Mindfulness
September 21, 2011
Rebecca S. Crane, Willem Kuyken, J. Mark G. Williams et al.
232 citations
Interest in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) has grown rapidly in the UK, prompting health, education, and social work practitioners to develop competencies as mindfulness-based teachers. This has raised fundamental questions about training processes, standards, and competence assessment. The paper examines how competencies are addressed in secular mainstream contexts, presents a framework for how teaching competencies develop in trainees, and reviews current assessment methodologies. The authors argue for continued international dialogue among mindfulness-based trainers and teachers to build a robust professional context for future teachers.
Mindfulness
April 26, 2010
Rebecca S. Crane, Willem Kuyken, Richard P. Hastings et al.
205 citations
Mindfulness-based approaches, supported by several randomized controlled trials, help prevent depressive relapse and recurrence, and are recommended by the UK's National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence for use in the National Health Service. These approaches also appear helpful for anxiety disorders and chronic physical health problems, with growing interest in applying them to personality disorders, substance abuse, and eating disorders. The authors review the UK context, outline criteria for teacher competence and training steps, and discuss challenges and future directions for ensuring evidence-based mindfulness approaches are available in health care and other settings.
Mindfulness
August 18, 2016
Bethany E Kok, Tania Singer
154 citations
Different meditation practices produce distinct short-term psychological changes. In a 9-month training program with 229 mid-life adults, body scan meditation most increased awareness of internal body sensations and decreased thinking about thoughts, loving-kindness meditation most increased warmth and positive thoughts about others, and observing-thought meditation most increased awareness of one's own thinking processes. All practices, including breathing meditation, improved mood, energy, and present-moment focus while reducing distraction. The findings suggest each meditation type has a unique psychological fingerprint, which can guide their use in specific intervention contexts and populations.
Mindfulness
June 29, 2017
Jon Kabat‐zinn
113 citations
The author offers a personal perspective on the original core aspirations behind introducing mindfulness into mainstream society, initially through medicine and healthcare as Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), and later into education, business, social justice, politics, and global environmental responsibility. The paper reflects on the practice's spread and growing evidence of its multifaceted efficacy, emphasizing its potential as a way of being and a moral imperative for addressing planetary challenges.
Mindfulness
March 1, 2010
Thorsten Barnhofer, Tobias Chittka, Helen Nightingale et al.
99 citations
Both mindfulness breathing meditation and loving-kindness meditation shift brain activity toward greater left prefrontal activation, which is linked to approach motivation and positive emotion, in people with a history of depression. A 15-minute session of either meditation produced this change, and the effect depended on each person's tendency to brood. Those who ruminate a lot responded better to breathing meditation, while those low in brooding responded better to loving-kindness meditation. A comparison with a rest group showed the changes were not just due to time passing. The findings suggest both types of meditation can benefit previously depressed individuals, but the best choice may depend on the person's brooding tendency.
Mindfulness
February 22, 2016
Marta Alda, Marta Puebla-Guedea, Baltasar Rodero et al.
87 citations
Meditation experts had longer telomeres and fewer short telomeres than matched non-meditators. The psychological factor most strongly linked to telomere maintenance was the absence of experiential avoidance—the tendency to suppress or avoid negative emotions and thoughts—along with a sense of common humanity, as measured by the Self-Compassion Scale. These findings suggest that how meditators relate to their inner experience, rather than meditation itself, may be key to cellular aging.
Mindfulness
April 13, 2023
Julieta Galante, Andrea Grabovac, Malcolm Wright et al.
82 citations
About half of the millions of people who learn mindfulness meditation continue regular practice after initial instruction, but it is unclear whether benefits increase with ongoing practice or whether harm can occur. Evidence shows a wide range of experiences from positive to challenging and potentially harmful. Complex interactions and temporal sequences may explain these experiences and their links to health and well-being. Effects may vary systematically due to factors like initial dosage, accumulated practice, developing skill, and interactions with past experiences and environment. The authors call for interdisciplinary, ontologically agnostic research using longitudinal models and insights from contemplative traditions to develop safer, more effective applications.
Mindfulness
May 1, 2020
Adam W. Hanley, Michael Dambrun, Eric L Garland
66 citations
Five sessions of mindfulness training, compared with an active listening control, led healthy young adults to report a decreased sense of body boundary dissolution and a more allocentric (less self-centered) spatial frame of reference. The effect on spatial frame of reference was mediated by the reduction in perceived body boundaries. The findings suggest that even brief mindfulness practice can shift the experience of self, relaxing the boundary between self and environment and extending the spatial frame of reference beyond the physical body.
Mindfulness
May 2, 2020
Christina Totzeck, Tobias Teismann, Stefan G Hofmann et al.
62 citations
Loving-kindness meditation (LKM) improved positive mental health and reduced anxiety in the short term among university students in Germany. Over one year, those who completed LKM showed decreased depression, anxiety, and stress, while the control group showed increases in all three. The findings suggest LKM can enhance mental health in this population.
Mindfulness
January 1, 2022
Nicholas Bowles, Jonathan N. Davies, Nicholas T. van Dam
54 citations
Benefits of meditation accumulate over time in a non-linear fashion, with the strongest gains occurring in roughly the first 500 hours of practice before leveling off. In a cross-sectional survey of 1,668 meditators averaging 1,095 lifetime hours, greater historical practice was associated with better psychological outcomes, including higher positive affect and life satisfaction and lower psychological distress and negative affect. The type of practice mattered: Vipassana (as taught by S.N. Goenka) and cultivating practices like compassion and lovingkindness were more strongly linked to favorable outcomes. The results suggest that the dose-response relationship between meditation practice and wellbeing is not linear and depends on practice context.
Mindfulness
February 22, 2019
Michael Rönnlund, Antonina Koudriavtseva, Linnea Germundsjö et al.
53 citations
Higher mindfulness relates to a more balanced time perspective—less focus on negative views of the past and future. Cross-sectional data from 212 adults with little mindfulness training showed that mindfulness scores were most strongly linked to lower Future Negative and Past Negative scores. Two mindfulness-based interventions (a mindfulness instructor course and a mindful self-compassion program) reduced deviations from a balanced time perspective (Cohen's d = −0.46), with lower Past Negative and Future Negative and a small increase in Past Positive. The findings suggest mindfulness promotes a balanced time perspective and may reduce repetitive negative thinking.
Mindfulness
April 11, 2023
Shaun Gallagher, Antonino Raffone, Aviva Berkovich-Ohana et al.
49 citations
Buddhist psychology's insights into mind-body phenomena and non-self align with the pattern theory of self, which describes the self as a dynamic, temporal, and enactive pattern of processes. Although Buddhist concepts do not map directly onto the self-pattern, both frameworks share similarities in explaining experiences of self and non-self through pragmatic, relational processes. This mutual perspective offers implications for well-being and flexibility that reduce anxiety, attachment, craving, and suffering.
Mindfulness
September 1, 2023
Blair T Johnson, Rebecca L. Acabchuk, Elisabeth A George et al.
45 citations
Mindfulness-based programs improve well-being in college students, with the strongest evidence for reducing anxiety and depressive symptoms. A systematic review and meta-analysis of 58 randomized controlled trials found that mindfulness interventions significantly outperformed both active and inactive controls, with the most marked effects on anxiety, depression, and mindfulness. Greater success appeared for clinical populations. Online programs performed equivalently to in-person programs, and non-mindfulness-based programs were equivalent to mindfulness-based programs after controlling for other factors. Publication bias and other quality issues emerged. More studies using stronger methods are needed to evaluate effects on additional health outcomes and online interventions in clinical populations.
Mindfulness
April 10, 2023
Malcolm Wright, Joseph L. Sanguinetti, Shinzen Young et al.
41 citations
Incongruities between meditator self-reports and objective measurements (e.g., of brain states) hamper research into meditation-related emergent phenomenology. Key theories from Buddhist contemplative traditions are translated into scientific terms and systematized as a functionalist model of the mind—the Thin Model—which demonstrates immediate explanatory power. The model's nested nature allows explanations to be restricted to specific problems, connecting complex higher-level phenomena like self-reports to lower-level phenomena like brain states without requiring simplistic assumptions. A detailed demonstration shows how the model converts subjective accounts of ecstatic meditative states (jhānas) into testable neuroscientific hypotheses. The Thin Model offers an organizing principle for explanations of mental phenomena and may be relevant to other fields.
Mindfulness
March 11, 2018
William van Gordon, Edo Shonin, Thomas J. Dunn et al.
38 citations
Advanced Buddhist meditators can intentionally induce near-death experiences (NDEs) at a planned time, a phenomenon called meditation-induced NDE (MI-NDE). In a study of 12 such meditators, the MI-NDE produced significantly greater increases in NDE profundity, mystical experiences, and non-attachment compared to two other meditation practices. Participants' NDE profundity also increased across a 3-year period. Qualitative analysis revealed that participants were consciously aware of the NDE, retained volitional control over its content and duration, and reported rich non-worldly encounters. The findings corroborate features of regular NDEs and suggest unexplored dimensions, indicating it is feasible and ethical to study real-time neurological activity during NDEs using advanced meditators.
Mindfulness
November 27, 2018
Çimen Ekici, Gülcan Garip, William van Gordon
33 citations
Experienced Vipassana Mahasi meditators describe their practice as a cleansing process that eliminates maladaptive responses through mindfulness, decentering, and nonattachment. The practice yields improvements in both hedonic and eudaimonic well-being, insights into self and reality, equanimity, and also some physical and interpersonal difficulties. Participants perceive these outcomes as interdependent and reinforced by Buddhist teachings and ethical practices. The findings suggest that incorporating Buddhist teachings into mindfulness-based interventions may enhance meditation practice.
Mindfulness
April 8, 2015
Paul Frewen, Nicholas M. Rogers, Les Flodrowski et al.
31 citations
An internet-based mindfulness and metta-based trauma therapy (MMTT) website was developed and tested in a proof-of-concept study with 177 online participants. Regardless of their psychiatric history or PTSD symptom severity, participants rated the website as a credible and helpful intervention for improving self-regulation and well-being and for reducing PTSD, anxiety, depression, and dissociation. Guided and non-guided meditation practices were rated as more helpful than a journaling exercise. Participants with higher PTSD symptoms showed less preference for metta (lovingkindness) meditations. The authors conclude MMTT should be piloted in clinical trials as an adjunctive treatment.
Mindfulness
January 28, 2022
Valentina Nicolardi, Luca Simione, Domenico Scaringi et al.
28 citations
Pain arises from both bodily and mental factors, which can be regulated by meditation. Long-term meditators had higher pain thresholds than short-term meditators. In short-term meditators, focused attention and open monitoring meditation reduced pain, while all three meditation types (including loving kindness) reduced aversion and identification with pain. In long-term meditators, only loving kindness meditation reduced pain, and identification was reduced by all three forms, but aversion was unaffected. Pain was predicted to increase with meditation expertise, aversion, and identification. Causal analysis showed that aversion and pain, and aversion and identification, influenced each other, while identification causally influenced pain. The findings support the Buddhist model of the "second arrow of pain," where mental factors co-produce pain.
Mindfulness
November 4, 2017
Sunjeev K. Kamboj, Ylva Walldén, Caroline J. Falconer et al.
27 citations
In a naturalistic setting, recreational users who consumed chemically verified MDMA performed a self-focused compassionate imagery exercise on two separate occasions: once after taking MDMA and once without. The exercise and MDMA each independently increased emotional empathy toward critical facial expressions and self-compassion, and their effects on self-compassion appeared to add together. The findings suggest that combining MDMA with compassionate imagery may enhance self-directed affiliative feelings, though controlled studies are needed to confirm the combined utility for therapeutic contexts.
Mindfulness
February 1, 2017
Jonah N. Cohen, Dane Jensen, Jonathan P. Stange et al.
26 citations
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Mindfulness
August 1, 2024
Aviva Berkovich-Ohana, Kirk Warren Brown, Shaun Gallagher et al.
22 citations
A selfless state of consciousness, reported for centuries in wisdom traditions, involves both temporary and lasting conditions. In psychology, the healthy self is typically emphasized, and the idea of selfless modes is sometimes dismissed, hindering empirical progress. This paper offers an interdisciplinary conceptual discussion grounded in the pattern theory of self (PTS), which views the self as a complex pattern of dynamically related processes. It proposes that meditative practices induce a reorganization of the self-pattern, enabling temporary or persistent selfless experience. The authors present a heuristic model, the pattern theory of selflessness (PTSL), with six nonlinear transformations: consolidating and integrating the self-pattern; cultivating concentration and present-moment awareness; cultivating mindful awareness; self-deconstruction states; self-flexibility; and self-liberation as a trait. This integrative view advances understanding of non-self experience and guides empirical research.
Mindfulness
March 1, 2024
Matthew Furnell, William van Gordon, James Elander
22 citations
Incorporating Buddhist wisdom practices into mindfulness-based interventions may enhance prosocial behavior through mechanisms such as developing a sense of interdependence and common humanity, fostering altruistic desire, and experiencing oneness. A systematic review of 12 studies with 2,185 participants found suggestive evidence for these effects, but raised concerns about overreliance on self-report measures and difficulty isolating the effects of specific meditation practices. The findings reinforce the perspective that wisdom-based meditation practices contribute to prosocial behavior, but future studies should use diverse measures including real-world scenarios.
Mindfulness
February 21, 2023
Shadi Beshai, Sharon M. Desjarlais, Brenda Green
21 citations
Indigenous university students face high rates of anxiety and depression due to colonialism, racism, and discrimination. Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) may help but need cultural adaptation. In a three-part qualitative study with 14 Indigenous students (average age 28.92), participants emphasized that an adapted MBI should include traditional Indigenous practices, Indigenous facilitators, holistic mental health concepts that incorporate spirituality, and flexible, accessible methods. Based on their feedback, the researchers developed an outline for the Miyowâyâwin Mindful Wellbeing Program, which students rated favorably for cultural consistency and safety. The findings confirm that mindfulness programs are perceived as acceptable and consistent with Indigenous cultures when adapted appropriately.
Mindfulness
November 12, 2021
Maria Engström, Johan Willander, Rozalyn Simon
21 citations
A review of 28 neuroimaging studies on meditation published between 2016 and 2019 identifies four intention-based dimensions of meditation practice: focusing on the present moment, cultivating wholesome qualities, avoiding unwholesome qualities, and adopting certain attitudes. Half of the studies did not assess participants' subjective experience. The findings relate meditation-related brain function to cognitive, affective, somatic, and self domains, with most studies describing results in terms of brain processes. The authors recommend five improvements for future research: providing clear definitions, including measures of subjective experience, correctly assessing processes, combining methodologies, and avoiding overinterpretation.
Mindfulness
November 1, 2023
Isaac N Treves, Halie A Olson, Ola Ozernov-Palchik et al.
15 citations
An 8-week randomized controlled trial with 279 U.S. children ages 8-10 tested a remote, app-based mindfulness intervention (Inner Explorer) against two audiobook control groups. Over 80% of children completed the intervention. Children who used the mindfulness app reported reduced self-perceived stress, and parents reported reduced negative affect in their children. However, no significant reductions in anxiety or depression symptoms were found. Between-group effect sizes were small. Regular use—at least 30 days of practice within the study period—was linked to lower child negative affect (by parental report), lower parental stress, and lower child self-perceived stress. The findings suggest that home use of a mindfulness app can benefit children's emotional well-being if used regularly.