Examining the Effects of Regular Brief Internet-based Meditation Practice on Mental Health and Well Being

Stanford University

Status: Active, not recruiting

Conditions: Healthy; Well-Being, Psychological

Treatments: Behavioral: SOS Meditation

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT06014281

68784

Details and patient eligibility

About

The study will examine the effects of online meditation training on stress and anxiety in healthy participants. It will also examine the dose-response relationship between the amount of daily focused attention meditation practice and established mental health outcome measures.

Full description

This is a 16-week study with an 8-week meditation intervention, with a requirement of a minimum of 10 minutes of meditation practice each day. This study will recruit ~200 healthy subjects (18+ years) with no current or previous diagnosis of psychiatric or neurological disorders who are interested in learning about meditation but don't have long-term experience with meditation. Half of the participant pool will be randomly assigned to the meditation intervention, and the other half will get the wait-list control assignment. The control group will later receive its intervention, likely a few weeks after the completion of the active group's intervention. A focused-attention meditation technique (SOS meditation) will be used to train participants.

Changes in participants' physiological markers (e.g., HRV, physical activity, respiration rate, sleep quality) will be evaluated using passive activity monitoring devices (e.g., Fitbit). Intervention-related changes in mental health will be assessed using web-based mental health and well-being surveys. Improvements in cognitive functioning will be assessed using web-based psychological tasks.

Enrollment: 300 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Age ≥ 18 years
• Able to follow basic instructions for prescreening and scheduling
• Compliant with investigator instructions during the consent process and participation in the study
• Is not already a regular meditation practitioner

Exclusion criteria

• Age <18
• People with a current diagnosis of psychiatric or neurological disorders
• Be in current psychiatric treatment or medications
• Hospitalized for psychiatric disorders in the past year or so.
• Regular and long-term meditation practitioners
• Non-English speaking
• Non-USA mailing address to receive the activity tracker device
• Vision or hearing impairment severe enough to interfere with study participation

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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300 participants in 2 patient groups

Meditation group

Experimental group

Description:

Baseline to week 8: Subjects will be trained to meditate for 10 minutes daily, and several measures (questionnaires, cognitive tests, and physiological measurements) will be obtained to assess the efficacy of daily meditation practice on mental health and well being. Focused-attention meditation technique will be used to train participants. Specifically the SOS meditation technique will be employed. Week 8 to week 16: Subjects will self report if they choose to continue SOS meditation and several measures (questionnaires, cognitive tests, and physiological measurements) will be obtained to assess the impact of continued meditation practice on mental health and well being.

Treatment:

Behavioral: SOS Meditation

Waitlist control

Experimental group

Description:

Baseline to week 8: Subjects will be place in a control group which receives no intervention. However, several measures (questionnaires, cognitive tests, and physiological measurements) will be obtained to assess baseline mental health and well being scores. Week 8 to week 16: Subjects will be trained to meditate for 10 minutes daily, and several measures (questionnaires, cognitive tests, and physiological measurements) will be obtained to assess the efficacy of daily meditation practice on mental health and well being. Focused-attention meditation technique will be used to train participants. Specifically the SOS meditation technique will be employed.

Treatment:

Behavioral: SOS Meditation