It is well known that aging is the process of becoming older. It is also associated normally with a progressive loss of biological functions – both physical and mental –, underlied by naturally-occurring changes at the molecular level that may lead to the development of so-called aging-related health problems – e.g., Parkinson’s Disease, dementia, memory loss, cerebrovascular problems and...
Many patients with heart failure (HF) experience persistent symptoms and poor health-related quality of life (HRQOL). Psychosocial distress is common and adversely affects HF symptoms and HRQOL. A holistic meditation (HOME) intervention that combines mindfulness, compassionate meditation, and self-management may reduce psychosocial distress. The aims of this study were to examine the...
Seminars in dialysisJanuary 2018Paul N Bennett, Trey Ngo, Christine Kalife et al.
Coping with the stress and anxiety caused by end stage kidney disease (ESKD) symptoms, treatment, restrictions, and social, financial and family stressors, consumes many afflicted with kidney disease. Meditation has been shown to decrease anxiety and stress, and improve wellbeing and quality of life of people with chronic disease. However, the clinical uptake of meditation is low in the ESKD...
PLoS One2018Chloe E Atreya, Ai Kubo, Hala T Borno et al.
A metastatic cancer diagnosis is associated with high levels of distress in patients and caregivers. Mindfulness interventions can reduce distress and improve quality of life in cancer patients. However, standard mindfulness training relies on in-person instruction, which is often not practical for either patients receiving chemotherapy or their caregivers. In the Being Present single arm pilot...
Daniel Kahneman was not the first to suggest that attention and effort are closely associated, but his 1973 book Attention and Effort, which claimed that attention can be identified with effort, cemented the association as a research paradigm in the cognitive sciences. Since then, the paradigm has rarely been questioned and appears to have set the research agenda so that it is self-reinforcing....
Reviewed by: Introducing Contemplative Studies by Louis Komjathy, and: Contemplative Literature: A Comparative Sourcebook on Meditation and Contemplative Prayer ed. by Louis Komjathy Margaret Benefiel (bio) and Jessie Smith (bio) Introducing Contemplative Studies. By Louis Komjathy. Hoboken: Wiley, 2018. 410 pp. $39.95 Contemplative Literature: A Comparative Sourcebook on Meditation and...
I argue that, contra Dreyfus's theory of expert performance and behaviorist interpretations of enactivism, action is not mindless. Rather, empirical and phenomenological studies of athletics, dance and musical performance provide evidence that performance involves specific forms of mindfulness. Philosophically, these issues are addressed in the debate between Dreyfus and McDowell about the very...
International Journal of Exercise Science 11(5): 609-624, 2018. An aversion to the sensations of physical exertion can deter engagement in physical activity. This is due in part to an associative focus in which individuals are attending to uncomfortable interoceptive cues. The purpose of this study was to test the effect of mindfulness on affective valence, ratings of perceived exertion (RPE),...
Previous research has identified the effects of tai chi exercise on elders' executive control or on their emotion regulation. However, few works have attempted to reveal the relationships between tai chi, executive control, and emotion regulation in the same study. The current resting-state study investigated whether the impact of tai chi on elders' emotion regulation was mediated by the...
Background Female chronic pelvic pain (CPP) is defined as intermittent or constant pelvic or lower abdominal pain occurring in a woman for at least 6 months. Up to a quarter of women are estimated to be affected by CPP worldwide and it is responsible for one fifth of specialist gynecological referrals in the United Kingdom. Psychological interventions are commonly utilized. As waiting times and...
BMJ Open2018Martin Lamothe, P. McDuff, Yves D Pastore et al.
Objectives To assess the feasibility and acceptability of a mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR)-based intervention and determine if the intervention is associated with a significant signal on empathy and emotional competencies. Design Two pre–post proof-of-concept studies. Setting Participants were recruited at the University of Montreal’s Psychology Department (Study 1) and the CHU...
Chronic pain has a significant impact on the quality of lives for millions of people. Because it is resistant to traditional medical intervention, the optimal approach to chronic pain management relies on a biopsychosocial understanding of health and treatment. To date, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) has been the treatment of choice. However, CBT's emphasis on active control can prove...
Four studies tested the proposition that mindfulness and its training fostered prosociality toward ostracized strangers. In discovery Study 1, dispositional mindfulness predicted greater empathic concern for, and more helping behavior toward, an ostracized stranger. Using an experimental design, Study 2 revealed that very briefly instructed mindfulness, relative to active control instructions,...
Mindfulness has been associated with the use of coloring books for adults; however, the question of whether they do increase mindfulness has not been addressed. In two studies, we attempted to identify whether mindfulness is increased, and whether there is a need for ongoing guidance while coloring, similar to mindfulness meditation. In the first randomized controlled experiment, university...
While previous research has established that virtual reality (VR) can be successfully used in the treatment of anxiety disorders, including phobias and PTSD, no research has examined changes in brain patterns associated with the use of VR for generalized anxiety management. In the current study, we compared a brief nature-based mindfulness VR experience to a resting control condition on anxious...
Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) is an effective non-pharmacologic treatment for veterans with PTSD. Extensive work has identified epigenetic factors related to PTSD disease risk and pathophysiology, but how these factors influence treatment response is unclear. Serotonin signaling and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis functioning may be perturbed in PTSD and are molecular...
Current interventions for major depressive disorder (MDD) are suboptimal, and only one third respond to them on initial treatment. Neuroplasticity theories are the basis for several emerging treatments. Evidence on the impact of yoga, a well-known mind-body intervention, on neuroplasticity in MDD is limited. To determine the effects of 12-week yoga- and meditation-based lifestyle intervention...
Neuroplastic underpinnings of meditation-induced changes in affective processing are largely unclear. We included healthy older participants in an active-controlled experiment. They were involved a meditation training or a control relaxation training of eight weeks. Associations between behavioral and neural morphometric changes induced by the training were examined. The meditation group...
This study investigated changes in psychological and physiological markers during a weekend meditation workshop (N = 34). Psychological symptoms of anxiety, depression, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and happiness were assessed. Physiological markers included cortisol, salivary immunoglobulin A (SigA), heart rate variability (HRV), blood pressure (BP), and resting heart rate (RHR). On...
Explore2018Fatemeh Torkamani, Alireza Aghayousefi, Ahmad Alipour et al.
Based on existing psychoneuroimmunological insights, the present study aimed at investigating possible effects of a single-session group mantra-meditation on salivary immunoglobulin A (s-IgA) and affective states. A controlled pretest-posttest study enrolled 30 healthy women (mean age 44 ± 3 years) through a multi-stage random sampling method from yoga clubs in Shiraz (Feb-Dec, 2016). Subjects...