Elevated rates of mood and anxiety disorders among high utilizers of health care have been suggested as one driver of increased service use. We compared the impact of Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), a structured group treatment, on the rates of health care utilization with matched control participants receiving non-MBCT group therapy. Using Ontario health administrative data, we...
Emerging research suggests that mindfulness is associated with positive reappraisal and that mindfulness practice may be a means of encouraging positive reappraisal capacities. These findings, linking mindfulness with the promotion of cognitive coping strategies, challenge traditional Western conceptualizations of mindfulness as non-discursive. This study explored the relationship between...
Given the limited success of conventional treatments for veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), investigations of alternative approaches are warranted. We examined the effects of a breathing-based meditation intervention, Sudarshan Kriya yoga, on PTSD outcome variables in U.S. male veterans of the Iraq or Afghanistan war. We randomly assigned 21 veterans to an active (n = 11) or...
Recent philosophical and neuroscientific writings on the problem of free will have tended to consolidate the deterministic accounts with the upshot that free will is deemed to be illusory and contrary to the scientific facts (Blackmore 2011; Harris 2012). Buddhist commentaries on these issues have been concerned in the main with whether karma and dependent origination implies a causal...
Stress is a global public health problem with several negative health consequences, including anxiety, depression, cardiovascular disease, and suicide. Mindfulness-based stress reduction offers an effective way of reducing stress by combining mindfulness meditation and yoga in an 8-week training program. The purpose of this study was to look at studies from January 2009 to January 2014 and...
There is a rising scientific interest in the neuroscience behind contemplative practices (see e.g., Vago and Silbersweig, 2012 for a review), including movement-based practices such as yoga and tai chi. Given that, it becomes important to ask how such contemplative practices differ from Western movement practices such as dance. In both dance training and contemplative movement, one learns to...
NeuroscienceJuly 11, 2014H Lu, Y Song, M Xu et al.
Mindfulness is the state of being attentive to and aware of what is taking place in the present, which is beneficial for reducing stress-related symptoms and improving mental and physical health. Previous studies have demonstrated that meditation practice can improve individuals' mindfulness through modifying functions and structures of multiple brain regions, including the anterior cingulate...
Purpose: to elaborate complex integrated method of psychological influence upon sport dancers in time of training on base of Buddhists’ meditation “conscious breathing” for neurotic reactions elimination, professional skill improvement and psycho emotional stability advance. Material : twenty dancers at the age of 40-50 with neurotic reactions participated in the research. At the first stage of...
Exposure to repetitive drumming combined with instructions for shamanic journeying has been associated with physiological and therapeutic effects, such as an increase in salivary immunoglobulin A. In order to assess whether the combination of repetitive drumming and shamanic instructions is specifically associated with these effects, we compared the effect of listening to either repetitive...
Spiritually focused interventions are increasing within social work/helping professions practice and research. Specifically the incorporation of meditation is taking root. This article conceptualizes a particular mantra meditation system, combined with visualization, called Mahavakyam Meditation (MM), and explores how it ameliorated the stress, sadness, and anxiety for women attending...