stress-related disease outcomes. Given that brief mindfulness
meditation training increased cortisol reactivity, one
possibility is that these increases in cortisol may blunt
stress-related increases in inflammation via HPA-axis nega-
tive feedback (Barnes et al., 1993; Steptoe et al., 2007),
but we note that longer-term mindfulness meditation train-
ing may be needed for clinically meaningful health benefits
in at-risk stressed patient populations.
Role of the funding source
This research was supported by the Pittsburgh Life Sciences
Greenhouse Opportunity Fund.
Conflicts of interest
The authors report no conflicts of interest.
Acknowledgments
We thank Fadel Zeidan for sharing his mindfulness meditation
scripts, which we adapted for this study, the research assistants
in the Health and Human Performance Laboratory at
Carnegie Mellon University, and Sheldon Cohen for feedback.