Brain, Belief, & Behaviour Lab, Centre for Trust, Peace, and Social Relations, Coventry University, Coventry, England.
Radboud University, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Nijmegen, Netherlands.
BMC Psychol. 2024 Sep 27;12(1):509. doi: 10.1186/s40359-024-02022-y.
The academic development and widespread adoption of meditation practices for well-being and therapy have predominantly focused on secularised adaptations of Buddhist and Hindu techniques. This study aims to expand the field by investigating Christian and Islamic meditation that emphasize the spiritual significance of the heart through elements of visualisation and recitation. It compares the effects of spiritual heart-centred meditation with mindfulness meditation and a waitlist control, focusing on dimensions of social functioning, psychophysiology, cognition, and mental health.
This study employs a stratified 3-arm randomised controlled method with mixed-method repeated measures across three assessment time points: before intervention (T1), after an 8-week intervention (T2), and at a 3-month follow up (T3). The three conditions include spiritual meditation (either Christian or Islamic), mindfulness meditation (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction - MBSR), and a waitlist. Participants will be stratified into Christian and Muslim samples and randomly allocated to the spiritual meditation, MBSR, or waitlist control conditions. Importantly, participants assigned to the spiritual meditation condition will be matched to the spiritual meditation program corresponding to their religion. The intervention will be administered through a mobile phone app with daily 20-minute guided meditation sessions for eight weeks. Primary outcomes pertain to the domain of interpersonal functioning, focusing on prosociality, forgiveness, empathy, and perspective taking. Secondary outcomes include physiology: pain tolerance, pain intensity, stress reactivity assessed via heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV), psychophysiological reactivity associated with a forgiveness task as measured through HR and HRV, attention (alerting, orienting, and executive attention networks), and mental health (stress, depression, anxiety, subjective well-being, positive and negative affect).
This trial aims to test the effects of an app-based Christian and Islamic meditation, compared to secular mindfulness and a waitlist, using a randomised controlled trial. If the results yield positive outcomes, this study will support the efficacy of these contemplations, offering practitioners a way to enhance their well-being within their religious framework.
ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT06136676. Registered on 18 November 2023. https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT06136676 .
学术发展和广泛采用冥想实践来促进健康和治疗，主要集中在对佛教和印度教技术的世俗化改编上。本研究旨在通过调查强调通过可视化和诵经来体现心灵意义的基督教和伊斯兰教冥想，来扩展这一领域。它比较了精神中心冥想与正念冥想和候补对照的效果，重点关注社会功能、心理生理学、认知和心理健康的维度。
本研究采用分层 3 臂随机对照方法，在三个评估时间点（干预前（T1）、8 周干预后（T2）和 3 个月随访（T3））进行混合方法重复测量。三个条件包括精神冥想（基督教或伊斯兰教）、正念冥想（正念减压 - MBSR）和候补对照。参与者将分为基督教和穆斯林样本，并随机分配到精神冥想、MBSR 或候补对照条件。重要的是，分配到精神冥想条件的参与者将根据他们的宗教匹配到相应的精神冥想方案。干预将通过一个手机应用程序进行，每天进行 20 分钟的引导冥想，为期八周。主要结果涉及人际关系领域，重点是亲社会行为、宽恕、同理心和换位思考。次要结果包括生理学：疼痛耐受性、疼痛强度、通过心率（HR）和心率变异性（HRV）评估的应激反应、宽恕任务相关的 HR 和 HRV 测量的心理生理反应、注意力（警觉、定向和执行注意网络）和心理健康（压力、抑郁、焦虑、主观幸福感、积极和消极情绪）。
本试验旨在通过随机对照试验测试基于应用程序的基督教和伊斯兰教冥想与世俗正念和候补对照相比的效果。如果结果产生积极的结果，本研究将支持这些冥想的功效，为从业者提供一种在其宗教框架内增强幸福感的方法。
ClinicalTrials.gov，NCT06136676。于 2023 年 11 月 18 日注册。https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT06136676。
