By some estimates, more than half of inmates held in jails and prisons in the United States have a substance use disorder. Treatments involving the teaching of meditation and other contemplative practices have been developed for a variety of physical and mental disorders, including drug and alcohol addiction. At the same time, an expanding volunteer movement across the country has been bringing...
New research is providing health care professionals with evidence for the effectiveness of mindfulness meditation as an intervention for older adults. Recent studies have provided evidence that meditation results in observable changes in brain structure related to memory, sense of self, empathy, and stress. Health care professionals should consider mindfulness training as a helpful intervention...
Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) teaches the patient to recognize a deteriorating mood with the goal of avoiding self-perpetuating patterns of ruminative, negative thoughts and thus depressive disorders. MBCT was initially conceived as an intervention to prevent relapse of major depression, but it has since been studied in patients with current episodes of depression. MBCT has been...
This article examines parallel challenges and avenues for progress I have observed in my efforts to introduce improvisation in classical music studies, and meditation in music and overall academic settings. Though both processes were once central in their respective knowledge traditions—improvisation in earlier eras of European classical music, meditation and contemplative disciplines in...
BMJ OpenMay 1, 2015L. Leung, Han Han, Mary I Martin et al.
Introduction Chronic non-cancer pain (CNCP) affects up to 50% of the world's population. It impacts negatively on quality of life; entailing high costs on our medical systems, and translates to economic burden due to work loss. Aetiology of CNCP is complex and multifactorial, embracing the somatosensory, cognitive and affective domains. Opioid analgesia and other invasive interventions are...
Previous research has shown the vast mental and physical health benefits associated with yoga. Yoga practice can be divided into subcategories that include posture-holding exercise (asana), breathing (pranayama, Kriya), and meditation (Sahaj) practice. Studies measuring mental health outcomes have shown decreases in anxiety, and increases in cognitive performance after yoga interventions....
Research examining nonpharmacological interventions for adults diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has expanded in recent years and provides patients with more treatment options. Mindfulness-based training is an example of an intervention that is gaining promising preliminary empirical support and is increasingly administered in clinical settings. The aim of this...
Levinas and Theravada Buddhism across and through their differences in order to rethink an education that is committed to 'negative capability' and the sensibility to uncertainty that this entails. In fleshing this out, I first explore Buddhist ideas of impermanence, suffering and non-self (anicca, dukkha, and anatta, respectively), known as the three marks of existence, from the perspective of...
The study aimed to investigate the effects of loving-kindness meditation on positive emotions, intragroup interactions, and complex understanding of others. A total of 50 freshmen not receiving any training in meditation intervention were randomly divided into the meditation group (25 subjects) and the control group (25 subjects). The meditation group was implemented with group meditation...
Improving performance and productivity is one of the current topics in industry. Researchers are working on many perspectives to achieve ideal results. Some of them study external factors while others focus on internal factors. Relaxation, calming down, and confidence play major roles in refining the productivity efficiency of people. The brain is the center of commands and is the decision...
Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) showed efficacy for currently depressed patients. However, most of the available studies suffer from important methodological shortcomings, including the lack of adequate control groups. The present study aims to compare MBCT with a psycho-educational control group designed to be structurally equivalent to the MBCT program but excluding the main...
Context and objective: A growing body of literature suggests that mindfulness techniques may be beneficial in fibromyalgia. A recent systematic review and meta-analysis of six trials indicated improvement in depressive symptoms and quality of life, calling for increased rigor and use of standardized measures in future trials. The purpose of the study was to examine the relationship between...
This study examined the effects of a mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program on psychological functioning and inflammatory biomarkers in women with histories of interpersonal trauma. The 8-week MBSR program was conducted at a community-based health center and participants (N = 50) completed several measures of psychological functioning at study entry as well as 4 weeks, 8 weeks, and...
Contemplative practices support transformative learning processes but can be difficult to identify in a higher education environment. Advocates of contemplative approaches to education see this void as a concern. When topics like these are ignored, especially when desired by students, staff, and faculty, the holistic, transformative, and deep learning needs of students are unfulfilled....
Meditation has been associated with relatively reduced activity in the default mode network, a brain network implicated in self-related thinking and mind wandering. However, previous imaging studies have typically compared meditation to rest, despite other studies having reported differences in brain activation patterns between meditators and controls at rest. Moreover, rest is associated with...
BACKGROUND: Mindfulness-based therapies are being used in a wide range of common chronic conditions in both treatment and prevention despite lack of consensus about their effectiveness in different patient categories. OBJECTIVE: To systematically review the evidence of effectiveness MBSR and MBCT in different patient categories. METHODS: A systematic review and meta-analysis of systematic...
Objetives: Despite the increasing interest in mindfulness, the basic components and action mechanisms of mindfulness remain controversial. The present study aims at testing the specific contribution of two components of mindfulness -attention to cognitive experience (metacognition) and awareness of interoceptive sensations (metainteroception)- in the treatment of chronic worry. Method: Forty...
BACKGROUND: Tobacco use is responsible for the death of about 1 in 10 individuals worldwide. Mindfulness training has shown preliminary efficacy as a behavioral treatment for smoking cessation. Recent advances in mobile health suggest advantages to smartphone-based smoking cessation treatment including smartphone-based mindfulness training. This study evaluates the efficacy of a smartphone...
As school-based mindfulness and yoga programs gain popularity, the systematic study of fidelity of program implementation (FOI) is critical to provide a more robust understanding of the core components of mindfulness and yoga interventions, their potential to improve specified teacher and student outcomes, and our ability to implement these programs consistently and effectively. This paper...
Trauma and stressor-related disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and related comorbid disorders such as anxiety, depression, and dissociative disorders, are difficult to treat. Mindfulness-based clinical interventions have proven efficacy for mental health treatment in face-to-face individual and group modalities, although the feasibility and efficacy of delivering these...