Book Description

College counseling centers are searching for innovative and short-term mental health interventions that promote wellness, especially given the growing number of college students who report serious and chronic stress. Researchers and clinicians have tested two promising interventions, self-compassion meditation and biofeedback training, in their search to find effective tools to assist people in handling stress. Some evidence shows that these interventions can help individuals to increase mindfulness and self-compassion and to decrease self-criticism and anxiety. The purpose of the study was to investigate whether HRV biofeedback training using the emWave and Self Compassion Meditation would help participants to attain a more positive state as measured by the questionnaires. Forty participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: Biofeedback, Self-Compassion and Control. The dependent variables and the scales used to measure them included mindfulness (5-Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire; FFMQ), self-compassion (Self-Compassion Scale; SCS), self-criticism (Levels of Self-Criticism Scale; LOSC) and anxiety (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, STAI-S and STAI-T). The procedures took place as follows: The Biofeedback Condition participated in Biofeedback training with the emWave, the Self-Compassion Condition listened to an adapted version of the Self-Compassion/ Loving Kindness meditation, created by Kristin Neff, and the Control Condition listened to a recording of an adapted version of the history of cookies by Linda Stradley (2004). It was hypothesized that participants in the Biofeedback Condition would report significantly greater outcome means on the FFMQ as well as significantly lower outcome means on the STAI-S and STAI-T when compared to the Control Condition and the Self-Compassion Condition. Participants in the Biofeedback Condition were also expected to report significantly higher mean exit scores on the SCS as well as significantly lower mean exit scores on the LOSC when compared to the Control Condition. The participants in the Self-Compassion Condition were expected to report significantly greater post-intervention means on the SCS as well as significantly lower mean exit scores on the LOSC when compared to the Biofeedback Condition and the Control Condition. The participants in the Self-Compassion Condition were also expected to report significantly higher mean exit scores on the FFMQ as well as significantly smaller mean exit scores on the STAI-S and STAI-T when compared to the Control Condition. A one-way between-groups ANOVA with post-hoc test revealed significantly lower STAI-S mean exit scores in the Biofeedback Condition and the Self-Compassion Condition when compared to the Control Condition. However, conducting a set of ANCOVAs did not reveal any significant differences between the exit scores of the three interventions (Biofeedback training, self-compassion meditation and control) on the FFMQ, the SCS, the LOSC or the STAI-T. The present study consisted of pilot work, thus, the small number of participants in each condition may have impacted statistical power. Future studies should try to replicate the results with greater numbers of participants.