OBJECTIVE: Mindfulness-based interventions are widely used to target pain, yet their neural mechanisms of action are insufficiently understood. The authors studied neural and subjective pain response in a randomized active-control trial of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) alongside long-term meditation practitioners. METHODS: Healthy participants (N=115) underwent functional...
Unaddressed occupational stress and trauma contribute to elevated rates of mental illness and suicide in policing, and to violent and aggressive behavior that disproportionately impacts communities of color. Emerging evidence suggests mindfulness training with police may reduce stress and aggression and improve mental health, but there is limited evidence for changes in biological outcomes or...
Law enforcement officers are regularly exposed directly and indirectly to a wide variety of traumatic stressors, which take place against a backdrop of high levels of organizational stressors. Consequently, this group is at elevated risk for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other negative physical and mental health outcomes, yet there are few empirically supported interventions to...
Abstract Mindfulness meditation training has been shown to increase resting-state functional connectivity between nodes of the frontoparietal executive control network (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex [DLPFC]) and the default mode network (posterior cingulate cortex [PCC]). We investigated whether these effects generalized to a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course and tested for...
BACKGROUND. Police officers are exposed daily to high levels of organizational and operational stressors that have a negative impact on health and well-being outcomes. This population has elevated rates of cardiovascular disease, sleep disorders, symptoms of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and suicide. Although there are few empirically supported effective stress reduction...
ABSTRACT Meditation training can improve mood and emotion regulation, yet the neural mechanisms of these affective changes have yet to be fully elucidated. We evaluated the impact of long‐ and short‐term mindfulness meditation training on the amygdala response to emotional pictures in a healthy, non‐clinical population of adults using blood‐oxygen level dependent functional magnetic resonance...