Mindfulness-Based Restoration Skills Training (Rest)

fpsyg-11-01560 August 12, 2020 Time: 11:39 # 1 ORIGINAL RESEARCH published: 12 August 2020 doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01560 Mindfulness-Based Restoration Skills Training (ReST) in a Natural Setting Compared to Conventional Mindfulness Training: Psychological Functioning After a Five-Week Course Freddie Lymeus1*, Marie Ahrling1, Josef Apelman1, Cecilia de Mander Florin1, Cecilia Nilsson1, Janina Vincenti1, Agnes Zetterberg1, Per Lindberg1 and Terry Hartig1,2 1 Department of Psychology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden, 2 Institute for Housing and Urban Research, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden Restoration skills training (ReST) is a mindfulness-based course that draws on Edited by: restorative nature experience to facilitate the meditation practice and teach widely Angelo Panno, Università Europea di Roma, Italy applicable adaptation skills. Previous studies comparing ReST to conventional Reviewed by: mindfulness training (CMT) showed that ReST has important advantages: it supports Alessio Matiz, beginning meditators in connecting with restorative environmental qualities and in University of Udine, Italy Mark Costa, meditating with less effort; it restores their attention regulation capabilities; and it Syracuse University, United States helps them complete the course and establish a regular meditation habit. However, *Correspondence: mindfulness theory indicates that effortful training may be necessary to achieve Freddie Lymeus generalized improvements in psychological functioning. Therefore, this study tests [email protected] whether the less effortful and more acceptable ReST approach is attended by any Specialty section: meaningful disadvantage compared to CMT in terms of its effects on central aspects This article was submitted to psychological functioning. We analyze data from four rounds of development of the Environmental Psychology, a section of the journal ReST course, in each of which we compared it to a parallel and formally matched CMT Frontiers in Psychology course. Randomly assigned participants (total course starters = 152) provided ratings of Received: 27 February 2020 dispositional mindfulness, cognitive functioning, and chronic stress before and after the Accepted: 10 June 2020 Published: 12 August 2020 5-week ReST and CMT courses. Round 4 also included a separately recruited passive Citation: control condition. ReST and CMT were attended by similar average improvements in Lymeus F, Ahrling M, Apelman J, the three outcomes, although the effects on chronic stress were inconsistent. Moderate Florin CM, Nilsson C, Vincenti J, to large improvements in the three outcomes could also be affirmed in contrasts with Zetterberg A, Lindberg P and Hartig T (2020) Mindfulness-Based the passive controls. Using a reliable change index, we saw that over one third of Restoration Skills Training (ReST) in a the ReST and CMT participants enjoyed reliably improved psychological functioning. Natural Setting Compared to Conventional Mindfulness Training: The risk of experiencing deteriorated functioning was no greater with either ReST or Psychological Functioning After CMT than for passive control group participants. None of the contrasts exceeded our a Five-Week Course. stringent criterion for inferiority of ReST compared with CMT. We conclude that ReST is a Front. Psychol. 11:1560. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01560 promising alternative for otherwise healthy people with stress or concentration problems Frontiers in Psychology| www.frontiersin.org 1 August 2020| Volume 11| Article 1560 fpsyg-11-01560 August 12, 2020 Time: 11:39 # 2 Lymeus et al. Restoration Skills Training who would be less likely to complete more effortful CMT. By adapting the meditation practices to draw on restorative setting characteristics, ReST can mitigate the demands otherwise incurred in early stages of mindfulness training without compromising the acquisition of widely applicable mindfulness skills. Keywords: mindfulness, restoration, meditation, nature, environment, training, psychological functioning INTRODUCTION can also be seen as a cognitive-behavioral practice that people can choose to engage in to alter their relationship with experiences, Restoration skills training (ReST) is a mindfulness-based as in meditation or in the application of mindfulness techniques meditation training course given in a setting rich in natural in daily life situations. Mindfulness can additionally be seen as features and processes (Lymeus et al., 2018, 2019). ReST thus a personal disposition, or a general tendency to relate mindfully integrates two complementary approaches to helping people to experiences in many situations. Finally, mindfulness can be who struggle to manage the demands in their lives: one based seen as a form of training in which people can invest through in clinical and health psychology that employs a method for regular practice that over time will enhance their dispositional individual training to strengthen adaptive capabilities (see e.g., mindfulness and other aspects of psychological functioning. Bishop et al., 2004), and one based in restorative environments Approached in each of these ways, mindfulness can be related to research that builds on the provision of contextual support adaptive capability and, ultimately, health outcomes. Our main for periodic replenishment of adaptive capabilities (see e.g., focus here, however, is on mindfulness training. Hartig et al., 2011). The development of ReST has had two Practices and Processes overarching aims: (1) it should help beginning meditators build In pursuing mindfulness training over time, regular meditators a meditative state on restorative experiences in a natural setting, presumably progress through different stages in which different and (2) it should confer generalized benefits for psychological types of practices align with different skill-levels and needs functioning at least similar to those of conventional mindfulness (Lutz et al., 2008, 2015). In the early stages of mindfulness training (CMT). Previous studies (Lymeus et al., 2018, 2019) training, the emphasis is typically on practices aimed to improve have yielded findings indicating that ReST satisfies the first aim. attention regulation capabilities (Lutz et al., 2008; Tang et al., This article addresses the second aim, with a view to benefits in 2015). This aim is rooted in tradition and has been absorbed terms of improved dispositional mindfulness, improved cognitive into contemporary theory (Lutz et al., 2007; Grabovac et al., functioning, and reduced chronic stress. 2011; Sedlmeier et al., 2012). In considering how attentional In the following, we first outline relevant theory and issues improvements might come about, Tang, Posner, and colleagues in mindfulness research. Second, we outline how we connect (Tang and Posner, 2009; Posner et al., 2010) distinguish between mindfulness with restorative environments theory. Third, we attention network training and attention state training. In describe the development of the practice approach of ReST. attention network training, a person engages in repetitive Fourth, we summarize the previous findings on the efficacy of practice with the aim to stimulate enhancements of the involved ReST. Fifth, we specify our aims and hypotheses regarding the neural networks. This is done in so-called focused-attention benefits achieved with the two approaches, tested in the empirical exercises, in which participants try to sustain attention to a work reported in the subsequent sections. given target stimulus, such as sensations arising with the breath, and repeatedly redirect attention when they inevitably become Mindfulness Training distracted (Hasenkamp et al., 2012; Lutz et al., 2015). The Mindfulness is a concept derived from Buddhist philosophy practice is thought to require considerable effort from beginning that refers to a particular quality of awareness that arises practitioners (Lutz et al., 2008; Tang et al., 2015). when someone intentionally attends to present experience and In contrast to attention network training, attention state withholds judgments and reactions to it (Kabat-Zinn, 1994; cf. training occurs when a person learns to draw on ongoing Lutz et al., 2007; Grabovac et al., 2011; Eberth and Sedlmeier, experience to balance their bodily and mental state to gain better 2012). For an operational conception of mindfulness, we have access to existing attentional functions (Tang and Posner, 2009; built mainly on the definition proposed by Bishop et al.(2004). Posner et al., 2010). This is mainly done in open-monitoring They describe mindfulness as entailing attentiveness to present exercises, in which participants allow attention to rest on any experience with qualities of curiosity (i.e., experiential openness aspect of experience that becomes salient while they try to remain and acceptance) and decentering (i.e., viewing one’s thoughts and mindful of their attentional shifts and the changing contents feelings about experience as subjective and transient). of consciousness (Bishop et al., 2004; Lutz et al., 2008, 2015). Mindfulness can be construed and observed in several ways Such practice is thought to promote reflexive awareness of the (see e.g., Berkovich-Ohana and Glicksohn, 2014; Davidson subject-object continuum, which in turn can serve a sense of and Kaszniak, 2015; Lutz et al., 2015). Phenomenologically, oneness with the surrounding world and, ultimately, insight. mindfulness can be seen as an experiential state that varies in Open-monitoring is less effortful than focused-attention

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