Skip to main content
eScholarship
Open Access Publications from the University of California

UC San Diego

UC San Diego Electronic Theses and Dissertations bannerUC San Diego

Brief Digital Mindfulness and Compassion Training in Healthcare Professionals Drives Behavioral Change & Neural Plasticity

No data is associated with this publication.
Abstract

High-stress levels have become a large part of physicians' lives in today's medical workforce, increasing only more so since the COVID-19 pandemic. Few efforts have been made to decrease these high-stress levels, leading to not only negative impacts on physicians' physical and mental well-being but also on their ability to care for patients. Prior research has shown that self-compassion and mindfulness are powerful tools in preventing burnout, but there are few resources available that incorporate these ideals effectively and are time-efficient. Through an online application, participants in our study used a digital mindfulness meditation application to train compassion and practice mindfulness. Participants also took part in an interoceptive breath monitoring task recorded pre- and post-mindfulness training. Through this breathing task, we investigated neural activity in core brain networks through electrophysiological source imaging. We discovered that mindfulness practices can increase personality attributes of self-compassion and state-mindfulness with improvements in self-compassion sustained at follow-up, overall leading to better self-management of stressors. Additionally, longer mindfulness training duration was found to be positively correlated with a greater magnitude of improvement in self-compassion across subjects. Neural results indicated plasticity specific to the default mode network (DMN) region with network suppression in the experimental group at post-intervention. Neurobehavioral correlations revealed the extent of DMN suppression related to self-compassion improvements during post- versus pre-intervention. These findings implicate that brief digital mindfulness practices may improve stress management in physicians.

Main Content

This item is under embargo until October 9, 2025.