The effects of Mindfulness Meditation and Relaxation Training on Neural Correlates of Attention in Anxiety

INTERVENTION: Participants will be randomised to either a mindfulness meditation or relaxation (active control condition) training intervention. The intervention training will occur over a three‐week period (daily exercises or at least 5 separate sessions a week) via a mobile phone app using a mobile phone device in the home setting (averaging 15 mins per day). Participants will have a choice of using their own mobile phone (if compatible), otherwise a mobile phone will be provided for loan by the researchers. Adherence will be determined through mobile phone app usage data, provided directly from the phone apps. In addition, participants will be asked to tick if they completed assigned exercises on a hardcopy form. The mindfulness meditation training intervention will be delivered by the free mobile phone app ‘Smiling Mind©’. This app contains folders of brief audio recordings of mindfulness meditation exercises (e.g., ‘mindfulness of the breath’, ‘body scan’). Participants will be given instructions on the order of exercises to follow. Exercises assigned for practice on a given day will range from around 10‐20 minutes of practice. It is estimated that the average amount of practice assigned per day will be approximately 15 minutes. Both groups will also receive a mindfulness meditation induction at the pre‐ and post‐intervention experimental sessions. This will include a 10‐minute mindful breathing exercise. This will be delivered through a guided ‘mindfulness of the breath’ audio recording freely available on the Centre for Clinical Interventions website (CCI©, Government of Western Australia, 2021). This exercise guides listeners to build awareness of their breathing, notice when their mind wanders, and redirect their attention with a non‐judgemental attitude.
10) generalised anxiety symptoms over the past two weeks (GAD‐7; Spitzer, Kroenke, Williams, & Lowe, 2006) will be included. Participants with low meditation and relaxation experience (no more than 15 minutes during an average week over the past year, and less than 20 hours in total over their lifetime), with the exception of movement‐based practices (e.g., Tai Chi, yoga for exercise), will be selected based on their responses to a customised meditation / relaxation experience questionnaire. Participants will have normal or corrected‐to‐normal vision and hearing, so they are able to see the stimuli and hear instructions clearly. In addition, all participants will need to speak English as a first language and be able to read English fluently so that they can accurately read words in the Stroop task.