Mindfulness
June 10, 2021
H. Lo, S. Ngai, Kong Yam
An 8-week mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program for postgraduate health and social care students (N=124) was associated with significant improvements in perceived efficacy and vigor, and significant reductions in physical distress, total job burnout, emotional exhaustion, and depersonalization of clients compared to a control group. The authors suggest MBSR may improve personal well-being and professional growth in health and social care education.
Mindfulness
March 1, 2021
Kate Williams, Rebecca Elliott, Thorsten Barnhofer et al.
Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) helps people with remitted major depression evaluate situations less negatively and more positively, a shift that correlates with increased mindfulness. In a non-randomized trial, 40 participants received MBCT, 33 continued treatment as usual, and 42 never-depressed controls were assessed. After the 8-week MBCT program, only the MBCT group showed a change in emotion evaluation ratings, from more negative to more positive, while both the MBCT and treatment-as-usual groups improved slightly in recognizing facial emotions. The findings suggest MBCT specifically encourages more positive appraisals of life events rather than altering basic emotion processing.
Mindfulness
March 1, 2021
Brian P Don, Sara B Algoe, Barbara L. Fredrickson
Loving-kindness meditation training directly reduced social avoidance goals and indirectly increased social approach goals by enhancing positive emotion. In a randomized intervention with 138 mid-life adults, those who received loving-kindness training reported lower avoidance goals compared to a wait-list control group, while mindfulness training did not produce these effects. The findings suggest that practicing loving-kindness meditation can shift people's motivational tendencies in ways that may improve their social relationships.
Mindfulness
January 1, 2021
Bhikkhu Anālayo
The four elements—earth, water, fire, and wind—represent solidity, cohesion, temperature, and motion in mindfulness exercises from the Satipaṭṭhāna-sutta and its parallels. Within ancient Indian thought, early Buddhist analysis of matter into these elements avoids the extremes of materialist annihilationism and eternalism. Contrary to Alexander Wynne's assumption, their use does not reflect Brahminical cosmology. The ultimate aim of mindful contemplation of the elements is their transcendence, achieved by cultivating liberating insight into their impermanent and empty nature.
Mindfulness
January 1, 2021
Jeremy L Smith, Jason W Allen, Carla I Haack et al.
App-delivered mindfulness meditation alters resting-state brain connectivity in physician assistant students and surgery residents. After an 8-week period, those who used a meditation app showed stronger connections between the frontoparietal network and the nucleus accumbens, and between the default mode and salience networks, compared to a wait-list control group. More mindfulness practice time correlated with increased connectivity between the lateral parietal cortex and supramarginal gyrus, which also linked to improved scores on the 'Describing' subscale of the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire. These results suggest that even brief, app-based mindfulness sessions can produce dose-dependent functional connectivity changes in brain systems related to emotion, reward, and self-awareness.
Mindfulness
December 2, 2020
R. Baer, C. Crane, J. Montero-Marín et al.
About two-thirds of schoolteachers and university students who took an 8-week mindfulness course reported unpleasant experiences linked to the practice, though most rated these as not at all or only somewhat upsetting, and some found them beneficial. The proportion reporting harm from the course ranged from 3 to 7%, and the proportion showing reliable deterioration on symptom questionnaires ranged from 2 to 7%. These groups largely did not overlap, indicating that harm may not be detected by standard symptom measures. The findings suggest mindfulness teachers should prepare participants for possible difficulties and assess harm explicitly.
Mindfulness
December 1, 2020
Aleksandra Eriksen Isham, Adriana Del Palacio-Gonzalez, Barbara Dritschel
Depression is linked to difficulty regulating emotions when recalling personal memories and to low trait mindfulness. This study examined emotion regulation during involuntary and voluntary autobiographical memory retrieval in 35 people with remitted depression and 32 never-depressed controls. Those with remitted depression reported more brooding (a rumination style) when memories came to mind involuntarily, especially if trait mindfulness was low. Both depression remission and higher trait mindfulness independently predicted greater use of cognitive reappraisal during involuntary retrieval. Higher trait mindfulness predicted less memory suppression regardless of depression history or how memories were retrieved. The findings suggest that emotional vulnerability during depression remission depends on mindfulness skill and how memories arise.
Mindfulness
November 30, 2020
Karin Matko, U. Ott, P. Sedlmeier
Meditation covers a wide range of contemplative practices, and earlier attempts to categorize them have been incomplete. To create a comprehensive list, researchers first identified 309 meditation techniques from literature and interviews with 20 expert meditators, then reduced these to 50 basic techniques. In a second study, 635 experienced meditators from diverse traditions rated their experience with each technique, confirming the list was adequate with only two additions needed. Statistical analyses revealed preferences for specific techniques within and across traditions, and sets of techniques commonly practiced together. Body-centered techniques were especially important across all meditators. The resulting set of 50 basic techniques may aid future scientific research.
Mindfulness
November 1, 2020
Bhikkhu Anālayo
The proposal to define external mindfulness as objectivity rather than subjectivity lacks support from Buddhist sources and is not useful for meditation practice. The prevailing view in both Buddhist traditions and modern research—that external mindfulness means being aware of other people—remains the most meaningful and practical interpretation. Adopting this understanding could expand mindfulness research beyond its current focus on internal experiences to include how the same mental quality can be applied to understanding and relating to others.
Mindfulness
October 1, 2020
Bhikkhu Anālayo
Racial oppression has deep roots in European culture and harms health. The author argues that mindfulness, especially its external dimension, can contribute to needed change. Examining early Buddhism's rejection of caste and prioritization of ethical conduct over birth provides a background. This perspective opens a new dimension for mindfulness research, which has mostly focused on internal cultivation. It also suggests diversity work can be part of the Buddhist path, particularly for white Buddhists, who must confront superiority conceit as an obstacle to liberation.
Mindfulness
October 1, 2020
Marleen J. Ter Avest, Corina U. Greven, Marloes J. Huijbers et al.
During mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) for recurrent depression, larger increases in mindfulness were associated with larger increases in positive affect, while higher general levels of negative affect were linked to smaller increases in mindfulness over time. Week-to-week effects showed no reciprocal cross-lagged effects between mindfulness and positive or negative affect, except that positive affect at session 2 was positively associated with mindfulness at session 3. The study used data from 235 patients with recurrent depression in remission or partial remission, measuring mindfulness, positive affect, and negative affect before each MBCT session.
Mindfulness
September 24, 2020
S. Kriakous, K. Elliott, Carolien Lamers et al.
This systematic review of 30 studies found that mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) effectively reduces anxiety, depression, and stress among healthcare professionals and increases mindfulness and self-compassion. However, MBSR did not appear as effective in reducing burnout or improving resilience. Abbreviated MBSR programs were as effective as the traditional 8-week format. The authors recommend future studies use more robust controlled designs, larger and more diverse samples, and active comparisons between interventions.
Mindfulness
September 1, 2020
Bhikkhu Anālayo
A case study of Daniel Ingram's descriptions of Buddhist insight meditation illustrates how forceful mindfulness and high-speed mental noting can construct meditative experiences that match expectations from maps of insight progress, culminating in claims of awakening. This reveals personal bias challenges in meditation research and cautions against overvaluing subjective reports. The contention that even non-intensive meditators can suffer adverse effects from insight knowledges is not accurate. Progress in mindfulness research requires evaluating meditative experiences within their psychological, doctrinal, cultural, and social contexts to avoid uncritical enthusiasm or exaggerated apprehensions.
Mindfulness
September 1, 2020
Ivan Nyklíček, Renée Zonneveld, Johan Denollet
In a randomized controlled trial of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), increases in introspective insight—but not introspective interest—mediated favorable changes in perceived stress, negative affect, positive affect, and psychological quality of life, even after accounting for changes in mindfulness skills. Neither introspective interest nor insight moderated MBSR's effects. The findings suggest that cultivating introspective insight may be a key mechanism through which mindfulness-based interventions improve well-being.
Mindfulness
August 1, 2020
Bhikkhu Anālayo
An examination of Pāli discourses in the first five chapters of the Majjhima-nikāya and their parallels reveals that references to mindfulness-related meditations are widespread, indicating that contemplative practices were a central concern in early Buddhist thought. These texts show that such practices were not limited to monastics but also involved lay practitioners. The survey suggests that meditation was a key element of early Buddhist thought, situated within a broader doctrinal and cosmological framework.
Mindfulness
July 1, 2020
Bhikkhu Anālayo
The formal cultivation of mindfulness described in the Satipaṭṭhāna-sutta and its parallels includes both internal and external dimensions. Later traditions have interpreted these dimensions in various ways, leading to uncertainty. Contemporary research on mindfulness has largely focused on internal aspects. An examination of the historical evolution of these texts suggests that the primary aim of external cultivation is directing mindfulness toward others.
Mindfulness
June 1, 2020
Bhikkhu Anālayo
In early Buddhist thought, the body is central to mindfulness practice, without assuming a mind-body duality or locating the mind in a specific physical place. The various body-directed mindfulness exercises should be considered together to understand their overall purpose. Among these, awareness of one's own bodily postures is described as a practice the Buddha-to-be undertook while seeking awakening, using it to face fear. This exercise offers grounding in embodied mindfulness, being fully present in the here and now, which is especially relevant to challenges posed by the current pandemic.
Mindfulness
June 1, 2020
Paweł Holas, Izabela Krejtz, Katarzyna Wisiecka et al.
Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) reduces depression symptoms in people with current major depressive disorder and shifts how they attend to emotional facial expressions. After an 8-week MBCT program, participants' depression scores decreased, their attention to sad faces decreased, and their attention to happy faces increased compared to a wait-list control group. The results suggest that changes in attentional bias may cause clinical improvement, supporting the idea that MBCT works by modifying how depressed individuals process emotional information.
Mindfulness
May 1, 2020
Zarah Rowland, Mario Wenzel
Mindfulness—paying attention to the present moment—is thought to improve emotional well-being by helping people disengage from prior feelings. In a 40-day study of 125 undergraduates who reported their emotions and mindfulness six times daily, neither a mindfulness training program nor naturally occurring high levels of mindfulness were linked to less interconnected emotional states (a sign of better disengagement). However, participants with prior meditation experience who also reported higher daily mindfulness did show less emotional interconnection. This suggests that simply being mindful or taking a mindfulness course may not automatically improve emotional disengagement; prior meditation practice may be needed for mindfulness to have that effect.
Mindfulness
April 1, 2020
Eduard J. de Bruin, AnneMarie Meijer, Susan M. Bögels
Insomnia is common in adolescents and harms their mental health. Internet-delivered cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBTI) works, but it was unclear whether adding a mindfulness body scan improves outcomes. Adolescents who completed six weeks of internet CBTI were split into those who practiced a body scan meditation (26 participants, average age 15.3, 77% girls) and those who did not (28 participants, average age 15.6, 82% girls). Both groups showed moderate to large improvements in sleep quality, insomnia symptoms, and chronic sleep reduction from baseline to post-treatment, maintained at two-month follow-up.
Mindfulness
March 5, 2020
Rachel S. Wasson, Clare L Barratt, W. O’Brien
A meta-analysis of 28 studies found that mindfulness-based interventions moderately improve self-compassion among health care professionals and trainees. The effect was moderate from before to after treatment (g = .61) and strong from before treatment to follow-up (g = .76). Interventions that included a retreat component showed stronger effects. The authors suggest these programs may help reduce burnout and compassion fatigue, but call for more rigorous studies to confirm the findings and explore what factors influence outcomes.
Mindfulness
February 10, 2020
T. Jankowski, P. Holas
Brief mindfulness training reduced overall reaction times on an attention-switching task after anxiety was induced, compared with worry induction or free mind-wandering. However, mindfulness did not specifically reduce the cost of switching between tasks. The findings suggest that mindfulness may free up attentional resources otherwise consumed by anxiety-related thoughts, improving general cognitive efficiency rather than switching ability per se.
Mindfulness
February 1, 2020
Lars‐gunnar Lundh
Experimental phenomenology, the study of how intentionally varying attention and attitude affects subjective experience, is well suited for researching mindfulness. Because mindfulness involves paying attention to present experience with a specific attitude, it can be systematically explored through this method. The scientific value of experimental phenomenology lies in its intersubjectivity: effects described by one person can be replicated by the same or other individuals, and conclusions remain hypothetical and open to revision. The paper illustrates this approach with variations of a body scan practice and the construction of a personalized mindful driving practice. Three research varieties are discussed: qualitative analysis of mindfulness practices, idiographic single-subject and experience-sampling designs, and randomized controlled studies of mindfulness effects on present experience.
Mindfulness
February 1, 2020
Alice E. Buxton, Carina Remmers, Hans-Peter Unger et al.
An eight-week mindfulness-based day hospital treatment for currently depressed patients with work-related conflicts led to greater reductions in depression severity, higher work ability, and increased mindfulness compared with a waitlist condition that included psychopharmacological consultation. These improvements remained stable over an eight-month follow-up. The pilot study randomly assigned 81 patients to either the mindfulness-based day hospital treatment or the control condition. The authors note that generalizability may be limited due to the small sample size, selective patient group, and study design.
Mindfulness
January 1, 2020
Ariel J Lang, Pollyanna Casmar, Samantha Hurst et al.
Compassion meditation, specifically a manualized protocol called Cognitively Based Compassion Training for Veterans (CBCT-Vet), appears acceptable to Veterans with PTSD. In an open trial with 36 Veterans across four groups, participation in 8-10 sessions of CBCT-Vet was associated with reductions in PTSD symptoms and depression, though causality cannot be inferred due to the nonrandomized design. No changes were observed in positive emotion or social connectedness. These preliminary results support further exploration of compassion meditation as part of recovery for Veterans with PTSD.