Joanna Y. Guan

Background: To cope with chronic stress, which can contribute to depression, humans often pursue arousal-reducing activities. Yet, hormetic stressors (intermittent, acute stressors) might also reduce chronic stress. Purpose: We compared the effects of arousal-reducing and arousal-enhancing interventions on depressive symptoms and perceived stress. Methods: Female adults (N = 141; predominantly White, 63%, and Asian, 34%) reporting high perceived stress were randomized to 1 of 4 three-week stress resilience interventions in 2019-2020. Low arousal conditions included mindfulness meditation or slow breathing with warm showers (Control). Hormetic stress conditions included fast paced breathing with cold showers (the Wim Hof Method; WHM) or high-intensity interval training. We assessed depressive symptoms and perceived stress at baseline, postintervention, and 3 months later, and cortisol reactivity to a lab stressor. Results: At postintervention, all 4 groups had decreases in depressive symptoms (15.93% reduction, r = .76, P < .001) and perceived stress (9.70% reduction, r = .48, P < .001), with no group differences. “As treated” analysis showed the WHM group had better maintenance of reduced depression 3 months later (r = .17, P < .01). The WHM group had greater increases in daily positive affect across days (r = .16, P ≤ .05) and at postintervention (r = .17, P < .015) compared to the control group. Groups were similar in cortisol reactivity pre- and postintervention. Conclusions: All groups experienced reduced stress and depressive symptoms and did not differ from each other after 3 weeks. After 3 months, a post hoc analysis of adherent subjects showed the WHM group had more sustained improvements in depression and positive affect, a finding that needs replication with larger and more diverse samples.

Extreme worry about climate change can lead to maladaptive climate distress, defined as avoiding negative thoughts and feelings about climate. Avoiding negative thoughts and feelings (“experiential avoidance”) is a risk factor for clinical depression and anxiety. Greater ability for mindful metacognition may lead to greater tolerance of negative feelings and thus less maladaptive climate distress. To test this hypothesis, we assessed climate distress in a community sample of adults (n = 501) from the San Francisco Bay Area, before and after the severe wildfire season in 2021. Specifically, we measured experiential avoidance of distress about climate at baseline and 6 months later after the wildfire season. At baseline, climate distress was higher in women, and among people with lower trait mindfulness, higher generalized anxiety, and more liberal political ideology. Climate distress significantly increased across the sample after the wildfire season. However, this increase occurred in individuals with low mindfulness, but not high mindfulness, at baseline. As climate disasters become more frequent and severe, the ability to face the existential threat without severe distress will be an important adaptive ability and is hypothesized to help people stay engaged in climate actions. Here, we show that mindfulness may be a useful aid in maintaining lower climate distress over time, despite wildfire exposure.