Folk shamanic rituals in Xiao Hong's novel Tales of Hulan River exhibit a form of survival resilience that operates across material, spiritual, and cultural dimensions. Material resilience involves making reasonable choices under scarcity, fostering critical thinking, and grappling with contingency and eternity. Spiritual resilience provides psychological comfort, motivates goodness, and offers a sense of transcendence. Cultural resilience unites the community around shared goals, promotes pragmatic values, and sustains the rituals themselves. The article argues that these rituals are crucial to understanding the novel's narrative ideas and should not be overlooked in literary analysis.
Combining Liuzijue breathing, a traditional Chinese practice of controlled abdominal movements and low-pitched vocalization, with mindful breathing produced more sustained relaxation in anxious male university students than mindful breathing alone. In a randomized crossover trial of 24 male participants aged 21 ± 2 with anxiety symptoms, the combination sequence (5 minutes Liuzijue breathing followed by 10 minutes mindful breathing) led to greater continued reductions in heart rate and greater progressive increases in heart rate variability compared to 15 minutes of mindful breathing alone. Participants also reported significantly higher concentration during mindful breathing after Liuzijue breathing. During Liuzijue breathing, respiration rate was lower and peripheral oxygen saturation was higher, with end-tidal carbon dioxide lower during minutes 2–5. These physiological changes may explain the enhanced relaxation.
Attention to catastrophic events is linked to increased psychological trauma through two pathways: negative emotions and empathy. A survey of 526 adults in Guangxi Province, China, found that both negative emotions and empathy mediated the relationship between attention and trauma. Mindfulness unexpectedly amplified the effect of negative emotions on trauma rather than buffering it. The findings suggest that when people pay attention to catastrophic events, they should remain sensible and restrained and avoid excessive emotional involvement to reduce psychological trauma.