contemplative practice

Reduce College Students Self-Criticism with Mindful Lovingkindness Training

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Reduce College Students Self-Criticism with Mindful Lovingkindness Training

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“What’s so amazing about mindfulness practice is we can use mindfulness to be aware when we have those self-critical voices, and we can label that voice as “judging”. We can notice when we have those judging voices because we have a mindfulness practice that allows us to have quite a bit more self-awareness, more ability to regulate emotions, and all of the positive things that come with the mindfulness practice.“ – Diana Winston

 

In the modern world education is a key for success. Where a high school education was sufficient in previous generations, a college degree is now required to succeed in the new knowledge-based economies. There is a lot of pressure on students to excel so that they can get the best jobs after graduation. This stress might in fact be counterproductive as the increased pressure can actually lead to stress and anxiety which can impede the student’s physical and mental health, well-being, and school performance. This is particularly true in very competitive Asian countries like Korea. This can lead to extreme self-criticism where the individual is never happy with themselves producing great unhappiness and psychological distress.

 

Mindfulness training has been shown through extensive research to be effective in improving physical and psychological reactions to stress and resilience in the face of stress. It has also been found to promote the well-being of college students. Mindfulness has been found to improve self-esteem.  One understudied meditation technique is Loving Kindness Meditation. It is designed to develop kindness and compassion to oneself and others. The individual systematically pictures different individuals from self, to close friends, to enemies and wishes them happiness, well-being, safety, peace, and ease of well-being. Although Loving Kindness Meditation has been practiced for centuries, it has received very little scientific research attention. But it may be effective in counteracting the effects of stress and self-criticism.

 

In today’s Research News article “Psychological and Physiological Effects of the Mindful Lovingkindness Compassion Program on Highly Self-Critical University Students in South Korea.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.585743/full?utm_source=F-AAE&utm_medium=EMLF&utm_campaign=MRK_1463957_69_Psycho_20201022_arts_A ) Noh and colleagues recruited healthy Korean college students who were high in self-criticism and randomly assigned them to either a wait-list control condition or to receive a Mindful Lovingkindness Compassion program. The training consisted of 8 2-hour sessions over 6 weeks of mindfulness meditation and Loving Kindness Meditation. They were measured before and after training and one and three months later for self-criticism, self-reassurance, mindfulness, compassion, shame, anxiety, depression, fears of compassion, satisfaction with life, and heart rate variability.

 

They found that in comparison to baseline and the wait-list control group, the Mindful Lovingkindness Compassion group had significantly higher self-reassurance, mindfulness, compassion, and satisfaction with life, and significantly lower self-criticism, shame, anxiety, depression, and fears of compassion. These improvements continued to be present 1 and 3 months after the completion of training. In addition, the Mindful Lovingkindness Compassion group had significantly higher heart rate variability.

 

The interpretation of these results has to be tempered with the knowledge that the comparison, control, condition was passive. This opens the study up to a number of potential confoundings. Nevertheless, the results are similar to those of prior research that found that mindfulness training produces higher self-reassurance, compassion, and satisfaction with life, and lower self-criticism, shame, anxiety, and depression. Hence, the current study suggests that Mindful Lovingkindness Compassion training produces improved psychological health in highly self-critical college students. In addition, the increased heart rate variability observed suggests that the trained students had greater physiological relaxation, probably indicating a great resistance to the effects of stress.

 

This is important for the well-being of college students. They are under great pressure to perform especially in Asian countries like Korea. Combining that with high levels of self-criticism is a formula for psychological and physical problems. The kind of mindfulness and loving kindness training employed here appears to be able to markedly counteract the deleterious effects of these forces and produce greater relaxation and overall well-being.

 

So, reduce college students’ self-criticism with Mindful Lovingkindness training.

 

“Self-criticism is an unhelpful habit that can sometimes be destructive and cause emotional ill-health. . . Through practicing mindfulness and self-compassion you can loosen up old self-critical habits that may have been present from childhood and develop a kinder, more appreciative way of being with yourself.” – Linda Hall

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

 

Noh S and Cho H (2020) Psychological and Physiological Effects of the Mindful Lovingkindness Compassion Program on Highly Self-Critical University Students in South Korea. Front. Psychol. 11:585743. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.585743

 

Objectives: Self-critical behavior is especially relevant for university students who face academic and non-academic stressors, leading to negative outcomes such as mental distress and psychopathologies. To address this behavior, mindfulness and compassion are important factors to decrease self-criticism and ensure positive outcomes. This study examined the psychological and physiological effects of an intervention, the Mindful Lovingkindness Compassion Program (MLCP), on highly self-critical university students in South Korea.

Methods: Thirty-eight university students with a high level of self-criticism were assigned to an MLCP group (n = 18) or waitlist (WL) group (n = 20). Self-report measures of self-criticism, self-reassurance, psychological distress, and other mental health variables were completed, and the physiological measure of heart rate variability (HRV) was conducted before and after the intervention with both groups. In addition, 1- and 3-month follow-up assessments were conducted using self-report measurements.

Results: Compared to the WL group, participants in the MLCP group experienced significantly greater reductions in self-criticism and psychological distress, and a greater increase in self-reassurance, mental health, and HRV. The improvements in the self-report measures were maintained when assessed 1 and 3 months later.

Conclusions: MLCP could be a promising intervention for alleviating self-criticism and increasing self-reassurance among self-critical individuals.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.585743/full?utm_source=F-AAE&utm_medium=EMLF&utm_campaign=MRK_1463957_69_Psycho_20201022_arts_A

Change the Brain with Mindfulness Apps

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Change the Brain with Mindfulness Apps

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“Rather than treating the usage of smartphones and mindfulness as oxymorons, we should consider ways to use our smartphones as a tool to aid our mindfulness practices.” – Courtney Ackerman

 

Mindfulness training has been shown through extensive research to be effective in improving physical and psychological health and particularly with reducing the physical and psychological reactions to stress and increasing resilience in the face of stress. There are a number of ways that meditation practices produce these benefits, including changes to the brain and physiology. The nervous system changes in response to how it is used and how it is stimulated in a process called neuroplasticity. Highly used areas grow in size, metabolism, and connectivity. Mindfulness practices in general are known to produce these kinds of changes in the structure and activity of the brain.

 

The vast majority of the mindfulness training techniques, however, require a trained teacher. The participants must be available to attend multiple sessions at particular scheduled times that may or may not be compatible with busy employee schedules and at locations that may not be convenient. As an alternative, apps for smartphones have been developed. These have tremendous advantages in decreasing costs, making training schedules much more flexible, and eliminating the need to go repeatedly to specific locations. But the question arises as to the effectiveness of these apps and their ability to produce neuroplastic changes in the brain.

 

In today’s Research News article “The Impact of App-Delivered Mindfulness Meditation on Functional Connectivity and Self-Reported Mindfulness Among Health Profession Trainees.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7543678/ ) Smith and colleagues recruited surgery residents and physicians assistant students and randomly assigned them to a wait-list control condition or to practice mindfulness meditation for 12 minutes per day for 8 weeks  guided by the “10% Happier” smartphone app. They were measured before and after training for mindfulness with the Five Facets of Mindfulness Questionnaire and had their brains scanned with a resting state functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI).

 

They found in comparison to baseline and the wait-list control conditions that the mindfulness app group had a significantly higher Describe facet of mindfulness. They report that the greater the amount of app practice, the greater the increase in the Describe facet of mindfulness. The brain scans revealed that using the mindfulness app resulted in changes in the connectivity of a number of systems within the brain. They found that there was increased connectivity between the Central Executive Network and the Nucleus Accumbens and also between the Default Mode Network and the Salience Network. In addition, the greater the Describe mindfulness facet and the greater the amount of practice the greater the increase in these connectivities.

 

These networks are very important for the functioning of the brain. The Central Executive Network is involved in high level thinking, the Default Mode Network is involved in mind wandering and self-referential thinking, and the Salience Network is involved in attentional processing. The increased connectivity observed with the systems after using the mindfulness app suggests that the app was successful in increasing mindfulness which in turn improved the processing of important neural systems, effectively improving the brain.

 

So, change the brain with mindfulness Apps.

 

“meditation, which changes the brain for the better, is a very specific technique rooted in age old philosophies. How meditation apps work on the brain has been debated, but a recent study . . .  shows that mindfulness changes cells in the brain.” – Sophia Quaglia

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

 

Smith, J. L., Allen, J. W., Haack, C., Wehrmeyer, K., Alden, K., Lund, M. B., & Mascaro, J. S. (2020). The Impact of App-Delivered Mindfulness Meditation on Functional Connectivity and Self-Reported Mindfulness Among Health Profession Trainees. Mindfulness, 1–15. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-020-01502-7

 

Abstract

Objectives

Previous research indicates that mindfulness meditation reduces anxiety and depression and enhances well-being. We examined the impact of app-delivered mindfulness meditation on resting state functional MRI (fMRI) connectivity among physician assistant (PA) students and surgery residents.

Methods

PA students and residents were randomized to receive a popular meditation app or to wait-list control group. Before and after the 8-week meditation period, we acquired fMRI scans of participants’ resting state, and participants completed a self-report measure of mindfulness. We used a 2 × 2, within- and between-group factorial design and leveraged a whole-brain connectome approach to examine changes in within- and between-network connectivity across the entire brain, and to examine whether changes in connectivity were associated with app use or to changes in self-reported mindfulness.

Results

Meditation practitioners exhibited significantly stronger connectivity between the frontoparietal network and the left and right nucleus accumbens and between the default mode (DMN) and salience networks, among other regions. Mindfulness practice time was correlated with increased connectivity between the lateral parietal cortex and the supramarginal gyrus, which were also positively correlated with increased scores on the “Describing” subscale of the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire between baseline and post-meditation. These findings are consistent with previous research indicating that mindfulness-based interventions alter functional connectivity within the DMN and between the DMN and other networks both during meditation and at rest, as well as increased connectivity in systems important for emotion and reward.

Conclusions

Recent commentaries call for healthcare provider and trainee wellness programs that are sustainable and preventive in nature rather than reactive; these data indicate that even brief sessions of app-delivered mindfulness practice are associated with functional connectivity changes in a dose-dependent manner.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7543678/

 

Unique Brain Activity Registers Internal Attentional States During Meditation

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Unique Brain Activity Registers Internal Attentional States During Meditation

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“Your brain is actually shaped by your thoughts and your behaviors. . . meditation can help boost attention and keep the brain sharp. . .  mindful breath awareness may improve attention and help curb impulsive behavior” – Grace Bullock

 

There has accumulated a large amount of research demonstrating that mindfulness has significant benefits for psychological, physical, and spiritual wellbeing. It even improves high level thinking known as executive function and emotion regulation and compassion. One of the primary effects of mindfulness training is an improvement in the ability to pay attention to the task at hand and ignore interfering stimuli. This is an important consequence of mindfulness training and produces improvements in thinking, reasoning, and creativity. The importance of heightened attentional ability to the individual’s ability to navigate the demands of complex modern life cannot be overstated. It helps in school, at work, in relationships, or simply driving a car. As important as attention is, it’s surprising that little is known about the mechanisms by which mindfulness improves attention.

 

There is evidence that mindfulness training improves attention by altering the brain. It appears That mindfulness training increases the size, connectivity, and activity of areas of the brain that are involved in paying attention. But there are various states of attention including meditation-related states: breath attention, mind wandering, and self-referential processing, and control states e.g. attention to feet and listening to ambient sounds. It is not known what changes occur in the brain during these five different modes and if they can be used to better discriminate the nature of attentional changes during meditation.

 

In today’s Research News article “Focus on the Breath: Brain Decoding Reveals Internal States of Attention During Meditation.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7483757/ ) Weng and colleagues recruited healthy adult meditators (at least 5 years of experience) and non-meditators. They were given a series of tasks while having their brains scanned with functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). They were asked for 16-50 seconds to 1) pay attention to their breath, 2) let the mind wander, 3) think about past events, 4) pay attention to their feet, and 5) pay attention to ambient sounds. The 5 conditions were repeated multiple times in random orders. They then performed a 10-minute breath following meditation followed by a repeat of the premeditation tasks. Artificial intelligence was employed to determine unique neural activity associated with each of the 5 mental states for each participant.

 

They found unique individual brain activity patterns for each participant and could reliably distinguish different individual patterns for the 5 mental states. They then used these individualized patterns in an attempt to determine mental state during the breath focused meditation. They found that the individualized patterns identified for following the breath were present a greater percentage of time than the mind wandering or self-referential states when engaging in breath focused meditation. Further they found that the greater the amount of time for each participant in the breath following brain pattern the larger the rating by the participant of their engagement with breath following.

 

This was a proof of concept study. But it successfully demonstrated that unique individual patterns of brain activity can be identified for 5 mental states. These could be reliably differentiated. It also showed that these patterns could be used to identify breath following during breath following meditation. This suggests that this method may be used to identify mental states during ongoing meditation sessions. This could be a powerful research tool for future investigations of the mental states occurring during meditation.

 

So, unique brain activity registers internal attentional states during meditation.

 

“Mindfulness training can help change patterns of brain activity because the synapses within these attentional networks can strengthen or weaken with use. So, join a mindful meditation class or download a mindful meditation app and train your brain to get out of the default mode network and be present!” – Mclean Bolton

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

Weng, H. Y., Lewis-Peacock, J. A., Hecht, F. M., Uncapher, M. R., Ziegler, D. A., Farb, N., Goldman, V., Skinner, S., Duncan, L. G., Chao, M. T., & Gazzaley, A. (2020). Focus on the Breath: Brain Decoding Reveals Internal States of Attention During Meditation. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 14, 336. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2020.00336

Abstract

Meditation practices are often used to cultivate interoception or internally-oriented attention to bodily sensations, which may improve health via cognitive and emotional regulation of bodily signals. However, it remains unclear how meditation impacts internal attention (IA) states due to lack of measurement tools that can objectively assess mental states during meditation practice itself, and produce time estimates of internal focus at individual or group levels. To address these measurement gaps, we tested the feasibility of applying multi-voxel pattern analysis (MVPA) to single-subject fMRI data to: (1) learn and recognize internal attentional states relevant for meditation during a directed IA task; and (2) decode or estimate the presence of those IA states during an independent meditation session. Within a mixed sample of experienced meditators and novice controls (N = 16), we first used MVPA to develop single-subject brain classifiers for five modes of attention during an IA task in which subjects were specifically instructed to engage in one of five states [i.e., meditation-related states: breath attention, mind wandering (MW), and self-referential processing, and control states: attention to feet and sounds]. Using standard cross-validation procedures, MVPA classifiers were trained in five of six IA blocks for each subject, and predictive accuracy was tested on the independent sixth block (iterated until all volumes were tested, N = 2,160). Across participants, all five IA states were significantly recognized well above chance (>41% vs. 20% chance). At the individual level, IA states were recognized in most participants (87.5%), suggesting that recognition of IA neural patterns may be generalizable for most participants, particularly experienced meditators. Next, for those who showed accurate IA neural patterns, the originally trained classifiers were applied to a separate meditation run (10-min) to make an inference about the percentage time engaged in each IA state (breath attention, MW, or self-referential processing). Preliminary group-level analyses demonstrated that during meditation practice, participants spent more time attending to breath compared to MW or self-referential processing. This paradigm established the feasibility of using MVPA classifiers to objectively assess mental states during meditation at the participant level, which holds promise for improved measurement of internal attention states cultivated by meditation.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7483757/

 

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) Procedure can Alter Meditation and its Effects on the Brain

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Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) Procedure can Alter Meditation and its Effects on the Brain

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“The nature of the high noise levels present during fMRI makes total elimination of imager noise perceived by subjects impractical at this time.” – Michael Ravicz

 

Meditation training has been shown to improve health and well-being. It has also been found to be effective for a large array of medical and psychiatric conditions, either stand-alone or in combination with more traditional therapies. There are a number of ways that meditation practices produce these benefits, including changes to the brain and physiology.

 

The premiere way of measuring brain size and function is Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). But the recording of the MRI can be difficult for the participant as they are confined in a narrow tube for an extended period of time with very high noise levels. There are attempts to mitigate the effects of this recording environment but even at best it is noxious for the participant. It is not known how this environment of MRI recording may affect the results of studies of meditation effects on the brain.

 

In today’s Research News article “Does the MRI/fMRI Procedure Itself Confound the Results of Meditation Research? An Evaluation of Subjective and Neurophysiological Measures of TM Practitioners in a Simulated MRI Environment.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7198852/ ) Travis and colleagues recruited experienced meditators and recorded their brain activity with electroencephalogram during a single session while they had their eyes closed and then meditated for 7 minutes. This sequence was repeated in counterbalanced order for sitting, lying down in the quiet, and lying down in a simulated MRI tube with 110db recording of the noise sound level of an MRI machine. The participants then completed a questionnaire about the depth of their meditation and their subjective experiences.

 

They found that the participants rated their depth of meditation and experiences of pure consciousness significantly lower and interference and distraction/agitation significantly higher during the simulated MRI condition. The power in most frequency bands significantly decreased in the EEG from sitting to lying positions and further significantly decreased during the simulated MRI condition. In addition, during the simulated MRI condition, there was a significant increase in activation of the precuneus area of the brain, a major component of the default mode network.

 

These findings are interesting and important for the interpretation of meditation research employing MRI to investigate its effects on the brain. The results suggest that the conditions of MRI recording, including confinement and loud noise levels alters the nature of the meditation and the brain’s responses to the meditation. This environment appears to interfere with the depth of the meditation and inserts greater distractions producing agitation. The MRI environment also appears to decrease the power of various waveforms in the EEG and activate the default mode network of the brain.

 

This represents a problem for interpreting MRI data recorded during meditation. Of course, the effects of the MRI recording environment would be the same during different conditions. So, differences between MRI data recorded during meditation and during other mental states should not be due to the recording environment. In addition, the disruption of the meditation produced by the environment would likely make it more difficult to detect changes produced by meditation. So, the actual observed brain changes during meditation in the MRI environment may underestimate the true effects of meditation practice on the brain.

 

So, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) procedure can alter meditation and its effects on the brain.

 

“claustrophobia is common in the world of MRI. It’s so common that asking questions about it is standard in the pre-appointment screening call. “Four out of ten patients that we call will mention something about claustrophobia,” – Desiree Rckovich

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

 

Travis, F., Nash, J., Parim, N., & Cohen, B. H. (2020). Does the MRI/fMRI Procedure Itself Confound the Results of Meditation Research? An Evaluation of Subjective and Neurophysiological Measures of TM Practitioners in a Simulated MRI Environment. Frontiers in psychology, 11, 728. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00728

 

Abstract

Early research into meditation, including Transcendental Meditation (TM), relied exclusively on EEG to measure brain activity during meditation practice. Since the advent of neural imaging, MRI, and later fMRI, have dominated this field. Unfortunately, the use of this technology rests on the questionable assumption that lying down in a confining tube while exposed to very loud sounds would not interfere with the meditation practice. The present study was designed to assess the effects of the fMRI procedure on both the subjective and neurophysiological responses of short and long-term TM practitioners. Twenty-three TM practitioners volunteered to participate in this study: 11 short-term meditators, averaging 2.2 years practice, and 12 long-term meditators, averaging 34.8 years. The repeated-measures design included two activities for each participant, eyes-closed rest, and TM practice, in each of three conditions: sitting quietly in an upright position (normal TM practice); lying quietly in a supine position; and lying, with earplugs, inside a simulated fMRI tube (simMRI), while exposed to 110 dB recordings of an actual fMRI machine. Subjective experiences were collected after each activity in each condition. Physiological arousal was recorded using skin conductance levels. Scalp EEG was averaged into eight frequency bands within frontal and parietal leads; eLORETA software was used to explore the 3-D cortical distribution of EEG sources. During the simMRI condition, participants reported having more shallow meditation experiences, and greater agitation/distraction. Skin conductance levels paralleled self-reports, decreasing least during the simMRI condition. Frontal and parietal power decreased from sitting to simMRI in the alpha2 through gamma bands. Parietal power was higher during rest compared to TM in the alpha1 through beta2 bands. Frontal and parietal alpha1 coherence were highest during the simMRI condition. The eLORETA analysis revealed that the default mode network was more active during TM when sitting compared to the simMRI condition. The responses to the supine condition were generally between sitting and simMRI, with some significant exceptions. In conclusion, these data indicate that the fMRI procedure itself (high dB noise; lying down) strongly influences subjective and neurophysiological responses during meditation practice, and may therefore confound the interpretation of results from fMRI studies.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7198852/

Improve Attention and Memory with Closed-Loop Digital Meditation

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Improve Attention and Memory with Closed-Loop Digital Meditation

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“The good news is that its possible to train your attention and gain the associated benefits, and practicing mindfulness offers one of the most accessible and effective approaches.” – Deborah Schoeberlein David

 

There has accumulated a large amount of research demonstrating that mindfulness has significant benefits for psychological, physical, and spiritual wellbeing. It even improves high level thinking known as executive function and emotion regulation and compassion. One of the primary effects of mindfulness training is an improvement in the ability to pay attention to the task at hand and ignore interfering stimuli. This is an important consequence of mindfulness training and produces improvements in thinking, reasoning, and creativity. The importance of heightened attentional ability to the individual’s ability to navigate the demands of complex modern life cannot be overstated. It helps in school, at work, in relationships, or simply driving a car. As important as attention is, it’s surprising that little is known about the mechanisms by which mindfulness improves attention.

 

There is evidence that mindfulness training improves attention by altering the brain. It appears That mindfulness training increases the size, connectivity, and activity of areas of the brain that are involved in paying attention. One way to observe the effects of meditation is to measure changes in the electroencephalogram (EEG), the rhythmic electrical activity that can be recorded from the scalp. The recorded activity can be separated into frequency bands. Theta activity consists of oscillations in the 4-8 cycles per second band and it thought to measure attention. Another method to observe attentional processing in the brain is to measure the changes in the electrical activity that occur in response to paying attention. These are called event-related potentials or ERPs. The signal following a stimulus changes over time. The fluctuations of the signal after specific periods of time are thought to measure different aspects of the nervous system’s processing of the stimulus. The P300 response in the evoked potential (ERP) is a positive going electrical response occurring between a 1.5 to 5.0 tenths of a second following the target stimulus presentation. The P300 component is thought to reflect attentional processes.

 

In today’s Research News article “Closed-loop digital meditation improves sustained attention in young adults.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7534732/ ) Ziegler and colleagues recruited meditation-naïve young adults and randomly assigned them to a placebo control group or to receive 6 weeks of daily online breath following focused meditation training. Initially they meditated for 20 minutes but as they reported greater and greater ability to pay attention to their breath the duration of the meditation increased up to 30 minutes. The placebo control condition was engagement with an online app that was judged by participants to produce expectations equivalent to the meditation app for improvements in sustained attention and working memory. Three online aps were identified and self-selected by the participants of foreign language learning, Tai Chi practice, or logic games. The participants were measured before and after training for sustained attention, distraction filtering, working memory, and accuracy of working memory. They also recoded the electroencephalogram (EEG) during the sustained attention task and recorded the theta rhythm and the P300 evoked potentials to the attention stimuli.

 

They found that in comparison to the placebo group the meditation group had significant increases in sustained attention, distraction filtering, and working memory. In addition, they found that the greater the duration of the meditation practice achieved the greater the improvement in sustained attention. In the EEG they found that the meditation group had significant increases in attention-related EEG measures. In particular, they had increased frontal midline theta rhythm and earlier parietal P300 latencies in the evoked potentials.

 

Previous studies have shown that mindfulness practices produce improvements in attention and memory. An interesting and important difference between this research and prior research is that they employed a control condition that was demonstrated to produce the same degree of expectation in the participants for improvement in attention and memory. In other words. they controlled for participant expectancy, placebo, effects that were not controlled in the prior work. So, the improvements in attention and working memory were likely due to the meditation practice itself. Another interesting difference was that the present results were both in behavioral and brain activity measures. This demonstrates that the effects can be seen in objective, EEG and evoked potential data, and not just in behavioral responses that are more susceptible to bias.

 

So, improve attention and memory with closed-loop digital meditation.

 

“mindful attention improves attention regulation, benefits physical and mental health, reduces stress, facilitates emotion regulation, and helps you remove those extra pounds!” – Gavin Khoury

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

 

Ziegler, D. A., Simon, A. J., Gallen, C. L., Skinner, S., Janowich, J. R., Volponi, J. J., Rolle, C. E., Mishra, J., Kornfield, J., Anguera, J. A., & Gazzaley, A. (2019). Closed-loop digital meditation improves sustained attention in young adults. Nature human behaviour, 3(7), 746–757. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-019-0611-9

 

Abstract

Attention is a fundamental cognitive process that is critical for essentially all aspects of higher-order cognition and real-world activities. Younger generations have deeply embraced information technology and multitasking in their personal lives, school, and the workplace, creating myriad challenges to their attention. While improving sustained attention in healthy young adults would be beneficial, enhancing this ability has proven notoriously difficult in this age group. Here we show that six-weeks of engagement with a meditation-inspired, closed-loop software program (MediTrain) delivered on mobile devices led to gains in both sustained attention and working memory in healthy young adults (n = 22). These improvements were associated with positive changes in key neural signatures of attentional control (frontal theta inter-trial coherence and parietal P3b latency), as measured by electroencephalography. Our findings suggest the utility of delivering aspects of the ancient practice of focused-attention meditation in a modern, technology-based approach and its benefits on enhancing sustained attention.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7534732/

 

Change the Brain for Greater Happiness with Meditation

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Change the Brain for Greater Happiness with Meditation

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“meditation. . . appears to have an amazing variety of neurological benefits – from changes in grey matter volume to reduced activity in the “me” centers of the brain to enhanced connectivity between brain regions.” – Alice Walton

 

There has accumulated a large amount of research demonstrating that meditation practice has significant benefits for psychological, physical, and spiritual wellbeing. It has been shown to improve emotions and their regulation. It also increases happiness levels in practitioners. One way that meditation practices may produce these benefits is by altering the brain. The nervous system is a dynamic entity, constantly changing and adapting to the environment. It will change size, activity, and connectivity in response to experience. These changes in the brain are called neuroplasticity. Over the last decade neuroscience has been studying the effects of contemplative practices on the brain and has identified neuroplastic changes in widespread areas. In other words, meditation practice appears to mold and change the brain, producing greater happiness.

 

In today’s Research News article “Rajyoga meditation induces grey matter volume changes in regions that process reward and happiness.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7528075/ ) Babu and colleagues recruited participants who practiced Rajyoga meditation and a group of non-meditators matched for age, gender, and handedness. Rajyoga meditation is an eyes-open focused meditation practice focusing on a point of light. They completed a measure of happiness and had their brains scanned with Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI).

 

They found that the Rajyoga meditators were significantly happier than the non-meditators and that the greater the number of hours of practice the greater the levels of happiness. The MRI scans revealed that the Rajyoga meditators had significantly great gray matter volume in the superior frontal gyrus, inferior orbitofrontal cortex, and precuneus. They also found that the greater the gray matter volume in the superior frontal gyrus, orbitofrontal cortex, insula, and anterior cingulate cortex the greater the levels of reported happiness.

 

The results of the present study need to be interpreted with caution as the groups were determined by whether they engaged in meditation or not. It is possible that people who choose to meditate are significantly different and have significantly different brains than those who do not. Nevertheless, the results suggest that Rajyoga meditators are happier and have greater amounts of brain matter in specific regions of the brain than non-meditators and that these changes are correlated with happiness. The brain areas with greater volume in the meditators are thought to process information regarding rewards and happiness. So, it is hypothesized that the meditation alters these brain regions that results in greater happiness.

 

So, change the brain for greater happiness with meditation.

 

“meditation physically impacts the extraordinarily complex organ between our ears. Recent scientific evidence confirms that meditation nurtures the parts of the brain that contribute to well-being. Furthermore, it seems that a regular practice deprives the stress and anxiety-related parts of the brain of their nourishment.“ – Mindworks

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

 

Babu, M., Kadavigere, R., Koteshwara, P., Sathian, B., & Rai, K. S. (2020). Rajyoga meditation induces grey matter volume changes in regions that process reward and happiness. Scientific reports, 10(1), 16177. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-73221-x

 

Abstract

Studies provide evidence that practicing meditation enhances neural plasticity in reward processing areas of brain. No studies till date, provide evidence of such changes in Rajyoga meditation (RM) practitioners. The present study aimed to identify grey matter volume (GMV) changes in reward processing areas of brain and its association with happiness scores in RM practitioners compared to non-meditators. Structural MRI of selected participants matched for age, gender and handedness (n = 40/group) were analyzed using voxel-based morphometric method and Oxford Happiness Questionnaire (OHQ) scores were correlated. Significant increase in OHQ happiness scores were observed in RM practitioners compared to non-meditators. Whereas, a trend towards significance was observed in more experienced RM practitioners, on correlating OHQ scores with hours of meditation experience. Additionally, in RM practitioners, higher GMV were observed in reward processing centers—right superior frontal gyrus, left inferior orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and bilateral precuneus. Multiple regression analysis showed significant association between OHQ scores of RM practitioners and reward processing regions right superior frontal gyrus, left middle OFC, right insula and left anterior cingulate cortex. Further, with increasing hours of RM practice, a significant positive association was observed in bilateral ventral pallidum. These findings indicate that RM practice enhances GMV in reward processing regions associated with happiness.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7528075/

 

Improve Well-Being with Mandala Drawing

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Improve Well-Being with Mandala Drawing

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“Mandala means “sacred circle” in Sanskrit, which is a traditional concept employed in meditation and a ritual symbol that represents the universe in Hinduism and Buddism. Today, Mandala has evolved into a powerful art therapy exercise that allows the creator to enjoy some peace and quiet by simply crafting colourful geometric patterns within a circular shape. “ – Helen Yu

 

Mindfulness practices have been shown to have a large number of beneficial effects on the psychological, emotional, and physical health of the individual and is helpful in the treatment of mental and physical illness. They have also been shown to effect a large number of physiological and psychological processes, including emotion regulation, attention, sensory awareness, decentering, and reappraisal. Mindfulness practices have been shown to be particularly effective in reducing anxiety.

 

Recently, adult coloring books have become popular as a mindfulness practice. It is thought that immersion in the creative yet structured and safe process of coloring will increase mindfulness and in turn produce the benefits of mindfulness. Mandala drawing is an ancient mindfulness practice. But the effects of mandala drawing on the well-being of participants has not been adequately tested scientifically.

 

In today’s Research News article “Cooperative and Individual Mandala Drawing Have Different Effects on Mindfulness, Spirituality, and Subjective Well-Being.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.564430/full?utm_source=F-AAE&utm_medium=EMLF&utm_campaign=MRK_1456740_69_Psycho_20201013_arts_A ) Liu and colleagues recruited healthy college students and randomly assigned them to mandala drawing either alone (individual) or in groups of 4 (cooperative). They met for 5 weekly, 90-minute sessions in which they received training and drew mandalas in provided blank circles. They were measured before and after practice for mindfulness, spirituality, subjective well-being, satisfaction with life, and positive and negative emotions.

 

They found that neither group had significant increases in mindfulness while both groups had significant increases in spirituality with the cooperative group showing significantly larger increases. They also found that the cooperative condition produced a significant increase in positive emotions and subjective well-being while the individual condition did not. Both groups had significant decreases in negative emotions. They also found that the higher the levels of positive emotions, the higher the levels of mindfulness, spirituality, satisfaction with life, and subjective well-being.

 

These results are interesting and demonstrate that mandala drawing is beneficial for the psychological health and spirituality of participants. It does not appear that mindfulness mediates these effects as there was no increase in mindfulness produced by either individual or cooperative mandala drawing.

 

The results show that mandala drawing in a cooperative, group, format produces superior benefits to those produced by individual mandala drawing, including more positive emotions and greater subjective well-being. Since participating in a group can be more fun it would be expected that positive emotions would increase further and the group socialization would reduce loneliness and produce greater subjective well-being. So, it would appear that mandala drawing is beneficial by itself but adding a social component increases the benefits.

 

So, improve well-being with mandala drawing.

 

“Each person’s life is like a mandala – a vast limitless circle. We stand in the centre of our own circle, and everything we see, hear and think forms the mandala of our life… everything that shows up in your mandala is a vehicle for your awakening.” ―Pema Chödrön

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

 

Liu C, Chen H, Liu C-Y, Lin R-T and Chiou W-K (2020) Cooperative and Individual Mandala Drawing Have Different Effects on Mindfulness, Spirituality, and Subjective Well-Being. Front. Psychol. 11:564430. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.564430

 

Mandala drawing was first practiced by Tibetan buddhists and then developed by Carl Gustav Jung, who felt certain that mandala drawing has the function of integrating psychological division, enhancing psychological harmony, and preserving personality integrity. Previous studies on mandala drawing have mainly focused on alleviating people’s negative emotions, such as anxiety and depression. Therefore, this study explored the effect and mechanism of mandala drawing on the improvement of subjective well-being (SWB), mindfulness, and spirituality from positive psychology’s viewpoint and compared the different effects of cooperative mandala drawing (CMD) and individual mandala drawing (IMD) on mindfulness, spirituality, and SWB. A total of 76 students were recruited from Chang Gung University, and the aforementioned three main variables were measured before and after the coloring experiment. The results indicated that both CMD and IMD significantly enhanced the subjects’ spirituality. Compared with IMD, CMD has a more significant improvement and promotion effect on SWB of subjects by affecting PA, while IMD had no significant effect on PA, and the enhancement effect of SWB was weaker than that of CMD. Mindfulness, spirituality, and SWB all positively correlated with each other. This study highlights the mechanism of mandala drawing and the theoretical understanding of the relationship between mindfulness and SWB. Mandala drawing especially CMD has a positive effect on spirituality and SWB, which may provide individuals with a simple and easy method to improve their happiness.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.564430/full?utm_source=F-AAE&utm_medium=EMLF&utm_campaign=MRK_1456740_69_Psycho_20201013_arts_A

 

Mindfulness is Related to Better Sleep

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Mindfulness is Related to Better Sleep

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“By taking this mindful attitude, sleep is facilitated by simply being aware of the moment-to-moment experience of relaxing into the bed, without judging or being critical of that experience, so that the mind can gently slip into sleep.” – John Cline

 

Modern society has become more around-the-clock and more complex producing considerable pressure and stress on the individual. The advent of the internet and smart phones has exacerbated the problem. The resultant stress can impair sleep. Indeed, it is estimated that over half of Americans sleep too little due to stress. As a result, people today sleep 20% less than they did 100 years ago. Not having a good night’s sleep has adverse effects upon the individual’s health, well-being, and happiness. This is heightened in college students who are generally highly stressed. Mindfulness-based practices have been reported to improve sleep amount and quality and help with insomnia. But the mechanisms by which mindfulness improves sleep have not been well explored.

 

In today’s Research News article “Relationship Between Trait Mindfulness and Sleep Quality in College Students: A Conditional Process Model.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.576319/full?utm_source=F-AAE&utm_medium=EMLF&utm_campaign=MRK_1456740_69_Psycho_20201013_arts_A ) Ding and colleagues recruited college students and had them complete measures of mindfulness, sleep quality, mood states, and personality. They then subjected the data to regression analysis.

 

They found that the higher the levels of mindfulness of the students the lower the levels of neuroticism and negative mood states, and the better the sleep quality. In addition, the greater the negative mood states the poorer the sleep quality and the higher the levels of neuroticism. So, mindfulness was associated with lower negative mood states which were in turn associated with better sleep. They also found that neuroticism significantly affected the relationship of mindfulness with the quality of sleep. Mindfulness was only significantly related to better sleep quality when neuroticism was low but not when it was high.

 

It has been well documented in previous research that mindfulness is related to better sleep quality and improved mood. The present study contributes to our understanding of the mindfulness – sleep relationship by demonstrating that the personality characteristic of neuroticism disrupts the relationship; when neuroticism is high the relationship between mindfulness and sleep disappears.

 

Neuroticism is a personality trait that indicates a tendency toward negative emotions and self-doubt. Neurotic people generally have high negative mood states. It is possible that neuroticism disrupts the mindfulness – sleep relationship by preventing mindfulness from improving mood and thereby improving sleep. This interpretation must be tempered with the understanding that these relationships are correlational. So, definitive conclusions about causation cannot be reached. Nevertheless, previous research has demonstrated that mindfulness causes improved sleep. So, it is likely that the present results represent causal connections.

 

So, mindfulness is related to better sleep.

 

“We cannot make ourselves sleep, but perhaps, by aiming to stay settled and getting less caught up in our thoughts, we fall asleep anyway.” – Mark Bertin

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

 

Ding X, Wang X, Yang Z, Tang R and Tang Y-Y (2020) Relationship Between Trait Mindfulness and Sleep Quality in College Students: A Conditional Process Model. Front. Psychol. 11:576319. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.576319

 

Sleep quality can affect the physical and mental health, as well as the personal development of college students. Mindfulness practices are known to ameliorate sleep disorder and improve sleep quality. Trait mindfulness, an innate capacity often enhanced by mindfulness training, has been shown to relate to better sleep quality and different aspects of psychological well-being. However, how individual difference factors such as trait mindfulness relate to sleep quality remains largely unclear, which limits the optimization and further application of mindfulness-based intervention schemes targeting the improvement of sleep quality. In this study, we aimed to investigate how negative emotions and neuroticism may influence the relationship between trait mindfulness and sleep quality. A conditional process model was built to examine these relationships in 1,423 Chinese young adults. Specifically, the conditional process model was constructed with trait mindfulness as the independent variable, sleep quality as the dependent variable, negative emotions as the mediating variable, and neuroticism as the moderating variable. Our results showed that negative emotions mediated the link between mindfulness and sleep quality and that neuroticism had a moderating effect on the relationship between mindfulness and sleep quality. Together, these findings suggested a potential mechanism of how trait mindfulness influences sleep quality, provided a therapeutic target for which mindfulness-based interventions may act upon to improve sleep quality, and offered a basis for prediction of different intervention effects among individuals.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.576319/full?utm_source=F-AAE&utm_medium=EMLF&utm_campaign=MRK_1456740_69_Psycho_20201013_arts_A

 

Mindfulness Improves the Psychological Health of Arab Teachers

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Mindfulness Improves the Psychological Health of Arab Teachers

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“thousands of schools across the country that is bringing mindfulness into the classroom. Growing numbers of teachers, parents, and children are reaping the benefits that learning mindfulness—can bring, including reduced levels of stress and anxiety, increased focus and self-regulation, and improved academic performance and sleep, among others.” – Caren Osten Gerszberg

 

Stress is epidemic in the western workplace with almost two thirds of workers reporting high levels of stress at work. This often produces burnout; fatigue, cynicism, emotional exhaustion, and professional inefficacy. Teachers experience burnout at high rates. Roughly a half a million teachers out of a workforce of three million, leave the profession each year and the rate is almost double in poor schools compared to affluent schools. Indeed, nearly half of new teachers leave in their first five years. Hence, methods of reducing stress and improving teacher psychological health needs to be studied.

 

Mindfulness techniques are gaining increasing attention for the treatment of the symptoms of stress and burnout. They have been demonstrated to be helpful in reducing the psychological and physiological responses to stress and for treating and preventing burnout in a number of work environments including schools. But there are very few studies of the effects of mindfulness training for teachers cultures other than western and oriental and virtually none in Arab cultures.

 

In today’s Research News article “Effects of a Mindfulness Intervention Among Arab Teachers Are Mediated by Decentering: A Pilot Study.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.542986/full?utm_source=F-AAE&utm_medium=EMLF&utm_campaign=MRK_1456740_69_Psycho_20201013_arts_A ) Berkovich-Ohana and colleagues recruited Arab elementary school teachers from 2 different schools. The teachers in one school underwent a 30-hour 3-month mindfulness training program tailored for teachers while the teacher in the other underwent a 30-hour 6-month training program on teaching for understanding. The teachers were measured before and after the training programs for perceived stress, decentering, rumination, emotion regulation, including cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression subscales, and mindfulness.

 

They found that the mindfulness group significantly increased in mindfulness and emotion regulation compared to baseline while the control group significantly decreased in mindfulness and emotion regulation. They also found that the mindfulness group had significant increases in decentering and decreases in perceived stress while the control group did not. In addition, while both groups significantly decreased in rumination, the mindfulness group had a significantly greater decrease.

 

Mindfulness training has been well established in western and oriental cultures to produces increased emotion regulation and decentering and decreased rumination and perceived stress. The present results extend these findings to Arab teachers. This leads to the conclusion that mindfulness training is beneficial for the psychological health of teachers regardless of culture. Mindfulness training appears to be helpful in lowering the stress levels of school teachers generally. Although not measured in the present study it would be expected that this would lead to decreased burnout and better classroom performance by the teachers.

 

So, mindfulness improves the psychological health of Arab teachers.

 

“Practicing mindfulness can help teachers to recognize our emotional patterns and proactively regulate how we behave, responding in the way we want to rather than reacting automatically. It can also help us to savor the positive moments in our job—when we feel the joy of true connection with our students or resonate with the joy and excitement our students feel when learning clicks for them.” – Patricia A. Jennings 

 

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

 

Berkovich-Ohana A, Lavy S and Shanboor K (2020) Effects of a Mindfulness Intervention Among Arab Teachers Are Mediated by Decentering: A Pilot Study. Front. Psychol. 11:542986. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.542986

 

Although mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) in education are widely spreading in the world, examination of mindfulness effects in Arab schools is still scarce. This pilot study aimed to fill this gap by examining the effects of an MBI among Arab teachers in Israel. This examination was conducted within the framework of the mindful self in school relationships (MSSR) model, which suggests that the positive effects of MBI on teachers’ emotion regulation are mediated by decentering. The participants (N = 39) were teachers from two Arab elementary schools in Israel, who underwent an MBI course (the MBI condition, N = 20) and another cognitive intervention (the control condition, N = 19). In a pre–post design, participants completed mindfulness, decentering, emotion regulation, and stress questionnaires. We hypothesized that (1) only in the MBI group, teachers’ mindfulness, decentering, and emotional regulation will increase and stress will decrease, and (2) changes in teachers’ decentering would mediate the associations of changes in teachers’ mindfulness with changes in their emotion regulation. ANOVA analyses show that, only in the MBI condition, teachers showed an increase in three mindfulness subscales (acting with awareness, non-reactivity, and observance), in decentering, and in adaptive emotion regulation (reappraisal) and a decrease in stress. Furthermore, changes from pre-intervention to post-intervention in teachers’ decentering mediated the associations of their pre–post changes in mindfulness with changes in emotion regulation. This study provides initial support to the feasibility and efficacy of MBI among Israeli Arab teachers and suggests decentering as a potential mediator of its effects in initial support of the MSSR model.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.542986/full?utm_source=F-AAE&utm_medium=EMLF&utm_campaign=MRK_1456740_69_Psycho_20201013_arts_A

 

Relieve Anxiety Disorders with Mindfulness

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Relieve Anxiety Disorders with Mindfulness

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“a way to reduce the symptoms of anxiety is to be fully, mindfully, anxious. As anxiety reveals itself to be a misperception, symptoms will dissipate.” – George Hofmann

 

Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the United States, affecting 40 million adults, or 18% of the population. A characterizing feature of anxiety disorders is that the sufferer overly identifies with and personalizes their thoughts. The sufferer has recurring thoughts, such as impending disaster, that they may realize are unreasonable, but are unable to shake. Anxiety disorders have generally been treated with drugs. But there are considerable side effects and these drugs are often abused. There are a number of psychological therapies for anxiety. But, about 45% of the patients treated do not respond to the therapy. So, there is a need to develop alternative treatments. So, there is a need to develop alternative treatments. Recently, it has been found that mindfulness training can be effective for anxiety disorders.

 

In today’s Research News article “Participant experiences of change in mindfulness-based stress reduction for anxiety disorders.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7482889/ ) Schanche and colleagues examine the patients’ experiences with a Mindfulness-Based Stress reduction (MBSR) program for the relief of clinically significant anxiety. They recruited adult patients diagnosed with either panic disorder, social phobia, or generalized anxiety disorder and provided them with an 8-week group MBSR program including weekly instruction and discussions of meditation, body scan, and yoga along with daily home practice. After the completion of the program the participants were interviewed and asked about “their backgrounds and what made them sign up for the course, their experience of participating in the program, and changes that might have occurred in their life during or after the course.” The transcribed interviews were analyzed “using a team-based explorative–reflective thematic analysis”.

 

Theparticipants’ interviews yielded 5 themes. The participants indicated that the Mindfulness-Based Stress reduction (MBSR) program provided them with useful strategies to apply when anxiety arose, the ability to let go of negative, self-critical, or ruminative thinking, more bodily comfort and less distress and anxiety, ability to do things that their anxiety previously prevented them from doing, increased ability to engage in relationships with others, and the ability to pause when things became difficult. They indicated that the MBSR program helped with their anxiety but the anxiety was still there and they had more work to do.

 

It has been well established that mindfulness training is effective for anxiety disorders. The present qualitative analysis begins to explore the participants perceptions of benefits from the program toward dealing with their anxiety. It should be mentioned that these are subjective responses and there wasn’t a control condition. So, bias and demand characteristics could have driven some of the responses. But the study underscores some of the perceived skills obtained in Mindfulness-Based Stress reduction (MBSR) training that they found useful in coping with anxiety. This could help in altering the program to maximize its effectiveness.

 

So, relieve anxiety disorders with mindfulness.

 

“For the 6.8 million Americans who live with chronic daily anxiety, meditation can offer a way to finally relax.” – Megan Monohan

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

 

Schanche, E., Vøllestad, J., Binder, P. E., Hjeltnes, A., Dundas, I., & Nielsen, G. H. (2020). Participant experiences of change in mindfulness-based stress reduction for anxiety disorders. International journal of qualitative studies on health and well-being, 15(1), 1776094. https://doi.org/10.1080/17482631.2020.1776094

 

ABSTRACT

Aim

To explore experiences of change among participants in a randomized clinical trial of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) for anxiety disorders.

Method

Semi-structured interviews were conducted to explore the subjective experiences of change for individuals with anxiety disorders after a course in MBSR. Interviews were analysed employing hermeneutic-phenomenological thematic analysis.

Results

Five main themes were identified: 1) Something useful to do when anxiety appears, 2) Feeling more at ease, 3) Doing things my anxiety wouldn’t let me, 4) Meeting what is there, and 5) Better—but not there yet. Most participants used what they had learned for instrumental purposes, and described relief from anxiety and an increased sense of personal agency. A few reported more radical acceptance of anxiety, as well as increased self-compassion.

Conclusion

Participants of MBSR both describe mindfulness as a tool to “fix” anxiety and as bringing about more fundamental change towards acceptance of their anxiety. The complexity of reported change corresponds with better handling of areas representing known transdiagnostic features of anxiety disorder, such as dysfunctional cognitive processes (including attentional biases), emotional dysregulation, avoidance behaviours, and maladaptive self-relatedness. This supports MBSR as a transdiagnostic approach to the treatment of anxiety disorders.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7482889/