimuli. Volkow and colleagues [56] suggest that by amplifying a weak striatal dopamin...
Stress disorders are among the most commonly occurring of all mental disorders. In this context, ... more Stress disorders are among the most commonly occurring of all mental disorders. In this context, the question arises whether the stress inevitably unfolding around us has the potential to "contaminate" and compromise us. In the current multi-center study, we investigate the existence of such empathic stress (defined as a full-blown physiological stress response that arises solely by observing a target undergo a stressful situation), and whether empathic stress permeates to the core of the stress system, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. Additionally, we investigate whether empathic stress responses may be modulated by the familiarity between observer and target (partners vs. strangers), the modality of observation (real-life vs. virtual) and observer sex (female vs. male). Participants were tested in dyads, paired with a loved one or a stranger of the opposite sex. While the target of the dyad (n=151) was exposed to a psychosocial stressor, the observer (n=211) watched through a one-way mirror or via live video transmission. Overall, 26% of the observers displayed physiologically significant cortisol increases. This empathic stress was more pronounced in intimate observer-target dyads (40%) and during the real-life representation of the stressor (30%). Empathic stress was further modulated by interindividual differences in empathy measures. Despite the higher prevalence of empathic stress in the partner and real-life observation conditions, significant cortisol responses also emerged in strangers (10%) and the virtual observation modality (24%). The occurrence of empathic stress down to the level of HPA-axis activation, in some cases even in total strangers and when only virtually witnessing…
Objectives Psychosocial stress is an inherent part of modern lifestyle, and many suffer from chro... more Objectives Psychosocial stress is an inherent part of modern lifestyle, and many suffer from chronic stress exposure and the subsequent development of stress-related diseases. In searching for efficient low-cost interventions to reduce stress, we investigated the effects of regular contemplative mental practice on diurnal cortisol activity as an indicator of the basal, everyday stress load. Method Data were collected in the context of the ReSource Project, an open-label efficacy trial comprising three distinct 3-month training modules targeting attention and interoception (Presence Module), socio-affective (Affect Module) or socio-cognitive abilities (Perspective Module) through dyadic exercises and secularized meditation practices. Diurnal cortisol activity was assayed at four time points: pre-training and after 3, 6, and 9 months. As outcome measures, the cortisol awakening response (CAR), cortisol slope over the course of the day, and total daily cortisol output were computed. Re...
ObjectiveThis study had the objective to investigate the effect of regular contemplative mental t... more ObjectiveThis study had the objective to investigate the effect of regular contemplative mental training on endocrine indices of long-term stress.MethodsAn open-label efficacy trial comprising three distinct 3-month modules targeting attention and interoception, socio-affective or socio-cognitive abilities through dyadic exercises and secularised meditation practices was designed and carried out in 332 healthy meditation-naive adults. Participants underwent the training for up to 9 months or were assigned to a retest control cohort. Chronic stress indices were assayed at four timepoints, i.e., pre-training and following each module. The main outcome measures were cortisol and cortisone concentration in hair and self-reported chronic stressResultsN=362 initial individuals were randomized, of whom n=30 dropped out before study initiation, n=4 before first sampling and n=2 were excluded. N=99 participants did not provide hair samples. Data from three separate training cohorts revealed ...
Growing evidence suggests that chronic low-grade inflammation can be reduced through mindfulness-... more Growing evidence suggests that chronic low-grade inflammation can be reduced through mindfulness-based mental training interventions. However, these results are inconsistent and based on patient populations with heterogeneous conditions. Similar research in healthy adults is lacking. Moreover, common intervention protocols involve varying combinations of different contemplative practices, such that it remains unclear which types of training most effectively influence biomarkers of inflammation. The present study investigated the effect of three distinct 3-month training modules cultivating a) interoception and present-moment focus (Presence), b) socio-affective skills (Affect), or c) socio-cognitive skills (Perspective) on the inflammatory biomarkers interleukin-6 (IL-6) and high sensitive C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) in 298 healthy adults. We observed no group-level effect of training on either biomarker, but trend-level interactions of training type and participant sex. In addition...
Experience and thoughts that are unrelated to the external surroundings are pervasive features of... more Experience and thoughts that are unrelated to the external surroundings are pervasive features of human cognition. Research under the rubric of mind-wandering suggests that such internal experience is context-dependent, and that the content of ongoing thought differentially influences a range of associated outcomes. However, evidence on how the extent of mind-wandering and its content translate from the laboratory to daily life settings is scarce. Furthermore, the relationship between such patterns of thought with markers of stress in daily life remains underexplored. In the current study, we examined multiple aspects of mind-wandering of ninety-three healthy participants (47 women, 25.4 ± 3.9 years) in both the laboratory and daily life and explored two questions: (a) how are mind-wandering extent and content correlated across both settings, and (b) what are their relationships with subjective stress and salivary cortisol levels in daily life? Our results suggest that the extent of...
Daily life stress is an omnipresent phenomenon in modern society. Research has linked prolonged a... more Daily life stress is an omnipresent phenomenon in modern society. Research has linked prolonged activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis to psychiatric and somatic diseases. Everyday stressors substantially contribute to these health risks. Despite the notion that the physiological stress response is highly dependent on concurrent psychological processes, investigations associating diurnal cortisol levels with subjective experience have primarily focused on affective states. The impact of everyday cognitive processes including thought content has been largely neglected. To investigate this link, moment-to-moment associations of psychological experience including subjective stress, thought content and affect, and cortisol levels were assessed throughout the daily routines of 289 healthy adult participants. We found that subjective stress interacted with current thought content and affect in predicting cortisol release: more negative and future-directed thoughts were asso...
To gain a comprehensive understanding of the multidimensional complex systems structure of the st... more To gain a comprehensive understanding of the multidimensional complex systems structure of the stress response and related health outcomes, we utilized network analysis in a sample of 328 healthy participants in two steps. In a first step, we focused on associations between measures of basal hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis functioning and subjective stress perceptions. In a second step, we linked these diverse stress-related measures to biomarkers and self-reports of health and sleep. Overall, measures clustered depending on their method of assessment, with high correlations between different saliva-based indices of diurnal cortisol regulation, between cortisol and cortisone levels in hair, between different biological health indicators (systemic inflammatory activity and body mass index), between state (experience sampling) and trait (questionnaire-based) self-reports of stress and wellbeing, and between different self-reports of sleep. Bridges between clusters suggested that i...
Psychosocial stress is a public health burden in modern societies. Chronic stress-induced disease... more Psychosocial stress is a public health burden in modern societies. Chronic stress-induced disease processes are, in large part, mediated via the activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and the sympathetic-adrenal-medullary system. We asked whether the contemplative mental training of different practice types targeting attentional, socio-affective (for example, compassion), or socio-cognitive abilities (for example, perspective-taking) in the context of a 9-month longitudinal training study offers an effective means for psychosocial stress reduction. Using a multimethod approach including subjective, endocrine, autonomic, and immune markers and testing 313 participants in a standardized psychosocial laboratory stressor, we show that all three practice types markedly reduced self-reported stress reactivity in healthy participants. However, only the training of intersubjective skills via socio-affective and socio-cognitive routes attenuated the physiological stress ...
Animal models and human studies using paradigms designed to stimulate endogenous oxytocin release... more Animal models and human studies using paradigms designed to stimulate endogenous oxytocin release suggest a stress-buffering role of oxytocin. We here examined the involvement of stress-induced peripheral oxytocin secretion in reactivity and recovery phases of the human psychosocial stress response. Healthy male and female participants (N=114) were subjected to a standardized laboratory stressor, the Trier Social Stress Test. In addition to plasma oxytocin, cortisol was assessed as a marker of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA-) axis activity, alpha-amylase and heart rate as markers of sympathetic activity, high frequency heart rate variability as a marker of vagal tone and self-rated anxiety as an indicator of subjective stress experience. On average, oxytocin levels increased by 51% following psychosocial stress. The stress-induced oxytocin secretion, however, did not reduce stress reactivity. To the contrary, higher oxytocin secretion was associated with greater cortisol reacti...
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a childhood psychiatric condition characterize... more Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a childhood psychiatric condition characterized by severe impulsiveness, inattention and overactivity. Methylphenidate (MPH), a psychostimulant affecting both the dopaminergic and the noradrenergic systems, is one of the most frequently prescribed treatments for ADHD. Despite the widespread use of MPH and its proven effectiveness, its precise neurochemical mechanisms of action are under debate. For the most part, MPH's influence on subcortical dopamine neurotransmission is thought to play a crucial role in its behavioral and cognitive effects. In their hypothesis of biphasic MPH action, Seeman and Madras [42, 43] suggest that therapeutic doses of MPH elevate tonic dopamine while inhibiting phasic transmitter release in subcortical structures, leading to reduced postsynaptic receptor stimulation and psychomotor activation in response to salient stimuli. Volkow and colleagues [56] suggest that by amplifying a weak striatal dopamin...
Stress disorders are among the most commonly occurring of all mental disorders. In this context, ... more Stress disorders are among the most commonly occurring of all mental disorders. In this context, the question arises whether the stress inevitably unfolding around us has the potential to "contaminate" and compromise us. In the current multi-center study, we investigate the existence of such empathic stress (defined as a full-blown physiological stress response that arises solely by observing a target undergo a stressful situation), and whether empathic stress permeates to the core of the stress system, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. Additionally, we investigate whether empathic stress responses may be modulated by the familiarity between observer and target (partners vs. strangers), the modality of observation (real-life vs. virtual) and observer sex (female vs. male). Participants were tested in dyads, paired with a loved one or a stranger of the opposite sex. While the target of the dyad (n=151) was exposed to a psychosocial stressor, the observer (n=211) watched through a one-way mirror or via live video transmission. Overall, 26% of the observers displayed physiologically significant cortisol increases. This empathic stress was more pronounced in intimate observer-target dyads (40%) and during the real-life representation of the stressor (30%). Empathic stress was further modulated by interindividual differences in empathy measures. Despite the higher prevalence of empathic stress in the partner and real-life observation conditions, significant cortisol responses also emerged in strangers (10%) and the virtual observation modality (24%). The occurrence of empathic stress down to the level of HPA-axis activation, in some cases even in total strangers and when only virtually witnessing…
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