April 6, 2023
View or download a transcript of this episode
In this episode, Wendy speaks with social psychologist and contemplative researcher David Creswell. David has been studying the effects of meditation on stress and resilience for over a decade, and has conducted some of the most rigorous studies to date investigating which aspects of mindfulness interventions bring benefit. This conversation covers many topics, including:
- integrating psychology and Buddhism since high school;
- understanding stress and resilience;
- acceptance and equanimity in mindfulness;
- bringing scientific rigor to the study of mindfulness through dismantling trials;
- effects of equanimity on the stress response and positive emotions;
- how contemplative skills spill over from the cushion into daily life;
- how practice changes the brain and why those changes matter;
- a risky study with a president’s daughter;
- the promise of apps to deliver mindfulness;
- how acceptance differs from passive resignation;
- and viewing biology and psychology as two sides of the same coin.
David Creswell, PhD, is the William Dietrich II Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Carnegie Mellon University. His research focuses broadly on understanding what makes people resilient under stress. Specifically, he conducts community intervention studies, laboratory studies of stress and coping, and neuroimaging studies to understand how various stress management strategies alter coping and stress resilience. He is currently working on studies that test how mindfulness meditation training impacts the brain, peripheral stress physiological responses, and stress-related disease outcomes in at-risk community samples. Much of this recent work on mindfulness meditation training focuses on the important role of learning acceptance and equanimity skills for stress reduction and health. David also explores how the use of simple strategies (self-affirmation, rewarding activities, cognitive reappraisal) can buffer stress and improve problem-solving under pressure.
Resources
Faculty website, Carnegie Mellon University
Lab website, including current research projects and publications
Equa – app-based mindfulness training
- Paper: How mindfulness training promotes positive emotions: Dismantling monitor and acceptance in two randomized controlled trials. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. (2018)
- Paper: Acceptance lowers stress reactivity: Dismantling mindfulness training in a randomized controlled trial. Psychoneuroendocrinology. (2018)
- Paper: Alterations in Resting State Functional Connectivity link Mindfulness Meditation with Reduced Interleukin-6: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Biological Psychiatry. (2016)