Coping Strategies and Responsiveness to a Brief Online Intervention During COVID-19 Pandemic

The intervention will comprise a psychoeducational part on the theorethical background underlying this technique and a pratical session in which partecipant will be instructed to inhale air with his/her nose and exhale with his/her mouth for a period of 3 seconds of inhalation and 7 seconds of exhalation (i.e., 6 cycles of breaths per minute;). During the session, the participant will be encouraged to put one hand over his/her chest and the other over the abdomen in order to see the difference between normal breathing and deep breathing. To help the subjects in the training, an online pacer will give the rhythm of respiration and will be used as visual feedback.

"The short compassion focused intervention will begin with a short psychoeducation on the evolved nature and difficulties of the human mind, such as tendencies for negativity bias, negative rumination, and self-criticism. Participants will then be offered insights into how humans can work with their 'tricky brains' using body-based and psychological-based practices aimed at increasing a grounding and soothing compassionate attitude towards ourselves and others. In particular, participants will be instructed to pratice a mindfulness technique designed to help them to become more aware of their present moment-to-moment and more compassionate towards their own emotions. They will then be guided to create an image conveying warmth and compassion to them. Lastly, participants will be guided to bring the image to mind and then write write a brief self-compassionate letter to themselves from that point of view."