the effectiveness of mindfulness-based cognitive-behavioral strategy training on cognitive emotion regulation strategies and salivary cortisol levels in endurance runners: a three-month follow-up

Background: exposure of the athlete to stressful situations in addition to physiological effects will cause the person to feel excited in response to those situations and these changes may have dangerous consequences. objectives: this study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of the mindfulnessbased intervention on cognitiveemotional regulation strategies and salivary cortisol levels in endurance runners with a threemonth followup. methods: the research method was experimental with a pretestposttest follow up design with a control group. the study population consisted of all beginner endurance runners with age range 16-18 who were voluntarily invited to participate in this research. twentyfour male beginner runners (mean aged 17.08 ± 0.64 years and athletic background 7.7 ± 1.6 month) were divided into two groups of mindfulnessbased intervention (mbi) and control. the intervention protocol of the experimental group consisted of six sessions of mindfulness training and daily homework assignments that were performed under the researcher's supervision and with the help of a qualified clinical psychologist. salivary cortisol kit (sck) with sensitivity 0.05 μg/dl was used to measure stress and the gross and john emotion regulation questionnaire was used to assess cognitiveemotional regulation strategies. results: the results showed a significant difference in cortisol levels, suppression, and reappraisal, between the mbi and control groups in posttest and followup steps. the findings showed that salivary cortisol concentration in the mbi group was reduced from pretest (1.09 ± 0.16) to posttest (0.76 ± 0.15) and followup (0.72 ± 0.07). also, the suppression component in the mbi group was reduced from pretest (21.40 ± 1.64) to posttest (15.10 ± 1) and followup (16 ± 1.15) and increased the reappraisal component from pretest (22.40 ± 1.17) to posttest (29.10 ± 2.37) and follow up (27.70 ± 2.21) (p value = 0.0001). conclusions: the findings showed that mbi reduced salivary cortisol concentration and suppression component, while increased the reappraisal component of emotion regulation. the findings suggest that mbi can be used as a new promising method on cognitive emotion regulation strategies and salivary cortisol levels in endurance runners.