Attention

Improve the Aging Brain’s Cognition with Mindfulness

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Improve the Aging Brain’s Cognition with Mindfulness

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“there is a small but growing body of evidence that regular meditation really can slow ageing – at least at the cellular level.” – James Kingsland

 

Human life is one of constant change. We revel in our increases in physical and mental capacities during development, but regret their decreases during aging. The aging process involves a systematic progressive decline in every system in the body, the brain included. This includes our mental abilities which decline with age including impairments in memory, attention, problem solving ability, and emotion regulation. It is inevitable and cannot be avoided. There is some hope for these age-related declines, however, as there is evidence that they can be slowed. There are some indications that physical and mental exercise can reduce the rate of cognitive decline and lower the chances of dementia. For example, contemplative practices such as meditation, yoga, and tai chi or qigong have all been shown to be beneficial in slowing or delaying physical and mental decline with aging.

 

Using modern neuroimaging techniques, scientists have been able to view the changes that occur in the nervous system with aging. In addition, they have been able to investigate various techniques that might slow the process of neurodegeneration that accompanies normal aging. They’ve found that mindfulness practices reduce the deterioration of the brain that occurs with aging restraining the loss of neural tissue. Indeed, the brains of mindfulness practitioners have been found to degenerate less with aging than non-practitioners.

 

Since the global population of the elderly is increasing at unprecedented rates, it is imperative to investigate methods to slow physical and mental aging and mitigate its effects. In today’s Research News article “Mindful Aging: The Effects of Regular Brief Mindfulness Practice on Electrophysiological Markers of Cognitive and Affective Processing in Older Adults.” See summary below or view the full text of the study at:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5241348/

Malinowski and colleagues recruited individuals between the ages of 55 and 75 years and randomly assigned them to either receive mindfulness training or to an active brain training. Mindfulness training consisted of breath following meditation practice. The brain training condition involved performing mental arithmetic problems that required effortful cognitive processing. Both mindfulness and braining training groups practiced for 10 minutes, 5 days per week, for eight weeks. Before and after training participants were measured for mindfulness, self-efficacy, and mental well-being and were assessed for cognitive and emotion regulation abilities by performance of an eStroop task while their brains’ electrical responses, Electroencephalogram (EEG), were recorded. In the eStroop task the participants viewed a computer screen where one to four words were presented simultaneously. The participants were asked to simply press one of four keys to indicate the number of words presented. There were four conditions; emotionally positive words (love), emotionally negative words (sad), emotionally neutral words (box), and incongruent words. In the incongruent condition the words, one, two, three, or four were presented, with the number of words different from the meaning of the words, e.g. the word three presented two times.

 

They found that from pre-test to post-test the mindfulness training, but not the brain training group increased in mindfulness and increased their response speed (reaction time) in the eStroop task under all conditions. So, the breath meditation increased mindfulness and made for quicker reactions in the cognitive task. The N2 negative going neural response occurring 0.27 to 0.34 seconds after the presentation of the words, was significantly stronger in the mindfulness than the brain training group. The electrical response was measured over the frontal central cortex, components of the network regulating attention. This result suggests that mindfulness training improves the brains ability to regulate attention.

 

This study is particularly strong because the control condition was active and required similar commitment of time and energy and belief that the treatment would produce improvements. As a result, the conclusions from the study are very clear. The results suggest that mindfulness training produces improved attentional ability resulting from improved neural responses. These effects were produced in an older group of participants. This suggests that mindfulness training may reduce the cognitive-attentional decline that normally occurs with aging.

 

This is an exciting proposition, that mindfulness training may improve our ability to cognitively age healthily. As the population continues to live longer and the number of older and elderly individuals increases, the problem of cognitive decline will place an increasing burden on caregivers and stress the healthcare system. So, being able to delay and reduce this decline could have profound effects on individuals and society. Hence, promoting mindfulness training for the elderly could reap substantial benefits for the elderly and the system that supports them in their declining years..

 

So, improve the aging brain’s cognition with mindfulness.

 

“Our modern assumptions, ideas, beliefs, and cultural narratives about growing old are too small for us to inhabit. Our thinking about aging is often hijacked by fear, negativity, and ageism. The authentic experience of aging is a source wonder, curiosity, and fascination. Mindful aging is a skillful means to embrace the process of growing older in order to cultivate a deeper understanding and appreciation of the natural flow of all life.” – Brian Alger

 

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

Malinowski, P., Moore, A. W., Mead, B. R., & Gruber, T. (2017). Mindful Aging: The Effects of Regular Brief Mindfulness Practice on Electrophysiological Markers of Cognitive and Affective Processing in Older Adults. Mindfulness, 8(1), 78–94. http://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-015-0482-8

 

Abstract

There is growing interest in the potential benefits of mindfulness meditation practices in terms of counteracting some of the cognitive effects associated with aging. Pursuing this question, the aim of the present study was to investigate the influence of mindfulness training on executive control and emotion regulation in older adults, by means of studying behavioral and electrophysiological changes. Participants, 55 to 75 years of age, were randomly allocated to an 8-week mindful breath awareness training group or an active control group engaging in brain training exercises. Before and after the training period, participants completed an emotional-counting Stroop task, designed to measure attentional control and emotion regulation processes. Concurrently, their brain activity was measured by means of 64-channel electroencephalography. The results show that engaging in just over 10 min of mindfulness practice five times per week resulted in significant improvements in behavioral (response latency) and electrophysiological (N2 event-related potential) measures related to general task performance. Analyses of the underlying cortical sources (Variable Resolution Electromagnetic Tomography, VARETA) indicate that this N2-related effect is primarily associated with changes in the right angular gyrus and other areas of the dorsal attention network. However, the study did not find the expected specific improvements in executive control and emotion regulation, which may be due to the training instructions or the relative brevity of the intervention. Overall, the results indicate that engaging in mindfulness meditation training improves the maintenance of goal-directed visuospatial attention and may be a useful strategy for counteracting cognitive decline associated with aging.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5241348/

 

 

Improve the Symptoms of Stress with Mindfulness

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Improve the Symptoms of Stress with Mindfulness

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“Through mindfulness, individuals start to see their thoughts as less powerful. These distorted thoughts – such as “I always make mistakes” or “I’m a horrible person” – start to hold less weight. We ‘experience’ thoughts and other sensations, but we aren’t carried away by them. We just watch them come and go.” – William Marchand

 

Stress is universal. We are constantly under some form of stress. In fact, if we don’t have enough stress, we seek out more. Moderate stress can be a good thing promoting growth and flourishing. But, it must be moderate or what is called the optimum level of stress. Too little or too much stress can be damaging. Unfortunately for many of us living in a competitive, multitasking, modern environment stress is all too often higher than desirable. In addition, many of the normal mechanisms for dealing with stress have been eliminated. The business of modern life removes opportunities for rest, extra sleep, and leisure activities. Instead people are working extra hours and limiting or passing up entirely vacations to stay competitive. Persistently high levels of stress are damaging and can directly produce disease or debilitation increasing susceptibility to other diseases. Indeed, chronic stress has been associated with depression, anxiety, burnout, suicide attempts, poor immune functioning, and cardiovascular disorders.

 

It is beyond the ability of the individual to change the environment to reduce stress, so it is important that methods be found to reduce the individual’s responses to stress; to make the individual more resilient when high levels of stress occur. Contemplative practices including meditation practice have been shown to reduce the psychological and physiological responses to stress. Because of their ability to relieve stress, mindfulness trainings are increasingly being practiced by individuals and are even being encouraged in some workplaces. But, some other treatments such as exercise or biofeedback may also be effective.

 

In today’s Research News article “A RCT Comparing Daily Mindfulness Meditations, Biofeedback Exercises, and Daily Physical Exercise on Attention Control, Executive Functioning, Mindful Awareness, Self-Compassion, and Worrying in Stressed Young Adults.” See:

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1466297833394138/?type=3&theater

or see summary below or view the full text of the study at:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5010624/

de Bruin and colleagues recruited young adults, aged 18-40 years, who were high in perceived stress and randomly assigned them to either a daily mindfulness meditations, daily heart rate variability biofeedback, or daily physical exercise groups. The participants were provided a 2-hour orientation instruction and then practiced daily over 5 weeks for 10 to 20 minutes per day on an individualized practice plan. They were measured before and after treatment and 6-weeks later for attention control, executive function, mindfulness, self-compassion, and worry.

 

They found that all three interventions produced significant improvement from the pretest to posttest in attention control, executive function, mindfulness, self-compassion, and worry. These effects remained significant at the 6-week follow-up, suggesting lasting effects. All practices had moderate to large effects sizes. Surprisingly there were no significant differences between the three different practices as all produced significant improvements in the measures.

 

It is interesting that all three practices produced significant increases in mindfulness. This would be expected for the mindfulness meditation group but is somewhat surprising for the heart rate variability biofeedback and physical exercise groups. This fact may explain why all of the practices were beneficial. It suggests that improved mindfulness is responsible for the improvements in attention control, executive function, self-compassion, and worry. This seems reasonable, give that mindfulness training has been shown previously to improve attention control, executive function, self-compassion, and worry. Hence it appears that there are a number of practices that can improve the psychological conditions of stressed young adults and that they act by increasing mindfulness.

 

So, improve the symptoms of stress with mindfulness.

 

“mindfulness meditation promotes metacognitive awareness, decreases rumination via disengagement from perseverative cognitive activities and enhances attentional capacities through gains in working memory. These cognitive gains, in turn, contribute to effective emotion-regulation strategies.” – Daphne Davis

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

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

 

Study Summary

De Bruin, E. I., van der Zwan, J. E., & Bögels, S. M. (2016). A RCT Comparing Daily Mindfulness Meditations, Biofeedback Exercises, and Daily Physical Exercise on Attention Control, Executive Functioning, Mindful Awareness, Self-Compassion, and Worrying in Stressed Young Adults. Mindfulness, 7(5), 1182–1192. http://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-016-0561-5

 

Abstract

Our Western society is characterized by multitasking, competition, and constant time pressure. Negative effects of stress for the individual (anxiety, depression, somatic complaints) and for organizations and society (costs due to work absence) are very high. Thus, time-efficient self-help interventions to address these issues are necessary. This study assessed the effects of daily mindfulness meditations (MM) versus daily heart rate variability biofeedback (HRV-BF) and daily physical exercise (PE) on attention control, executive functioning, mindful awareness, self-compassion, and worrying. Young adults (n = 75, age range 18 to 40) with elevated stress levels were randomized to MM, HRV-BF, or PE, and measurements were taken at pre-test, post-test, and follow-up. Interventions in all three groups were self-guided and lasted for 5 weeks. Generalized estimating equation analyses showed that overall, all three interventions were effective and did not differ from each other. However, practice time differed between groups, with participants in the PE group practicing much more than participants in the other two groups. Therefore, additional analyses were carried out in two subsamples. The optimal dose sample included only those participants who practiced for at least 70 % of the total prescribed time. In the equal dose sample, home practice intensity was equal for all three groups. Again, the effects of the three interventions did not differ. In conclusion, MM, HRV-BF, and PE are all effective self-help methods to improve attention control, executive functioning, mindful awareness, self-compassion, and worrying, and mindfulness meditation was not found to be more effective than HRV-biofeedback or physical exercise for these cognitive processes.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5010624/

 

Meditation Improves Well-Being but How You Meditate Can Make a Difference

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By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“science confirms the experience of millions of practitioners: meditation will keep you healthy, help prevent multiple diseases, make you happier, and improve your performance in basically any task, physical or mental.” – Giovanni Dienstmann

 

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. As a result, meditation training has been called the third wave of therapies. One problem with understanding meditation effects is that there are, a wide variety of meditation techniques and it is not known which work best for improving different conditions.

 

Four types of meditation are the most commonly used practices for research purposes. In body scan meditation, the individual focuses on the feelings and sensations of specific parts of the body, systematically moving attention from one area to another. Loving kindness meditation 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. In focused attention meditation, the individual practices paying attention to a single meditation object, learns to filter out distracting stimuli, including thoughts, and learns to stay focused on the present moment, filtering out thoughts centered around the past or future. On the other hand, in open monitoring meditation, the individual opens up awareness to everything that’s being experienced regardless of its origin. These include bodily sensations, external stimuli, and even thoughts. The meditator just observes these stimuli and lets them arise, and fall away without paying them any further attention.

 

These techniques have common properties of restful focused attention, but there are large differences. These differences are likely to produce different effects on the practitioner. In today’s Research News article “Phenomenological Fingerprints of Four Meditations: Differential State Changes in Affect, Mind-Wandering, Meta-Cognition, and Interoception Before and After Daily Practice Across 9 Months of Training.” See:

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1440840735939848/?type=3&theater

or see summary below or view the full text of the study at:

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12671-016-0594-9

Kok and Singer examine the similarities and differences between the effects of body scan meditation, loving kindness meditation, focused attention meditation, and open monitoring meditation. They recruited normal adults aged between 20 to 55 and randomly assigned them to three different orders of conditions in a complex research design. Training in each meditation type was conducted for 13 weeks, including a 3-day retreat at the beginning. The participants reported daily on their feeling states, contents of thought, meta-cognition, and 2 minutes of free writing about their thoughts and feelings.

 

All four meditation practices contain a component of focused breathing meditation, so it’s effects can’t be separated from the other three types. They found that all four meditation practices, consistent with the published literature, produced significant increases in positive feelings, focus on the present moment, and body awareness and decreases in mind wandering.

 

There were also considerable differences in the effects of the meditation practices. Body scan meditation, not surprisingly, produced the greatest increase in body awareness and the greatest decrease in thoughts about past, future, and others, and negative thoughts, in other words less mind wandering. Loving kindness meditation produced the greatest increase in positive thoughts and warm feelings about self and others. Open monitoring meditation produced the greatest increase in thought awareness and decrease in distraction by thoughts. These outcomes are consistent with the targeted contents of the practices.

 

It appears that all meditation types have very positive consequences for the practitioner and at the same time each has its own strengths. These strengths then can be taken advantage of to affect targeted issues for the practitioner. If the problem with the individual is a lack of body awareness then body scan meditation is called for, if it’s negative feelings about self and others, then loving kindness meditation would be best, while if it’s with meta-cognition such as awareness of thoughts, then open monitoring meditation should be the choice. In this way meditation practice, can have even greater benefit for the individual.

 

Regardless, improve well-being with meditation.

 

“If you have a few minutes in the morning or evening (or both), rather than turning on your phone or going online, see what happens if you try quieting down your mind, or at least paying attention to your thoughts and letting them go without reacting to them. If the research is right, just a few minutes of meditation may make a big difference.” – Alice Walton

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

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

 

Study Summary

Kok, B.E. & Singer, T. Phenomenological Fingerprints of Four Meditations: Differential State Changes in Affect, Mind-Wandering, Meta-Cognition, and Interoception Before and After Daily Practice Across 9 Months of Training. Mindfulness (2016). doi:10.1007/s12671-016-0594-9

 

Abstract

Despite increasing interest in the effects of mental training practices such as meditation, there is much ambiguity regarding whether and to what extent the various types of mental practice have differential effects on psychological change. To address this gap, we compare the effects of four common meditation practices on measures of state change in affect, mind-wandering, meta-cognition, and interoception. In the context of a 9-month mental training program called the ReSource Project, 229 mid-life adults (mean age 41) provided daily reports before and after meditation practice. Participants received training in the following three successive modules: the first module (presence) included breathing meditation and body scan, the second (affect) included loving-kindness meditation, and the third (perspective) included observing-thought meditation. Using multilevel modeling, we found that body scan led to the greatest state increase in interoceptive awareness and the greatest decrease in thought content, loving-kindness meditation led to the greatest increase in feelings of warmth and positive thoughts about others, and observing-thought meditation led to the greatest increase in meta-cognitive awareness. All practices, including breathing meditation, increased positivity of affect, energy, and present focus and decreased thought distraction. Complementary network analysis of intervariate relationships revealed distinct phenomenological clusters of psychological change congruent with the content of each practice. These findings together suggest that although different meditation practices may have common beneficial effects, each practice can also be characterized by a distinct short-term psychological fingerprint, the latter having important implications for the use of meditative practices in different intervention contexts and with different populations.

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12671-016-0594-9

 

Pay Attention with Mindfulness

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By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“The quality of your attention determines whether you are present and alert, or mentally and/or emotionally distracted. The good news is that it’s possible to train your attention and gain the associated benefits, and practicing mindfulness offers one of the most accessible and effective approaches.” – Deborah David

 

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 at work, in relationships, or simply driving a car. Being effective socially demands accurately assessing the emotional states of other people. This requires attention to the non-verbal subtle signals of facial expression, body posture, and gestures. In this context, attention to these subtleties is a prerequisite for appropriate interactions. As a result, mindfulness improves social interactions.

 

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. A common method to study the activity of the nervous system is to measure the electrical signal at the scalp above brain regions. Changes in this activity are measurable with mindfulness training. One method to observe information processing in the brain is to measure the changes in the electrical activity that occur in response to specific stimuli. These are called evoked 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 N100 response in the evoked potential (ERP) is a negative going response occurring around a tenth of a second following a visual stimulus presentation. The N100 response has been associated with the engagement of visual attention. So, the N100 response is often used as a measure of brain attentional engagement with the larger the negative change the greater the attentional focus. The N200 response in the evoked potential (ERP) generally follows shortly after the N100 response. It is a negative change that is maximally measured over the frontal lobe. The N200 response has been associated with the resolution of conflicting response expectations. The P300 response occurs around a quarter of a second following the stimulus presentation. It is a positive change that is maximally measured over the central frontal lobe. The P300 response has been associated with holding back expected actions (response inhibition).

 

The relationship of mindfulness to the brain’s processing of social/emotional stimuli was investigated in today’s Research News article “Trait Mindfulness Predicts Efficient Top-Down Attention to and Discrimination of Facial Expressions.” See:

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1433674869989768/?type=3&theater

or see summary below. Quaglia and colleagues recruited college students and measured their levels of mindfulness, social anxiety, and attentional control. The participants’ EEG was measured while performing a go/no-go task in which they were asked to press a button to a picture of a face if it expressed a target emotion (happy, neutral, or fearful) and refrain from responding if a different emotion was being portrayed.

 

They found that the higher the levels of the students’ mindfulness the faster they responded to the faces. In addition, they found that the higher the levels of mindfulness the larger the N100 and N200 responses. With the P300 response, high levels of mindfulness were only found to be associated with larger responses on no-go trials, when they withheld a response to a non-target emotion. There was no difference in the P300 response to go trials.

 

These results suggest that mindfulness improves attention to emotionally significant stimuli and does so by heightening the brain’s response to these stimuli.. This is supported by the faster response times by highly mindful participants. In, addition, the neural responses indicate better processing with the heightened N100 and N200 responses indicating greater attention and better decision processes while the heightened P300 response indicating better ability to withhold responses to stimuli when appropriate. Hence, the results suggest that attention to and responding to emotionally significant stimuli is improved with mindfulness. This may be one of the mechanisms by which mindfulness improves emotion regulation in general.

 

So, pay attention with mindfulness.

 

“Mindfulness refines our attention so that we can connect more fully and directly with whatever life brings. So many times our perception of what is happening is distorted by bias, habits, fears, or desires. Mindfulness helps us see through these and be much more aware of what actually is.” – Sharon Salzberg

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

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

 

Study Summary

Jordan T. Quaglia, Robert J. Goodman, Kirk Warren Brown. Trait Mindfulness Predicts Efficient Top-Down Attention to and Discrimination of Facial Expressions. J. Pers. Volume 84, Issue 3, June 2016, Pages 393–404

 

Abstract

In social situations, skillful regulation of emotion and behavior depends on efficiently discerning others’ emotions. Identifying factors that promote timely and accurate discernment of facial expressions can therefore advance understanding of social emotion regulation and behavior. The present research examined whether trait mindfulness predicts neural and behavioral markers of early top-down attention to, and efficient discrimination of, socioemotional stimuli. Attention-based event-related potentials (ERPs) and behavioral responses were recorded while participants (N = 62; White; 67% female; Mage= 19.09 years, SD = 2.14 years) completed an emotional go/no-go task involving happy, neutral, and fearful facial expressions. Mindfulness predicted larger (more negative) N100 and N200 ERP amplitudes to both go and no-go stimuli. Mindfulness also predicted faster response time that was not attributable to a speed-accuracy trade-off. Significant relations held after accounting for attentional control or social anxiety. This study adds neurophysiological support for foundational accounts that mindfulness entails moment-to-moment attention with lower tendencies toward habitual patterns of responding. Mindfulness may enhance the quality of social behavior in socioemotional contexts by promoting efficient top-down attention to and discrimination of others’ emotions, alongside greater monitoring and inhibition of automatic response tendencies.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.ezproxy.shsu.edu/doi/10.1111/jopy.12167/full

 

 

Improve Attention by Reducing Mind Wandering with Mindfulness

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By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“mindfulness meditation promotes metacognitive awareness, decreases rumination via disengagement from perseverative cognitive activities and enhances attentional capacities through gains in working memory. These cognitive gains, in turn, contribute to effective emotion-regulation strategies.” – Daphne Davis

 

Human life is one of constant change. We revel in our increases in physical and mental capacities during development, but regret their decreases during aging. The aging process involves a systematic progressive decline in every system in the body, the brain included. This includes our mental abilities which decline with age including impairments in memory, attention, and problem solving ability. It is inevitable and cannot be avoided. There is some hope for age related cognitive decline, however, as there is evidence that it can be slowed. There are some indications that physical and mental exercise can reduce the rate of cognitive decline and lower the chances of dementia. For example, contemplative practices such as meditation, yoga, and tai chi or qigong have all been shown to be beneficial in slowing or delaying physical and mental decline with aging. Indeed, mindfulness practices have been shown to improve cognitive processes.

 

We spend a tremendous amount of time with our minds wandering and not on the task or the environment at hand. We daydream, plan for the future, review the past, ruminate on our failures, exalt in our successes. In fact, we spend almost half of our waking hours off task with our mind wandering. Mindfulness is the antithesis of mind wandering. When we’re mindful, we’re paying attention to what is occurring in the present moment. In fact, the more mindful we are the less the mind wanders and mindfulness training reduces mind wandering. You’d think that if we spend so much time with the mind wandering it must be enjoyable. But, in fact research has shown that when our mind is wandering we are actually unhappier than when we are paying attention to what is at hand.

 

It is unclear as to what role mind wandering plays in age related cognitive decline and what influence mindfulness may have on it. This question was explored in today’s Research News article “Dispositional mindfulness and the wandering mind: Implications for attentional control in older adults.” See:

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1426451347378787/?type=3&theater

or see summary below, Fountain-Zaragoza and colleagues recruited 60-74-year old participants and measured mindfulness, mind wandering, inhibitory and sustained attention, proactive attention, reactive attention and working memory. They found that in these elderly participants the higher the levels of mindfulness the lower the levels of task-unrelated thoughts and task-related interference and the higher the levels of reactive attention. That is high mindfulness was associated with less mind wandering and greater attention in reaction to the environment. It was also found that mindfulness appeared to affect proactive attention by way of mind wandering particularly in participants with low levels of working memory.

 

These results suggest that in older adults, mindfulness helps to control mind wandering, but when the mind wanders mindfulness appears to be able to elicit proactive attentional mechanisms. That is to work ahead of time to insure, that attention is focused on the task at hand in spite of the tendency for the mind to wander. In other words, mindfulness appears to keep the individual attending appropriately by reducing mind wandering and by working ahead of time to counteract the effects of mind wandering.

 

So, improve attention by reducing mind wandering with mindfulness.

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

“Mindfulness is a valuable practice for improving the cognitive symptoms of depression, such as distorted thinking and distractibility. It helps individuals recognize these more subtle symptoms, realize that thoughts are not facts and refocus their attention to the present.” – Margarita Tartakovsk

 

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

 

Study Summary

Fountain-Zaragoza S, Londerée A, Whitmoyer P, Prakash RS. Dispositional mindfulness and the wandering mind: Implications for attentional control in older adults. Conscious Cogn. 2016 Aug;44:193-204. doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2016.08.003.

 

Highlights

  • Mindfulnessand task-unrelated thought are negatively associated in older adults.
  • Mindfulness is differentially related to types of attentional control.
  • No association was found between mind-wandering and cognitive performance.
  • Task-unrelated thought mediates mindfulness-proactive control associations.

Abstract

Age-related cognitive decline brings decreases in functional status. Dispositional mindfulness, the tendency towards present-moment attention, is hypothesized to correspond with enhanced attention, whereas mind-wandering may be detrimental to cognition. The relationships among mindfulness, task-related and task-unrelated thought, and attentional control performance on Go/No-Go and Continuous Performance tasks were examined in older adults. Dispositional mindfulness was negatively associated with task-unrelated thought and was positively associated with reactive control, but not proactive control or Go/No-Go performance. Although mind-wandering was not directly associated with performance, task-unrelated thought mediated the mindfulness-proactive control relation. Fewer task-unrelated thoughts were associated with lower proactive control. Interestingly, this effect was moderated by working memory such that it was present for those with low-average, but not high, working memory. This study highlights the importance of dispositional mindfulness and mind-wandering propensity in accounting for individual differences in attentional control in older adults, providing important targets for future cognitive remediation interventions.

Get More Attentive with Meditation

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By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“We practice meditation in the end not to become great meditators but to have a different life. As we deepen the skills of concentration, mindfulness, and compassion, we find we have less stress, more fulfillment, more insight, and vastly more happiness. We transform our lives.” – Sharon Salzberg

 

In modern everyday life, we are constantly bombarded with a myriad of stimuli, from music, movies, TV, traffic noise, games, telephone calls, texts, emails, tweets, posts, etc. The generations who have grown up in the midst of this cacophony, claim to have developed multitasking skills, such that they can simultaneously work with multiple tasks and sources of information. At first glance they appear to have developed useful skills that the older generation can only marvel at. But, upon closer inspection of the abilities of the multitaskers, it has been found that they actually have impaired attentional abilities and are more easily distracted from what they’re doing. In other words, the multitasking has damaged their ability to focus on any one thing.

 

Mindfulness training may be an antidote to the impaired attention and distractibility of the multitaskers. One of the primary effects of meditation 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 meditation training and produces improvements in thinking, reasoning, and creativity. Hence it would seem that mindfulness training would strengthen the exact capacities that are weakened by chronic multitasking.

 

There are, however, a wide variety of meditation techniques and it is not known which work best for improving attention and executive function. In focused attention meditation, the individual practices paying attention to a single meditation object, learns to filter out distracting stimuli, including thoughts, and learns to stay focused on the present moment, filtering out thoughts centered around the past or future. On the other hand, in open monitoring meditation, the individual opens up awareness to everything that’s being experienced regardless of its origin. These include bodily sensations, external stimuli, and even thoughts. The meditator just observes these stimuli and lets them arise and fall away without paying them any further attention.

 

In today’s Research News article “Attentional orienting and executive control are affected by different types of meditation practice.” See:

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/pb.627681673922429.-2207520000.1480417754./1397217773635478/?type=3&theater

or see summary below. Tsai and Chou recruited meditators who practiced focused attention meditation, or who practiced open monitoring meditation, and meditation naive controls. They measured mindfulness and then compared the three groups for their performance on a visual attention task. The task measured three separate components of attention, alerting, orienting, and executive control (filtering irrelevant stimuli). As expected, the two meditation groups had significantly higher levels of mindfulness than the control group. In regards to attention, the meditators demonstrated superior ability to orient and to filter out irrelevant stimuli (executive control). They found that the higher the level of mindfulness, the better the meditators were in executive control. Finally, they found that the open monitoring meditators were significantly superior to the focused meditators in their ability to orient to the attentional stimulus.

 

In a second experiment Tsai and Chou manipulate meditation practice to see if the practice caused the improvements in attention. They recruited meditation naïve college students who were randomly assigned to receive either 3 months of focused attention meditation training or no training. The students were measured on the attentional task both before and after the 3-month training. They found that the focused attention meditation produced a significant improvement in the ability to filter out irrelevant stimuli (executive control) and the higher the level of mindfulness, the better the meditators were in executive control. Thus they demonstrated that meditation practice causes improvements in the attentional ability to ignore irrelevant stimuli.

 

The results suggest the obvious that practicing paying attention improves paying attention. But, less obvious, is that the practice improves the abilities to shift attention when needed, orienting, and to not be distracted by things that are not relevant to the task at hand, executive function. This latter ability appears to be better developed by open monitoring meditation than by focused attention meditation. This would seem counter intuitive as one would think that part of practicing focusing would be to learn to ignore non-focal stimuli. In fact, it did in comparison to non-meditators. But, surprisingly, open monitoring meditation was superior. It may be that practicing just allowing things to be as they are without letting them attract attention may be the better way to learn to ignore distractors. Being used to not responding appears to make the individual better at not responding when needed.

 

So, get more attentive with meditation.

 

“The practice of insight meditation revolves around the art of meditative attention. Its basic tool is ‘bare’ or primary attention which uncovers or lays bare things as they really are. In this way, a non-reactive, unconditioned awareness is acquired that leads to insight knowledge.” – Ven Pannyavaro

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

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

 

Study Summary

Tsai MH, Chou WL. Attentional orienting and executive control are affected by different types of meditation practice. Conscious Cogn. 2016 Oct 3;46:110-126. doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2016.09.020.

 

Highlights

  • We studied the relationship between meditationskills and functions of attention.
  • Focused attention meditation only improved execution control function.
  • Open monitoring meditation improved execution control and orientation functions.

Abstract

Several studies have demonstrated the beneficial effects of meditation on attention. The present study investigated the relationship between focused attention (FA) and open monitoring (OM) meditation skills and the various functions of attention. In Experiment 1, we executed theattention network test and compared the performance of experts on dandao meditation with that of ordinary people on this test. The results indicated that the experts specializing in OM meditation demonstrated greater attentional orienting ability compared with those specializing in FA meditation and the control group. In addition, both expert groups registered improvements in their executive control abilities compared with the control group. In Experiment 2, we trained beginners in FA meditation for 3months. The results showed that the experimental group exhibited significantly enhanced executive control ability. We infer that FA meditation skills promote executive control function and OM meditation skills promote both executive control and attentional orienting functions.

 

Think About It: Mindfulness May Improve Cognitive Functions

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By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“Mindfulness helps us focus: Studies suggest that mindfulness helps us tune out distractions and improves our memory and attention skills.” – Leah Weiss

 

Mindfulness is defined by Jon Kabat-Zinn as “the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment by moment.” In its most basic form, mindfulness training is attention training. As a result, it’s been assumed that mindfulness training would improve attentional ability. It was also assumed that the ability to focus and attend without mind wandering would improve higher level thinking, cognition, sometimes known as executive function.

 

Although there have been a number of studies to investigate the relationship of mindfulness to attentional ability and executive function, they have varied widely in the form of mindfulness training and the methods to measure attention and executive function. In today’s Research News article “Cognitive effects of MBSR/MBCT: A systematic review of neuropsychological outcomes.” See:

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1343930858964170/?type=3&theater

or see summary below. Lao and colleagues review the published research literature on the effects of mindfulness training on attention and executive function. They restricted the reviewed studies to only those that studied adults, who were randomly assigned to either an 8 to 12-week mindfulness training or a control condition, that employed either Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) as the mindfulness training methods, and that measured attention and/or executive function with an objective measure. The literature search produced 18 articles that met all of the criteria. Eleven of the studies used healthy adults while the other 7 were either actively depressed or in remission patients.

 

They found that the studies that investigated attentional or executive attentional abilities only one had a statistically significant improvement in attention from mindfulness training, although all the rest showed mean attentional improvement that was not statistically significant. This contrasted to previous reviews that found significant effects of mindfulness training on attentional ability. But, many of the studies included in these other reviews were not randomized but compared long-term meditators to novices. This suggests that improvement in attentional ability may not result from short-term practice, but require long-term mindfulness training to develop.

 

Similarly, they found that there were mixed findings for higher level thinking, executive functions, with some studies finding significant results while others finding positive changes on the average, but that were not statistically significant. There were, however, significant effects on the awareness of awareness, meta awareness, and the ability to alter thinking, cognitive flexibility. These are significant as they suggest that even though short-term practice was involved, the highest levels of cognitive processing are improved with mindfulness training. Finally, they found that mindfulness training produced statistically significant improvements is memory function, particularly short-term, working, memory.

 

This literature summary, however, was not a meta-analysis where the results of multiple studies are summed and statistically evaluated. Rather Lao and colleagues simply reported on the statistical significance of individual studies. This process lacks the statistical power of a meta-analysis. Since many of the findings were in the direction of improvement, a meta-analysis may well have shown significant overall effects for mindfulness training where few or none were present in the individual studies. Hence, the literature summary was able to detect several significant cognitive and memory effects of mindfulness training, but the jury is still out on its ability to affect other executive function and attentional abilities.

 

So, think about it: mindfulness may improve cognitive functions.

 

“Cultivating mindfulness is not an easy task, but with persistence and practice we can make significant changes in the way we use our attention. We can improve concentration, our intimate relationships, our spiritual practice, and our overall mental health. What’s at stake is nothing less than our experience of life itself.” – ToDo Institute

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

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

 

Study Summary

Lao SA, Kissane D, Meadows G. Cognitive effects of MBSR/MBCT: A systematic review of neuropsychological outcomes. Conscious Cogn. Volume 45, October 2016, Pages 109–123, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2016.08.017

 

Highlights

  • Review of evidence for whether MBSR and MBCT improve cognitive performance.
  • Attention and executive functions were not improved through MBSR/MBCT.
  • Preliminary evidence for working memory, meta-awareness and cognitive flexibility improvements.

Abstract

Mindfulness is theorised to improve attention regulation and other cognitive processes. This systematic review examines whether 8-week standardised and manualised mindfulness training programs such as Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) and Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) enhances attention, memory and executive function abilities measured by objective neuropsychological tests. Seven databases were searched resulting in 18 studies meeting inclusion criteria for review. Overall studies did not support attention or executive function improvements. We found preliminary evidence for improvements in working memory and autobiographical memory as well as cognitive flexibility and meta-awareness. Short-term mindfulness meditation training did not enhance theorised attentional pathways. Results call into question the theoretical underpinnings of mindfulness, further highlighting the need for a comprehensive theoretical framework.

Improve Attention in the Elderly with Tai Chi

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By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“A growing body of carefully conducted research is building a compelling case for tai chi as an adjunct to standard medical treatment for the prevention and rehabilitation of many conditions commonly associated with age.” – Peter Wayne

 

We all want to live longer. We celebrate the increasing longevity of the population. But, aging is a mixed blessing. The aging process involves a systematic progressive decline in every system in the body, the brain included. It cannot be avoided. Our mental abilities may also decline with age including impairments in memory, attention, and problem solving ability. These are called age related cognitive decline. This occurs to everyone as they age, but to varying degrees. Some deteriorate into a dementia, while others maintain high levels of cognitive capacity into very advanced ages. One of the key deficits that develops with age is in attention. It becomes easier to get distracted and harder to focus. This is, to some extent, responsible for some of the memory loss as the elderly person is not paying close enough attention to what’s going on to store and consolidate memories about it.

 

There is some hope for those who are prone to deterioration as there is evidence that these cognitive declines can be slowed. For example, a healthy diet and a regular program of exercise can slow the physical decline of the body with aging. Also, contemplative practices such as meditation, yoga, and tai chi or qigong have all been shown to be beneficial in slowing or delaying physical and mental decline with aging. Tai Chi is an ancient eastern practices involving slow mindful movements. It is a gentle exercise and a contemplative practice that improves mindfulness. Mindfulness practices have been shown to improve cognitive processes while Tai Chi practice has been shown to slow age related cognitive decline. It would seem reasonable to hypothesize that Tai Chi practice might decrease age related cognitive decline including deficits in attention.

 

In today’s Research News article “The mental-attention Tai Chi effect with older adults.” See:

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1282515381772385/?type=3&theater

or below or view the full text of the study at:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4886430/

Kim and colleagues recruited individuals between 50 and 80+ years of age and separated them into two groups, Chinese and non-Chinese (English speakers) samples. They had both samples practice Tai Chi twice a week for 16 weeks for 1 to 1 ½ hours per session. The participants were measured both before and after the 16 weeks of practice with three attentional tasks and a measure of fluid intelligence.

 

They found that the effects of Tai Chi practice were different for the two groups. The Chinese sample had significant improvements in attentional capacity and attentional inhibition and also in fluid intelligence, while both groups showed improvements in attentional balance. The differences in the effects of Tai Chi practice might have been due to a number of differences between the groups. The Chinese group was significantly younger, less well educated, had lower incomes, and had more prior practice with Tai Chi than the non-Chinese sample. The results were not correlated with age so it is unlikely that this is the explanation for the differences but the results were significantly correlated with education, income, and experience with Tai Chi. So, these group differences may have been responsible for the differential effects.

 

The authors interpret the differences as due to motivational differences, where the Chinese sample were more motivated to practice Tai Chi as it is common in China. The two groups did not differ in attendance to Tai Chi practice, however, indicating that they may have been equivalently motivated. It is also possible that the Chinese participants through their culture had a stronger belief that Tai Chi is effective and thus had greater expectations that Tai Chi would improve attention. There is no way to assess which of the possible explanations might be true. That will require further research.

 

Mindfulness practices, in general, have been shown to improve attention and decrease cognitive decline in the elderly. So, the fact that Tai Chi, a mindfulness practice increases attention and fluid intelligence is not surprising.  Since, Tai Chi practice is a gentle practice with no significant negative side effects, that appears to have both physical and psychological benefits, and can be implemented at a very low cost, it would appear to be an ideal practice for the elderly to slow physical and cognitive decline.

 

So, practice Tai Chi to slow age related declines in attention and fluid intelligence.

 

“Tai Chi goes to the root system of the majority of health and wellness issues by unwinding the muscular tissues and mind, aligning the spine posture and stabilizing the energy devices that run via the body, giving them with life energy.”

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

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

 

Study Summary

Kim, T. H. M., Pascual-Leone, J., Johnson, J., & Tamim, H. (2016). The mental-attention Tai Chi effect with older adults. BMC Psychology, 4, 29. http://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-016-0137-0

Abstract

Background: Tai Chi practice has some fitness, wellness, and general cognitive effects in older adults. However, benefits of Tai Chi on specific mental-attentional executive processes have not been investigated previously. We studied older Canadian adults of Chinese and non-Chinese origin and from low socioeconomic areas.

Methods: Sixty-four adults (51–87 years old) took part in a 16-week Tai Chi program. There were two groups: Chinese-background (n = 35) and Non-Chinese-background (n = 29). They received four mental-attention executive tasks before and after the 16-week period. These tasks measured visuospatial reasoning, mental-attentional activation (working memory), attentional inhibition, and balance between these attention factors (field-dependence-independence).

Results: Chinese participants showed significant gain on Figural Intersections Task (mental-attentional capacity), Antisaccade (attentional inhibition), and Matrix Reasoning (fluid intelligence measure). Both groups evidenced gain on the Water Level Task (attentional balance).

Conclusions: These gains suggest that Tai Chi can improve mental-attentional vigilance and executive control, when practitioners are sufficiently motivated to pursue this practice, and apply themselves (as our Chinese participants seem to have done). We found that Tai Chi enhanced mental attentional executives in the Chinese sample. The largely negative results with Non-Chinese participants might be explained by less strong motivation and by the relatively short Tai Chi practice period, which contrasts with the prior familiarity with Tai Chi of the Chinese participants.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4886430/

 

Improve Attention in Multitaskers with Mindfulness

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Mindfulness multitasking2 Gorman

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“What a balance: while multitasking makes it easier for your brain to succumb to distraction, meditation helps you recognize when you’ve gotten distracted—allowing you to get back to the task that’s top of mind.” – Drake Baer

 

In modern everyday life, we are constantly bombarded with a myriad of stimuli, from music, movies, TV, traffic noise, games, telephone calls, texts, emails, tweets, posts, etc. The generations who have grown up in the midst of this cacophony, claim to have developed multitasking skills, such that they can simultaneously work with multiple tasks and sources of information. At first glance they appear to have developed useful skills that the older generation can only marvel at. But, upon closer inspection of the abilities of the multitaskers, it has been found that they actually have impaired attentional abilities and are more easily distracted from what they’re doing. In other words, the multitasking has damaged their ability to focus on any one thing.

 

Mindfulness training may be an antidote to the impaired attention and distractibility of the multitaskers. In mindfulness training the individual practices focusing attention on a single object, learns to filter out distracting stimuli, including thoughts, and learns to stay focused on the present moment, filtering out thoughts centered around the past or future. Indeed, mindfulness training appears to improve attentional ability and reduce distractibility. Hence it would seem that mindfulness training would strengthen the exact capacities that are weakened by chronic multitasking.

 

In today’s Research News article “Short-term mindfulness intervention reduces the negative attentional effects associated with heavy media multitasking.” See:

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1248202211870369/?type=3&theater

or below or view the full text of the study at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4834474/

Gorman and Green test this notion. They measured college students’ media multitasking and selected a low multitasking group (at least one stand deviation below the mean) and a high multitasking group (at least one stand deviation above the mean). The two groups were then tested with a battery of four tests measuring attentional ability and distractibility. They were tested under two different conditions. In the mindfulness condition they interspersed the four tasks with 10 minutes of breath counting meditation. In the control condition, the four attention tasks were interspersed with 10 minutes of web browsing. They then looked at the effects of high vs. low multitasking and meditation vs. browsing practice on the interspersed attention tasks.

 

They found, as expected, that overall the high media multitaskers performed worse on the attentional tasks than the low media multitaskers. They also found that overall the meditation interspersed between the tasks improved attentional ability. Finally, they found the high media multitaskers improved their attentional ability more in response to the meditation than the low media multitaskers. Hence, the study demonstrates that multitasking impairs attention, meditation improves attention, and meditation improves the highest multitaskers’ attention more.

 

These are interesting and potentially significant findings. Given that the new generations are growing up as multitaskers with impaired attentional abilities and greater distractibility, it is heartening that meditation practice can to some extent repair the damage especially in the highest multitaskers. So, there is hope for these generations! But, these results are limited as they only show that mindfulness training can produce short-term improvements in attentional ability, it remains for future research to test whether longer-term training can have more long lasting effects.

 

So, improve attention in multitaskers with mindfulness.

 

“Through mind-body stress reduction programs with Aetna employees, we have demonstrated that mindfulness-based programs can reduce stress and improve people’s health. Healthier people are more productive and happier.” – Mark Bertolini

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

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

 

Study Summary

Gorman, T. E., & Green, C. S. (2016). Short-term mindfulness intervention reduces the negative attentional effects associated with heavy media multitasking. Scientific Reports, 6, 24542. http://doi.org/10.1038/srep24542

 

Abstract

Recent research suggests that frequently switching between various forms of media (i.e. ‘media multitasking’) is associated with diminished attentional abilities, a disconcerting result given the prevalence of media multitasking in today’s society. In the present study, we sought to investigate the extent to which the deficits associated with frequent media multitasking can be temporarily ameliorated via a short-term mindfulness intervention previously shown to produce beneficial effects on the attentional abilities of normally functioning individuals. Consistent with previous work, we found: (1) that heavy media multitaskers showed generally poorer attentional abilities than light media multitaskers and (2) that all participants showed benefits from the short-term mindfulness intervention. Furthermore, we found that the benefits of the short-term mindfulness intervention were not equivalently large across participants. Instead, these benefits were disproportionately large in the heavy media multitaskers. While the positive outcomes were short-lived, this opens the possibility of performing long-term interventions with the goal of realizing lasting gains in this population.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4834474/

 

Improve Thought Executive Function with Mindfulness

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By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“mindfulness training on focusing on the present moment may develop control of attention, or executive function. This enhances capacity for sustained attention, attention switching, and inhibition of elaborative processing, thereby increasing our mastery over the content of our thoughts and actions. . .  this amplifies our ability to self-regulate, allowing us to redirect our attention from rumination and depressogenic thoughts back to the experience of the present moment, thus decreasing negative affect and improving psychological health.” – Richard Chambers

 

Mindfulness practices such as meditation, yoga, and tai chi/qigong have been shown to have a myriad of positive benefits for the practitioner and they have been shown to alter a large variety of cognitive (thought) processes, such as attentional ability, memory, verbal fluency, critical thinking, learning, analytic thinking, mathematical ability, higher level (meta-cognitive) thinking, and cognitive reappraisal. There have not, however, been direct comparisons made between the practices to establish which may be superior for the improvement of which cognitive processes. In order to optimize the effectiveness of mindfulness practices to improve thinking it is important to determine the effective components of each practice.

 

In today’s Research News article “What Confucius practiced is good for your mind: Examining the effect of a contemplative practice in Confucian tradition on executive functions.” See:

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1223639664326624/?type=3&theater

or see below

Teng and Lien compare the effectiveness of trainings for 4-weeks, twice a week for 90 minutes each, of mindful movements, or meditation, or a no treatment control. The mindful movement practice was termed Body-Mind Axial Awareness (BMAA) practice. It is very similar to tai chi except that the movements are not precisely choreographed and programmed. Chan meditation practice was used. It is very similar to Zen meditation and emphasizes breath following. They measured mindfulness, working memory ability, response inhibition (Stroop task), sustained attention and attentional switching ability.

They found that both the meditation and the mindful movement practices produced significant increases in mindfulness, in particular the observing and acting with awareness facets of mindfulness. They also found that the mindful movement practice produced a significant increase in working memory ability and sustained attention while the meditation training produced a significant increase in attentional switching ability. The groups did not differ in response inhibition ability. Hence, meditation practice appears to improve mindfulness and the ability to switch attention while the mindful movement practice improves mindfulness and working memory.

 

Increases in mindfulness, especially with the observing and acting with awareness facets, are routinely found with all mindfulness practices. So, these findings are not surprising and do not signal a difference between practices. The mindful movement practice requires continuous sustained attention in order to produce smooth movement sequences, so it makes sense that this practice would produce better sustained attention and therefore reduce mind wandering. This may, in turn, improve working memory ability as it improves sustained attention on the contents of memory, thereby reducing loss from working memory. It is possible that the training in focusing attention in the meditation practice that requires shifting attention back to the breath after mind wandering may be responsible for the improvements in attentional switching seen with meditation practice.

 

Although the equivalence of the mindful movement practice and the meditation practice was well maintained, one difference would be impossible to make equivalent and that is effects of the practice on the cardiovascular system. Mindful movement practice would be expected to raise heart rate, blood pressure, and metabolic rate while meditation would be expected to reduce them. In addition, the no treatment control is a weak control condition and a light exercise condition practiced over equivalent periods of time would be a much better comparison condition. So, for future research it might be useful to include a light exercise (e.g. walking) control condition.

 

Regardless improve thought executive function with mindfulness.

 

“training students in mindfulness techniques improves mental focus, increases academic performance, strengthens ability to emotionally regulate, and supports positive human qualities: kindness, empathy, compassion.” – Ready for School

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

 

Study Summary

Teng SC, Lien YW. What Confucius practiced is good for your mind: Examining the effect of a contemplative practice in Confucian tradition on executive functions. Conscious Cogn. 2016 Mar 30;42:204-215. doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2016.03.016. [Epub ahead of print]

PMID: 27038245

 

Abstract

The short-term training effects on various executive functions (EFs) by a movement-based contemplative practice (MBCP) are examined. Three aspects of EFs (working memory capacity, inhibition, switching) are assessed before and after a month-long 12-h training period using Body-Mind Axial Awareness (BMAA) principles that Confucius followers have practiced for more than 2000years. A mindfulness-based practice (Chan-meditation) and a waiting-list control group served as contrast groups. Our results showed that the BMAA group performed better on the task that measured working memory capacity than did the Chan-meditation and the waiting-list groups after training. In addition, the Chan-meditation groups outperformed the control group on attentional switching, a novel finding for this kind of practice. Our findings not only show a new effect of short-term MBCPs on EFs, but also indicate movement-based and mindfulness-based contemplative practices might benefit development of various aspects of EFs in different ways.