An 8-week mindfulness meditation training program for healthy employees increased left-sided anterior brain activation, a pattern linked to positive emotion, and boosted antibody titers after an influenza vaccine compared with a wait-list control group. The magnitude of the brain activation increase predicted the size of the antibody response. These results indicate that a brief meditation intervention can measurably alter brain and immune function.
A modified Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction course adapted for teachers reduced psychological symptoms and burnout, improved classroom organization as rated by observers, enhanced performance on a computer task measuring affective attentional bias, and increased self-compassion among participants. Control group participants showed declines in cortisol functioning over time and marginally significant increases in burnout. Changes in mindfulness correlated in the expected direction with changes in psychological symptoms, burnout, and sustained attention in the intervention group. The course appears promising for supporting teacher well-being and classroom effectiveness.
A pilot study tested a modified Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program as a smoking cessation intervention. Eighteen participants attended weekly mindfulness sessions and attempted to quit smoking in week seven without medication. Six weeks after the quit day, 56% (10 of 18) had biologically confirmed seven-day smoking abstinence. Greater meditation practice was linked to higher abstinence rates and lower stress and emotional distress. The findings suggest mindfulness training may help with smoking cessation and merits further research in a larger controlled trial.
After an 8-week mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program, the group a participant was in accounted for 7% of the variability in general symptom improvement, but none of the variability in medical symptom change. The findings suggest that group composition may play a small role in psychological but not physical symptom outcomes.