How Does Mindfulness Training Affect Health? A Mindfulness Stress Buffering Account

• Published in: Current directions in psychological science : a journal of the American Psychological Society Vol. 23; no. 6; pp. 401 - 407
• Main Authors: Creswell, J. David, Lindsay, Emily K.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.12.2014; Sage Publications; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: AIDS; Amygdala; Biological and medical sciences; Disease models; Disease risk; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Health outcomes; Illness and personality; Illness, stress and coping; Intervention; Mechanical stress; Meditation; Mental depression; Mental health; Mindfulness; Pathogenesis; Personality. Affectivity; Psychological stress; Psychology and medicine; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Reactivity; Stress; stress; health psychology; mindfulness; meditation; coping; Human; Meditation; Health; Medical psychology; Review; Coping; Mindfulness; Stress
• ISSN: 0963-7214; 1467-8721
• DOI: 10.1177/0963721414547415

Initial well-controlled studies have suggested that mindfulness training interventions can improve a broad range of mental and physical health outcomes (e.g., HIV pathogenesis, depression relapse, inflammation, drug abuse), yet the underlying pathways linking mindfulness and health are poorly understood. In this article, we offer a mindfulness stress buffering account to explain these health outcomes, which posits that mindfulness-based health effects are mostly likely to be observed in high-stress populations for which stress is known to affect the onset or exacerbation of disease pathogenic processes. We then offer an evidence-based biological model of mindfulness, stress buffering, and health.