Embodied Cognition in Meditation, Yoga, and Ethics: An Experimental Single-Case Study on Differential Effects of Four Treatments

A single-case multiple-baseline study with 57 healthy, inexperienced yoga practitioners tested how different combinations of yoga components—mantra meditation, physical postures, and ethical teachings—affect body awareness, emotion regulation, affectivity, self-compassion, and distress tolerance. All four treatments (meditation alone, meditation plus physical yoga, meditation plus ethical education, and all three combined) improved body awareness, emotion regulation, self-compassion, and distress tolerance to a similar extent. Meditation alone had the least favorable effect on daily affect, whereas adding ethical education enhanced positive valence most, and adding physical yoga best prevented negative affective responses. The authors suggest mantra meditation is the core driver of improvements in interoception and self-awareness, despite its negative influence on daily affect.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Yoga is an embodied contemplative practice entailing multiple components, such as ethical teachings, postures, breathing practices, and meditation. Little is known to date how these different components affect aspects of embodied cognition. This single-case multiple-baseline study explored the differential and incremental effects of four different combinations of yoga components on body awareness, emotion regulation, affectivity, self compassion, and distress tolerance. Fifty-seven healthy participants with no regular yoga or meditation practice were randomly assigned to three baselines (7, 14, and 21 days) and four conditions: Mantra meditation alone (MA), meditation plus physical yoga (MY), meditation plus ethical education (ME), and meditation plus yoga and ethical education (MYE). All the interventions lasted for 8 weeks. Forty-two participants completed the treatment and were included in the analyses that involved visual inspection, effect size estimation, and multilevel modeling. All four treatments improved body awareness, emotion regulation, self-compassion, and distress tolerance to a similar extent. Body awareness and emotion regulation developed continuously and simultaneously over time. The MA condition had the least favorable effect on affective experience, while the ME condition enhanced valence the most and the MY condition was the most effective in preventing negative affective responses. Even though mantra meditation on its own negatively influenced daily affect, it can be assumed to be the driving force behind the improvement of the other variables. This points to the central role of meditation in increasing interoception, self-awareness and the processing of bodily and emotional stimuli.