A growing number of psychosocial interventions are being offered to cancer patients during and after their medical treatment. Here, we examined whether Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), a stress management course, helps women to cope better with stress and illness once their breast cancer treatment is completed. Our aim was to understand how MBSR may benefit those who participate in...
Some of the most popular meditation practices emphasize a relaxed focus of attention in which thoughts, images, sensations, and emotions may emerge and pass freely without actively controlling or pursuing them. Several recent studies show that meditation activates frontal brain areas associated with attention focusing and physical relaxation. The objective of the present study was to assess...
A number of benefits from meditation have been claimed by those who practice various traditions, but few have been well tested in scientifically controlled studies. Among these claims are improved performance and decreased sleep need. Therefore, in these studies we assess whether meditation leads to an immediate performance improvement on a well validated psychomotor vigilance task (PVT), and...
OBJECTIVES: Although long-term meditation has been found to reduce negative mood and cardiovascular variables, the effects of a brief mindfulness meditation intervention when compared to a sham mindfulness meditation intervention are relatively unknown. This experiment examined whether a 3-day (1-hour total) mindfulness or sham mindfulness meditation intervention would improve mood and...
Terror management theory posits that people tend to respond defensively to reminders of death, including worldview defense, self-esteem striving, and suppression of death thoughts. Seven experiments examined whether trait mindfulness-a disposition characterized by receptive attention to present experience-reduced defensive responses to mortality salience (MS). Under MS, less mindful individuals...
This study examined the impact of breathing awareness meditation (BAM) compared to health education (HE) and lifeskills training (LS) upon resting systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and heart rate (HR) within the context of potential moderating factors of family environment and expectancy of benefit. 186 African American adolescents (mean age: 15.1±0.7 yrs) were...
To examine whether mindfulness meditation (MM) was associated with changes in objectively measured polysomnographic (PSG) sleep profiles and to relate changes in PSG sleep to subjectively reported changes in sleep and depression within the context of a randomized controlled trial. Previous studies have indicated that mindfulness and other forms of meditation training are associated with...
Contemporary discussions on the literary format of Descartes's Meditations typically focus on two issues. The first is whether Descartes's text resembles and is possibly influenced by the genre of religious devotional exercises, and the second is whether the stylistic devices employed by Descartes are philosophically significant. Building upon the efforts of Gary Hatfield, Bradley Rubidge, and...
Schools are searching for innovative ways to meet the unique academic, social-emotional, and behavioral needs of adolescents, many of whom face serious personal and family challenges. An innovative practice that is currently being introduced into school settings is meditation. Types of meditation offered in school-based settings include mindfulness meditation, the relaxation response, and...
ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper is to explore the value of mindfulness and its role in occupational therapy education. The plethora of research on mindfulness-based stress reduction programs has shown consistent and positive results to enhance quality of life in clinical and nonclinical populations. Offering students the opportunities to learn and experience mindfulness could lead to...
In an earlier paper (Nanda, 2009), I put forth the argument that the practice of mindfulness gives rise to existential-phenomenological themes and that both practices of Mindfulness and Existential therapy have many parallels. This paper explores how existential-phenomenological themes inevitably arise in Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), one of the models of 'third wave CBT' when it...
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common developmental disorders experienced in childhood and can persist into adulthood. The disorder has early onset and is characterized by a combination of overactive, poorly modulated behavior with marked inattention. In the long term it can impair academic performance, vocational success and social-emotional development....
Day time activities are known to influence the sleep on the following night. Cyclic meditation (CM) has recurring cycles. Previously, the low frequency (LF) power and the ratio between low frequency and high frequency (LF/HF ratio) of the heart rate variability (HRV) decreased during and after CM but not after a comparable period of supine rest (SR). In the present study, on thirty male...
CrossCurrentsJune 1, 2010Bruce M. Sullivan, Bill Wiist, Heidi A. Wayment1 citation
The Buddhist Health Study: Meditation on Love and Compassion as Features of Religious Practice Bruce M. Sullivan, Bill Wiist, and Heidi Wayment Love and compassion are most important, most precious, most powerful, and most sacred. Practicing them is useful not only in terms of true religion but also in worldly life for both mental and physical health. They are the basic elements supporting our...
Chiesa A, Brambilla P, Serretti A. Functional neural correlates of mindfulness meditations in comparison with psychotherapy, pharmacotherapy and placebo effect. Is there a link? Mindfulness meditations (MM) are a group of meditation practices which are increasingly receiving attention. The aim of the present work is to review current findings about the neural correlates of MM and compare such...