After an 8-session mindfulness-based cognitive therapy program for people with chronic headaches, the negative impact of pain on quality of life, pain catastrophizing, and depression all decreased significantly, while mindfulness skills and self-compassion increased. The therapy is a brief psychological intervention that can be implemented in general practitioners' offices or headache clinics.
A nine-session mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) program for 91 mental health professionals (average age 44.5 years) significantly improved mindfulness skills—especially nonjudgment, mindful action, and observation—and adaptive emotion regulation strategies such as positive reinterpretation and acceptance. Impulsivity did not decrease directly, but at post-test it showed significant negative correlations with mindful action and description. Observation skills correlated positively with adaptive strategies like perspective taking and positive reappraisal. These improvements helped reduce negative emotional states and supported more effective coping with professional challenges.
Nightmares affect about 4% of adults weekly and are often linked to other mental health issues, but recent evidence suggests nightmare disorder is distinct from waking mental dysfunctions. It is closely tied to poor subjective sleep quality, and polysomnographic studies show increased sleep fragmentation and hyper-arousal in affected individuals. These findings indicate that nightmare disorder should be treated as a specific sleep disorder rather than a purely psychopathological condition. However, clinicians should also assess co-morbid mental disorders and the severity of nightmare distress, which may mediate the relationship between nightmare frequency and waking mental problems.