Fan, Yaxin;
Cui, Yifen;
Tang, Rongxiang;
Sarkar, Amar;
Mehta, Pranjal;
Tang, Yi-Yuan;
(2024)
Salivary testosterone and cortisol response in acute stress modulated by seven sessions of mindfulness meditation in young males.
Stress: The International Journal on the Biology of Stress
, 27
(1)
, Article 2316041. 10.1080/10253890.2024.2316041.
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Abstract
Stress is an established risk factor for negative health outcomes. Salivary cortisol and testosterone concentrations increase in response to acute psychosocial stress. It’s crucial to reduce stress for health and well-being through evidence-based interventions. Body-mind interventions such as meditation and Tai Chi have shown reduced cortisol levels but mixed results in testosterone concentration after stress. To address this research gap, we conducted a pilot randomized controlled trial to examine the modulating effects of a short-term (seven 20-minute sessions) mindfulness meditation on testosterone and cortisol in response to acute stress. Using one form of mindfulness meditation – Integrative Body-Mind Training (IBMT) and an active control–relaxation training (RT), we assessed salivary cortisol and testosterone concentrations at three stages of stress intervention – rest, stress, and an additional 20-min IBMT or RT practice. We found increased cortisol and testosterone concentrations after acute stress in both groups, but testosterone rise was not associated with cortisol rise. Moreover, an additional practice immediately after stress produced higher testosterone concentrations in the IBMT group than the RT group, whereas cortisol concentration increased in the RT group than in the IBMT group at the same time point. These findings indicate that brief mindfulness intervention modulates a dual-hormone profile of testosterone and cortisol in response to acute stress presumably via the co-regulation of hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal and hypothalamus-pituitary-testicular axes.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Salivary testosterone and cortisol response in acute stress modulated by seven sessions of mindfulness meditation in young males |
| Location: | England |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1080/10253890.2024.2316041 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10253890.2024.2316041 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent. |
| Keywords: | Cortisol; testosterone; mindfulness meditation; integrative body-mind training; relaxation training; hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis; hypothalamus-pituitarytesticular axis |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Experimental Psychology |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10188976 |
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