School of Psychology, University of Exeter, Washington Singer Building, Perry Road, Exeter EX4 4QG, UK.
School of Psychology, University of Exeter, Washington Singer Building, Perry Road, Exeter EX4 4QG, UK.
Addict Behav. 2020 Mar;102:106141. doi: 10.1016/j.addbeh.2019.106141. Epub 2019 Oct 18.
The therapeutic effect of mindfulness interventions on problematic drinking is thought to be driven by increased resilience to the impact of stress on negative mood and alcohol-seeking behaviour, but this claim needs empirical support. To address this hypothesis, the current study tested whether brief training of one component of mindfulness - breath counting - would reduce drinkers' sensitivity to the effect of noise stress on subjective mood and alcohol-seeking behaviour. Baseline alcohol-seeking was measured by choice to view alcohol versus food thumbnail pictures in 192 student drinkers. Participants then received a 6-minute audio file which either trained breath counting or recited a popular science extract, in separate groups. All participants were then stressed by a loud industrial noise and alcohol-seeking was measured again simultaneously to quantify the change from baseline. Subjective mood was measured after all three stages (baseline, post intervention, post stress test). The breath counting group were instructed to deploy this technique during the stress test. Results showed that the breath counting versus control intervention improved subjective mood relative to baseline, attenuated the worsening of subjective mood produced by stress induction, and accelerated recovery from a stress induced increase in alcohol-seeking behaviour. Exploratory moderation analysis showed that this accelerated recovery from stress induced alcohol-seeking by breath counting was weaker in more alcohol dependent participants. Mindfulness therapies may improve problematic drinking by increasing resilience to stress induced negative mood and alcohol-seeking, as observed in this study. The weaker therapeutic effect of breath counting in more dependent drinkers may reveal limitations to this intervention strategy.
正念干预对问题饮酒的治疗效果被认为是通过提高对压力对负面情绪和饮酒行为的影响的恢复能力来实现的，但这一说法需要实证支持。为了验证这一假设，本研究测试了正念干预的一个组成部分——呼吸计数——是否会降低饮酒者对噪声压力对主观情绪和饮酒行为的影响的敏感性。192 名学生饮酒者通过选择查看酒精与食物缩略图来测量基线饮酒量。然后，参与者分别在两组中接收 6 分钟的音频文件，一组接受呼吸计数训练，一组接受科普读物朗诵。然后，所有参与者都受到大声的工业噪音的压力，同时测量饮酒量以量化与基线相比的变化。在所有三个阶段（基线、干预后、压力测试后）后测量主观情绪。呼吸计数组被指示在压力测试中使用此技术。结果表明，与基线相比，呼吸计数与对照组干预提高了主观情绪，减轻了压力诱发对主观情绪的恶化，并加速了从压力引起的饮酒行为增加中恢复。探索性调节分析表明，呼吸计数对压力引起的饮酒行为的恢复速度在依赖性更强的饮酒者中较慢。正如本研究观察到的，正念疗法可能通过提高对压力引起的负面情绪和饮酒行为的恢复能力来改善问题饮酒。在依赖性更强的饮酒者中，呼吸计数的治疗效果较弱可能揭示了这种干预策略的局限性。
