A 7-week mindfulness-based intervention called 'Mindfulness to Promote Police Well-being' was tested with 61 trainee inspectors at the National Police Academy in Spain. Participants found the program logical, satisfactory, and useful. One cohort showed significant improvements in mental well-being, trait mindfulness, body awareness, general distress, and emotion regulation, with medium-to-large effects. Changes in well-being and distress were linked to changes in mindfulness, body awareness, and emotion regulation. The second cohort showed no significant changes, likely due to contextual differences. The study suggests that integrating mindfulness training into police academy infrastructure may be feasible and acceptable.
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) reduced clinical severity in female fibromyalgia patients and prevented a decline in the anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10 that occurred in the treatment-as-usual group. Higher baseline levels of the chemokine CXCL8 weakened MBSR's beneficial effects on pain, energy, stiffness, and sleep quality. Higher baseline ratios of pro-inflammatory IL-6/IL-10 and CXCL8/IL-10 were linked to less improvement in psychological inflexibility after MBSR. The authors propose that immune biomarkers may help predict who responds to MBSR.
Mind-body treatments such as mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) and a psychoeducational programme (FibroQoL) reduced pain catastrophizing in patients with fibromyalgia syndrome, but their effects on brain functional connectivity differed. Baseline connectivity between the salience network and sensorimotor network predicted pain reduction in opposite directions for the two treatments: negative for MBSR, positive for FibroQoL. Minutes of mindfulness practice were associated with clinical improvement only in patients with lower baseline connectivity between the salience network and primary somatosensory cortex. The findings suggest that different mind-body treatments engage distinct brain network mechanisms and that measures of functional interplay may serve as predictors of treatment response.