Mindfulness, Neuroscience and Daily Life Study (MiND)

Funder: Aspen Institute
Administered in: College of the Liberal Arts

Abstract:

Anxiety symptoms cause significant distress and impairment for millions of adults, yet a large portion of those who experience symptoms do not seek treatment. Mindfulness meditation can improve psychological wellbeing and reduce anxiety symptoms, yet practical benefits may be diminished due to barriers including difficulties initiating meditation sessions and building a sustainable habit. Drawing-based interventions have also been shown to provide psychological benefits, thus using drawing as a delivery tool infused with mindfulness elements may create a more approachable and tangible avenue to reduce anxiety. The proposed study will leverage mobile electroencephalography (EEG) to measure neurophysiological emotion regulation (i.e., delta-beta coupling) as a target outcome to be enhanced by a novel guided drawing activity with mindfulness elements.

In a sample of 50 adults, we will examine whether the guided drawing activity (Aim 1) results in a significant change pre- to post-drawing in anxiety and neurophysiological emotion regulation, and (Aim 2) whether these changes are longitudinally sustained or potentiated over the course of one month of habitual drawing sessions. The project will add to our understanding of how drawing can be leveraged to manage anxiety symptoms and bolster neurophysiological emotion regulation.