Cognition

Improve Schoolchildren’s Thinking with Mindfulness

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mindfulness-school2-wimmer

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“It may not be the typical way to start an English class, but Gonzalez’s students were familiar with these five-minute mindfulness exercises—from counting breaths and focusing on the sensations of breathing, to visualizing thoughts and feelings—that he uses to help train their attention, quiet their thoughts, and regulate their emotions.” – Lauren Cassani Davis

 

Childhood is a time of rapid learning and brain development. A key for the child is the development of the ability to focus, attentional ability. Children, in general, have relatively brief attention spans. In the modern world they are bombarded with a myriad of distractions, many of which require only brief moments of attention. For children to benefit maximally from learning opportunities, particularly in school, being able to focus attention is imperative. Mindfulness training in school, at all levels has been shown to have very positive effects. These include academic, cognitive, psychological, and social domains. Mindfulness practices, since they involve practicing attentional focus, have been shown, not surprisingly, to improve attention.

 

Since attentional ability is so crucial to children’s development, it is important to better understand what promotes its development and what methods can be implemented with children to improve it. In today’s Research News article “Cognitive Effects of Mindfulness Training: Results of a Pilot Study Based on a Theory Driven Approach.” See:

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1318387964851793/?type=3&theater

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

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4940413/

Wimmer and colleagues randomly assigned German fifth grade school children to receive either a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program that was adapted for children, a concentration training program, or no treatment. MBSR is a complex mindfulness development program that contains practices in meditation, body scan, and yoga. Training occurred over 25 weeks with twice weekly sessions of one hour each. The children were assessed prior to and after treatment with measures of sustained attention, cognitive flexibility, cognitive inhibition, and data-driven information processing.

 

They found that the MBSR group showed less of a decrease in sustained attention (vigilance task) than the no treatment group over the 25 weeks. All three groups improved in cognitive flexibility, demonstrating improved ability to look at things in different ways. MBSR training produced a significant improvement in cognitive inhibition, the ability to screen out certain stimuli in order to better process others, and in data-driven information processing. Hence, MBSR training produced significant benefits for the children improving their attention and ability to screen out distractors. This latter finding is important as children at this age, in general, have great difficulty in restraining themselves from responding to irrelevant stimuli in the environment.

 

These preliminary results suggest that mindfulness training may be of benefit to children in developing attentional abilities that are crucial to school performance. Since the MBSR program is complex, it cannot be ascertained whether training in meditation, body scan, or yoga or some combination of these practices was the crucial component that led to improved attentional abilities. This was a pilot study. It clearly suggests that further, more intensive, study is warranted which may begin to clarify what are the crucial aspects of the training for the development of attention in children.

 

So, improve schoolchildren’s thinking with mindfulness.

 

“Growing up as a child in East Harlem, where the poverty rate is extremely high, the asthma rate is extremely high and obesity rate is high — in addition to the complications our families deal with as a result of living in poverty — having a time to center yourself is important to allow our children to have access to learning.” – Eve Colavito

 

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

Wimmer, L., Bellingrath, S., & von Stockhausen, L. (2016). Cognitive Effects of Mindfulness Training: Results of a Pilot Study Based on a Theory Driven Approach. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 1037. http://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01037

 

Abstract

The present paper reports a pilot study which tested cognitive effects of mindfulness practice in a theory-driven approach. Thirty-four fifth graders received either a mindfulness training which was based on the mindfulness-based stress reduction approach (experimental group), a concentration training (active control group), or no treatment (passive control group). Based on the operational definition of mindfulness by Bishop et al. (2004), effects on sustained attention, cognitive flexibility, cognitive inhibition, and data-driven as opposed to schema-based information processing were predicted. These abilities were assessed in a pre-post design by means of a vigilance test, a reversible figures test, the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, a Stroop test, a visual search task, and a recognition task of prototypical faces. Results suggest that the mindfulness training specifically improved cognitive inhibition and data-driven information processing.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4940413/

 

Develop Wisdom with Meditation

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By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“What’s encouraging about meditation is that even if we shut down, we can no longer shut down in ignorance. We see very clearly that we’re closing off. That in itself begins to illuminate the darkness of ignorance.” – Pema Chodron

 

Wisdom is considered to be an extremely desirable characteristic in humans. People who are thought of as wise are revered. People throughout their lives strive for wisdom and hope that they will develop wisdom. Wisdom is thought to endow the individual with the ability to successfully engage with life and conquer its challenges. To some extent, wisdom is considered the pinnacle of human cognitive development. At the same time, most people would be hard pressed to state exactly what it is. This may be why many find it elusive, as it is difficult to find something when it’s not known what is being sought.

 

In today’s Research News article “The Relationship between Mental and Somatic Practices and Wisdom”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1199463786744212/?type=3&theater

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0149369

Williams and colleagues describe wisdom as “a unified construct composed of interrelated cognitive, reflective, and affective characteristics. In this model, wisdom is characterized as a deep and accurate perception of reality, in which insight into human nature and a diminished self-centeredness are acquired through life experience and practice in perspective taking.”

 

This description of wisdom indicates that there are a number of different components and capacities that go into wisdom. Firstly, it states that it is acquired through life experiences. As such, it involves learning ability. Next it states that it is a “deep and accurate perception of reality.” This involves cognitive capacities, thinking, and the ability to see things as they are. It involves “diminished self-centeredness” which involves the development of compassion and empathy for others. Finally, it “insight into human nature.” This involves reflective ability to look inside oneself and objectively observe and determine what are the true characteristics being human.

 

It would appear to be a daunting challenge, then to acquire wisdom. But, there may be help. Contemplative practices have been shown to improve virtually all of the capacities that lead to wisdom. In particular, contemplative practices improve learning ability, cognition, compassion and empathy, self-awareness, and regulate emotions. Hence, it would seem that engaging in contemplative practices would develop wisdom. This is exactly what the Buddha promised about 2500 year ago, that meditation and contemplation would led to wisdom.

 

Williams and colleagues investigated the relationship between a number of practices, including meditation, on the development of wisdom. They recruited participants who were meditators, who engaged in somatic practices to develop mindful coordinated movements, and who practiced classical ballet. They recruited and measured participants on-line. They measured wisdom with a survey called the “Three-Dimensional Wisdom Scale.” It is a measure of cognitive, reflective, and affective dimensions of wisdom, with questions such as “A person either knows the answer to a question or he/she doesn’t;” “I try to look at everybody’s side of a disagreement before I make a decision;” and “It’s not really my problem if others are in trouble and need help.”

 

They found that the meditators had significantly higher wisdom scores than any of the other groups. The years of practice of meditation was found to be significantly, positively related to wisdom and that this relationship was mediated by lower anxiety levels. In other words, the more years of meditation practice, the lower the levels of anxiety, and as a result, the higher the levels of wisdom. These results clearly suggest that the effects of meditation on emotion regulation are key to the development of wisdom.

 

These results are important and interesting. It makes sense that the ability to regulate emotions would be important for developing wisdom. In order to learn from life experiences, it is important that emotional reactions are not allowed to overwhelm the individual or to cloud the cognitive processing of the experience’s lessons and meaning. By being able to fully experience the emotions, the meditator can learn about human nature, but, being able to react to the emotions adaptively and effectively, the meditator can keep the emotional reaction from interfering with an objective appraisal of the experience. This would allow the development of wisdom.

 

So, develop wisdom with meditation.

 

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” ― Aristotle

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

Improve Physical and Cognitive Function with Tai Chi

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By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“Because Tai Chi may impact cognitive function via a diverse and potentially synergistic set of mechanistic pathways, it is plausible that it may offer benefits superior to interventions that target only single pathways (e.g., aerobic training or stress reduction alone)” – Peter Wayne

 

The process of aging affects every aspect of the physical and cognitive domains. Every system in the body deteriorates including motor function with a decline in strength, flexibility, and balance. Impaired balance is a particular problem as it can lead to falls. In the U.S. one third of people over 65 fall each year and 2.5 million are treated in emergency rooms for injuries produced by falls. About 1% of falls result in deaths making it the leading cause of death due to injury among the elderly. It is obviously important to investigate methods to improve balance and decrease the number of fall in the elderly.

 

Perhaps more troubling than the physical decline is the mental deterioration that occurs with aging. This is called age related cognitive decline and includes decreases in memory, attention, and problem solving ability. 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. It is estimated that around 30% of the elderly show significant age related cognitive decline. But, remember that this also means that 70% of the elderly retain reasonable levels of cognitive ability.

 

It is, therefore, important to investigate methods to slow the mental decline during aging. Some promising methods are contemplative practices which have been shown to restrain age related declines. One particularly promising method is the ancient eastern practice of Tai Chi. It is particularly promising due to the fact that it is both a physical and a mental practice. Indeed, tai chi practice has been shown to slow cognitive decline in aging.

 

In today’s Research News article “Effects of Tai Chi and Western Exercise on Physical and Cognitive Functioning in Healthy Community-Dwelling Older Adults”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1177689028921688/?type=3&theater

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4699673/

Taylor-Piliae and colleagues randomly assigned sedentary adults over 60 years of age to either a tai chi practice, a physical exercise program, or attention (healthy aging) training. Training occurred twice a week in 90-minute classes and three times per week in home practices. They measured the physical and mental capabilities of the participants at 6 and 12 months of training. They found that both the tai chi and exercise groups improved in both flexibility and balance in comparison to the control condition. At 6 months the tai chi group was superior with balance while the exercise group was superior in flexibility, but at 12 months the two groups were equivalently superior to the control group in both flexibility and balance. In contrast, only the tai chi group demonstrated improved levels of cognitive function including memory and semantic fluency at both 6 and 12 months.

 

These results suggest that both tai chi and exercise are effective in slowing the physical decline with aging but tai chi has the added benefit of also slowing the cognitive decline. Since tai chi is safe, with no known adverse effects, and a gentle practice it is very appropriate for an aging population. Also, since it can be taught and practiced in groups and easily maintained at home, it is a very inexpensive intervention. This makes it almost ideal for aging individuals on fixed incomes.

 

The results suggest that tai chi practice may be helpful in preventing falls as a result of improvement in balance and flexibility and slow the mental decline with aging. This indicates that tai chi practice should be recommended for elderly individuals to help maintain their physical and mental abilities. So, improve physical and cognitive function with tai chi.

 

“There is growing evidence that Tai Chi can significantly reduce the risk of cognitive impairment and improve cognitive function.” – Exercise Medicine Australia

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

Think More Critically with Mindfulness

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“Mindfulness slows things down so we can be more deliberate in our critical thinking process.” – Lalith Gunaratne

 

“Critical thinking is the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgment.”

 

Currently, there is a major deficit in critical thinking skills being taught in schools.  Only around 5% of U.S. high school seniors demonstrated the ability to not only comprehend text, but also to analyze and evaluate it. This underscores the need to find ways to improve critical thinking.

Mindfulness, the ability to pay attention in the present moment without judgment, affects our thought processes in mostly positive ways. It has been shown to improve the ability to control our thinking, termed executive function and the extremely important ability to think critically (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/cognition/). Because of this, mindfulness training is being applied in schools to help facilitate learning (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/school/).

 

Because it is such a critical consequence of mindfulness, it is important to further investigate the effects of mindfulness on critical thinking. In today’s Research News article “Does Mindfulness Enhance Critical Thinking? Evidence for the Mediating Effects of Executive Functioning in the Relationship between Mindfulness and Critical Thinking”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1175808369109754/?type=3&theater

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4717844/

Noone and colleagues study the relationship between mindfulness and executive function to explore whether mindfulness may produce its effects on critical thinking as a result of its effects on executive function. They measured mindfulness, critical thinking, and executive function in college students.

 

They found that the levels of mindfulness of the students were not directly related to critical thinking performance. On the other hand, they found strong relationships between executive function components and critical thinking. In particular, the updating component of executive function was strongly related to critical thinking and the Inhibition component was moderately related. Updating involves the active revision and monitoring of thinking and the continuous updating of working memory. In other words, critical thinking requires the ability to constantly revise thought processes as ideas are analyzed. Inhibition involves the suppression of intrusive thoughts or responses in order to keep attention on the problem at hand. In other words, critical thinking requires the ability to control the interference from irrelevant thinking and thereby concentrating on the problem. Interestingly, mindfulness appeared to have a small relationship with critical thinking. The observing component of mindfulness was positively related to the inhibition component of executive function which is directly facilitative of critical thinking.

 

At least in the current analysis, mindfulness appears to be indirectly and only mildly related to critical thinking through its observing facet. It appears to do so by improving attention which screens out thoughts that are not pertinent to working on the problem. It allows for better focus and therefore better critical thinking.

 

So, think more critically with mindfulness.

 

“Mindfulness practice is the kale to my high-stimulus lifestyle, but man cannot live by kale alone. I’m balancing my diet with the whole three course meal. Mindfulness, Mind Yoga and Introspective Intelligence are all practices to have on our plates.” – Jeremy Sherman

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

Help Kids Emotionally and Cognitively with Mindfulness

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“Mindfulness within schools makes a lot of sense. There is a growing body of evidence that supports the claims that mindfulness improves working memory, attention, academic skills, social skills, emotional balance and self-esteem.” – Joseph Pound

 

Childhood is a miraculous period during which the child is dynamically absorbing information from every aspect of its environment. This occurs almost without any intervention from the adults as the child appears to be programmed to learn. It is here that behaviors, knowledge, skills, and attitudes are developed that shape the individual. But, what is absorbed depends on the environment. If it is replete with speech, the child will learn speech, if it is replete with trauma, the child will learn fear, if it is replete with academic skills the child will learn these, and if it is replete with interactions with others the child will learn social skills. It is up to adults to structure the environment to be conducive to learning what is most important.

 

Elementary school is a wonderful time to structure the environment to develop knowledge, attitudes, and skills. This has been known for centuries. But, which ones are most important to the development of a high functioning adult? Elementary school environments stress academic skills. This is appropriate and necessary. But at times, particularly in the United States, the emphasis on academic skills, especially factual learning, is so great that other important learning is neglected. There is often little effort to develop the so called softer skills; emotional, mindfulness, creative, meta-cognitive, psychological, and social skills. This is unfortunate as these skills are important unto themselves’ and also turn out to be very important in developing academic skills. In addition, it’s been shown that these softer skills in childhood predict health, financial stability, and educational attainment into adulthood.

 

One method that has recently been employed to help develop these softer skills in school children is mindfulness training. This has occurred for good reason as mindfulness training has been shown to improve academic performance, social skills, emotions, and meta-cognitive skills in grammar school children (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/08/08/building-a-better-adult-with-elementary-school-mindfulness-training/) and even in preschool children (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/building-a-better-adult-preschool-mindfulness-training/). This is a potentially very important development and as such deserves far greater research scrutiny.

 

In today’s Research News article “Mindfulness Training in Primary Schools Decreases Negative Affect and Increases Meta-Cognition in Children”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1172028366154421/?type=3&theater

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4709470/

Vickery and Dorjee delivered twelve ½-hour mindfulness lessons over approximately 3-weeks to 7-9-year old primary school children in the classroom in addition to the typical curriculum. A second group of children were provided the typical curriculum without the additional mindfulness training. Children were measured with objective and observational measures before and after training and 3-months later. They found that positive changes in mindfulness were associated with positive increases in emotional awareness in the mindfulness trained children. They also found that at follow-up the mindfulness training produced a significant increase in teacher rated meta-cognitive skills and also a significant decrease in negative emotions.

 

These are potentially important findings. Meta-cognitive skills include working memory, planning/organizing, organization of materials, initiating and monitoring activities. These are important skills that are generally predictive of academic performance and success later in life. Mindfulness, paying attention to the content of the present moment, may be a prerequisite for meta-cognition. One cannot initiate, plan, organize, remember, or monitor activities without paying attention to them as they are occurring. So, mindfulness skills may be seen as foundational for cognitive skills. It is exciting that this appears to be effective in young 7-9-year old children and makes a strong argument for the implementation of mindfulness programs in grammar schools.

 

The decrease in negative emotions is also important. They can lead to anxiety and depression. It has been shown that mindfulness training in adults and adolescents is effective for the reduction of anxiety and depression. It is exciting to observe that mindfulness training may have similar effects in 7-9-year old children. This suggests that the mindfulness training may develop resilience and psychological well-being in the children. It is possible that mindfulness training may be an effective early intervention for the prevention of later psychological problems and act to promote the development of psychological health.

 

It should be noted that Vickery and Dorjee did not find significant changes in measures of mindfulness, positive emotions, emotional awareness and expressive reluctance, and positive well-being. It is possible that a the total of 6-hurs of training is simply insufficient to impact these domains. Further research is needed to clarify this issue. Regardless, the positive findings that were reported are exciting and potentially important and support the further development and research on the use of mindfulness training in grammar school curricula.

 

So, help kids emotionally and cognitively with mindfulness.

 

“People are stepping back on that full focus on reading and math scores and are looking more holistically at all the skills that really matter. Social-emotional learning is not only crucial to academic success, but also career success and lifelong being.” – Sara Bartolino Krachman

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

Improve High Level Thinking with Mindfulness

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“Take the attitude of a student, never be too big to ask questions, never know too much to learn something new.” – Og Mandino

 

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 be admitted to the best universities and there is a lot of pressure on university students to excel so that they can get the best jobs after graduation. As a result, parents and students are constantly looking for ways to improve student performance in school.

 

The primary tactic has been to pressure the student and clear away routine tasks and chores so that the student can focus on their studies. But, this might in fact be counterproductive as the increased pressure can actually lead to stress and anxiety which can impede performance. A better tactic may be the development of mindfulness skills with contemplative practices. These practices and high levels of mindfulness have been shown to be helpful in coping with the school environment and for the performance of both students and teachers (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/school/). So, perhaps, mindfulness training may provide the needed edge in school.

 

In today’s Research News article “Effects of a Mindfulness Meditation Course on Learning and Cognitive Performance among University Students in Taiwan”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1151653591525232/?type=3&theater

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4657094/

Ching and colleagues took advantage of the natural experiment provided in a private university which required a semester long mindfulness course as a core course for all students. The course taught meditation, body scan, and everyday mindfulness skills. They compared students who completed the course in the fall semester to those who were scheduled to take the course in the spring semester. They measured the students with the College Learning Effectiveness Inventory (CLEI) which measures psychosocial factors including thoughts, feelings, or behaviors related to academic outcomes and also measured performance on the cognitive tasks of vigilance, choice reaction times, spatial working memory, and memory scanning.

 

The study demonstrated that the mindfulness training produced significantly higher scores on the CLEI suggesting improved attitudes and behaviors impacting learning and academic performance. In addition, the mindfulness training produced improved performance on the cognitive tasks, including increased accuracy in the vigilance, choice reaction time, and spatial working memory tasks. These results suggest that mindfulness training can improve cognitive performance in college students and improve their psychosocial attitudes toward and adjustment to college life. Although actual grade performance was not investigated, the improved skills would predict better academic performance.

 

There are a number of known effects of mindfulness practice that could be responsible for the improved cognitive and psychosocial skills in the college students. Mindfulness training has been shown to directly affect cognitive skills (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/cognition/), social skills (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/social-behavior/), and psychological well-being (see   http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/well-being/). In addition, mindfulness training is known to reduce the physiological and psychological responses to stress (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/stress/) which may reduce the anxiety produced by the pressures of college. Finally, mindfulness training is known to improve sleep (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/sleep/) which is known to be a problem for college students. So, it appears clear that mindfulness training has many desired effects that promote school performance and thus mindfulness training should be considered for incorporation in school curricula.

 

So, improve high level thinking with mindfulness.

 

“Education is that whole system of human training within and without the school house walls, which molds and develops men.” – W. E. B. Du Bois
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

Mindfully Improve Thinking after Recovery from Cancer

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“You can be a victim of cancer, or a survivor of cancer. It’s a mindset.” – Dave Pelzer

 

Cancer diagnosis is not a death sentence. Over half of the people diagnosed with cancer are still alive 10 years later and this number is rapidly improving. With breast cancer about 80% survive at least 5 years and the earlier the diagnosis the better the survival rate. With colorectal cancer about 50% survive at least 5 years and again the earlier the diagnosis the better the survival rate.  It is estimated that 14,483,830 adults and children with a history of cancer alive in the United States today. So, there are a vast number of cancer survivors.

 

Surviving cancer carries with it a number of problems. “Physical, emotional, and financial hardships often persist for years after diagnosis and treatment. Cancer survivors are also at greater risk for developing second cancers and other health conditions.” National Cancer Survivors Day. Unfortunately, most of these residual problems go untreated. Psychologically, cancer survivors frequently suffer from anxiety, depression, mood disturbance, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), sleep disturbance, fatigue, sexual dysfunction, loss of personal control, impaired quality of life, and psychiatric symptoms which have been found to persist even ten years after remission.

 

Less well known is that cancer survivors frequently suffer from residual cognitive impairments that affect the majority of survivors and can last for many years. These include problems with attention, including divided attention and multitasking, memory, including short and long-term memory and retrieval, and executive function. These impairments in the ability to think and the extra energy needed for routine cognitive activities can increase fatigue over the day.

 

Mindfulness has been shown to help with cancer recovery and help to alleviate many of the residual psychological symptoms (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/cancer/) and it has been shown to improve cognitive function (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/cognition/).  So, it would seem reasonable to postulate that mindfulness might help in alleviating the cognitive impairments occurring in cancer survivors.

 

In today’s Research News article “Randomized controlled pilot trial of mindfulness-based stress reduction for breast and colorectal cancer survivors: effects on cancer-related cognitive impairment”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1142698709087387/?type=3&theater

Johns and colleagues examined the effect of an 8-week Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program on cognitive function in cancer survivors and compared it to an 8-week Education and Support (ES) program involving comparable amounts of time. They found that the MBSR group in comparison to the ES group showed greater improvements in overall attentional function, particularly with effective action and attentional lapses. The MBSR group also showed greater improvement in ability to cope with cognitive interference as measured by the classic Stroop test. These improvements were lasting as they were still present 6-months after the conclusion of treatment.

 

These are exciting results as they are in comparison to an active control condition and they suggest that MBSR is an effective treatment for the cognitive impairments in cancer recovery patients. There are a number of explanations for how MBSR might produce these improvements. MBSR targets stress and has been shown to effectively reduce psychological and physiological stress responses. This stress reduction could greatly help the survivors deal with their residual problems. MBSR also markedly improves attention, particularly present moment attention. This may fairly directly help improve cognitive function. MBSR also improves emotion regulation. This may make the survivors better able to cope with the emotional sequela of cancer recovery. Finally, MBSR has been shown to improve cognitive function in healthy individuals and may simply be improving overall cognitive function and not specifically treating the cognitive symptoms of cancer recovery.

 

Regardless of the explanation, it is clear that mindfulness training is effective in alleviating the cognitive problems following recovery from cancer.

 

So, improve thinking after recovery from cancer with mindfulness.

 

“Cancer can take away all of my physical abilities. It cannot touch my mind, it cannot touch my heart, and it cannot touch my soul.” – Jim Valvano

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

Improve Mental and Physical Well-being with Yoga

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Yoga cognition Nagendra2

“The breathing and meditative exercises aim at calming the mind and body and keeping distracting thoughts away while you focus on your body, posture or breath. Maybe these processes translate beyond yoga practice when you try to perform mental tasks or day-to-day activities.” – Neha Gothe

 

If we are lucky enough to navigate life’s dangers we are rewarded with the opportunity to experience aging! The aging process involves a progressive deterioration of the body including the brain. It actually begins in the late 20s and continues throughout the lifespan. It’s inevitable. We can’t stop it or reverse it. But, it is becoming more apparent that life-style changes can slow down and to some extent counteract the process and allow us to live longer and healthier lives. This is true for both physical and mental deterioration including degeneration and shrinkage of the nervous system. Aging healthily to a large extent involves strategies to slow down the deterioration.

 

Contemplative practices including yoga practice (See links below) have been shown to reduce the physical deterioration that occurs with aging (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/aging/). Yoga practice has many physical and mental benefits including protection of brain structures from degeneration with aging (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/age-healthily-protect-the-brain-with-yoga/). These structural changes have been demonstrated by neuroimaging techniques with yoga practitioners. They document change in the size and connectivity of brain structures that result from yoga practice.

 

Yoga is a mind-body practice that involves both physical and mental exercises. This is accompanied by changes in the activity of virtually every component of the body including general physiology and the peripheral and central nervous systems. So, another potential method to investigate yoga’s effects on the nervous system is to measure the electrical signals emanating from the nervous system.

 

In today’s Research News article “Cognitive Behavior Evaluation Based on Physiological Parameters among Young Healthy Subjects with Yoga as Intervention”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1136173913073200/?type=3&theater

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4339827/

Nagendra and colleagues trained naive adults in yoga practice for a period of five months for 1.5 hours per day and compared physiological measure to a no-treatment control group. They found that yoga practice produced an increase in parasympathetic (vegetative) and decrease in sympathetic (activation) activity in the peripheral nervous system including a decrease in heart rate and heart rate variability. This indicates a calming and relaxing effect of yoga on the physiology.

 

Nagendra and colleagues also found significant differences in EEG activity of the central nervous system. The changes were complex and varied. But they are indicators that yoga practice produces alterations of brain activity in ways that are indicative of improved vigilance, alertness, attention, concentration ,memory, visual information processing, sense of wellbeing, responsiveness, emotion process, cognition, and executive function and reduced stress and strain. In other words the changes in the brain activity indicated vast improvements in mental processing produced by yoga practice.

 

It should be noted that these are indirect measures and the researchers did not directly measure the psychological variables. So, although suggestive they are not conclusive. They are, however, similar to findings of yoga effects in other research with direct measures (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/contemplative-practice/yoga-contemplative-practice/). But, even with this caution, the results suggest that yoga practice has widespread beneficial effects on the mental and physical well-being of the individual.

 

So, practice yoga and improve mental and physical well-being.

 

“True yoga is not about the shape of your body, but the shape of your life. Yoga is not to be performed; yoga is to be lived. Yoga doesn’t care about what you have been; yoga cares about the person you are becoming. Yoga is designed for a vast and profound purpose, and for it to be truly called yoga, its essence must be embodied.” — Aadil Palkhivala

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

 

Yoga and aging links

Yoga reduces physical degeneration in the elderly http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/age-healthily-yoga/

Yoga reduces cellular aging http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/aging-healthily-yoga-and-cellular-aging/

Yoga practice improves the symptoms of arthritis in the elderly http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/08/14/age-healthily-yoga-for-arthritis/

 

 

Age Healthily – Beat Increased Worry and Decreased Cognitive Ability with Mindfulness

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“Aging has a wonderful beauty and we should have respect for that.” – Eartha Kitt

 

Worry and anxiety are associated with aging. These increases in the elderly can occur for very logical reasons. The elderly have to cope with increasing loss of friends and family, deteriorating health, as well as concerns regarding finances on fixed incomes. All of these are legitimate sources of worry. But, no matter how reasonable, the increased worry and anxiety add extra stress that can impact on the elderly’s already deteriorating physical and psychological health. So, clearly ameliorating the worry and anxiety could be highly beneficial to the well-being of the elderly.

 

Cognitive decline is also a problem with aging. There are reductions in memory ability, crystalized intelligence, reasoning and problem solving, attention, and processing speed that normally occur even with healthy aging. These changes can be slowed by reducing stress, improving health, and staying mentally active. One way to do this is with contemplative practices. Indeed, a variety of these practices have been shown to be helpful with the mental and physical changes associated with aging (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/aging/).

 

In today’s Research News article “Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for older adults with worry symptoms and co-occurring cognitive dysfunction”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1132072886816636/?type=3&theater

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4136987/

Lenze and colleagues tested the ability of a Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program to reduce worry and anxiety and the mental decline in individuals over 65-years of age who had significant difficulties with worry and anxiety. They found that the MBSR program produced improvements in both cognitive abilities and worry and anxiety. In particular, the MBSR program improved memory ability, verbal fluency, speed of processing, and the ability to screen out interference during processing. They also found a large, clinically significant reduction in worry and anxiety severity and a large significant increase in mindfulness after the MBSR training in the elderly participants. Further they found that the participants continued to practice mindfulness techniques six and twelve months after the endo of formal training.

 

These are very promising results and suggest that mindfulness training might be an effective program to assist with successful, healthy aging. It has been shown that mindfulness training reduces the physical and psychological responses to stress (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/stress/). This by itself could be responsible to the positive effects of MBSR on the elderly. But mindfulness practice has also been shown to reduce worry (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/worry/) and anxiety (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/anxiety/) directly, which could also account for, the results with the elderly. This, however, may be a subcategory of mindfulness effects as mindfulness has been shown to improve emotion regulation in general (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/emotions/). Finally, mindfulness training has been shown to help protect the aging brain from deterioration (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/age-healthily-protect-the-brain-with-yoga/) which might be the primary mechanism for the reduction in cognitive decline in the elderly. Regardless of the mechanism mindfulness training should be recommended to assist the elderly in aging healthily.

 

So, beat increased worry and decreased cognitive ability with mindfulness.

 

“No one can avoid aging, but aging productively is something else.” – Katharine Graham

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

Mindfulness is not Always Good for Creativity

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“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.” – Steve Jobs

 

Mindfulness is the ability to focus on what is transpiring in the present moment. It involves a greater emphasis on attention to the immediate stimulus environment. Mindful people generally have better attentional abilities and have fewer intrusive thoughts and less mind wandering. As a result mindfulness has been shown to be associated with differences in thought processes (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/cognition/). Most of the time these differences are associated with beneficial results, but sometimes they can lead to negative outcomes including a greater tendency to have false memories (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/10/15/meditation-is-not-always-a-good-thing/). Given the differences in thinking and attention the question arises as to the effect of mindfulness on creativity. Does it make the individual more creative or does it interfere with the creative process?

 

In today’s Research News article “Mind wandering “Ahas” versus mindful reasoning: alternative routes to creative solutions”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1122979707725954/?type=3&theater

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4469818/

Zedelius and colleagues investigate the relationship between mindfulness and creativity. They measured mindfulness and then tested creativity with a Compound Remote Associations test. In this test the participant is asked to discover a word that connects three other words. For example the individual is given “ache, hunter, cabbage.”  An appropriate response might be “head” which links the words ‘head ache’, ‘head hunter’, and ‘head of cabbage.’ This solution can be arrived at by carefully analyzing the words and recalling words that are associated with each one to find a common associate, or it can be solved with insight where the solution just suddenly appears. After a solution was found the participants were asked to identify which of these strategies they used or a combination of both.

 

Zedelius and colleagues found that when the problem was solved by insight, mindfulness was associated with poorer performance. On the other hand when it was solved analytically mindfulness was associated with better performance. In other words, mindfulness improved analytic thinking but interfered with insightful thinking. These results make sense if it is considered that analytical thinking requires focused attention which is what is promoted by mindfulness. On the other hand, insightful thinking, thinking outside of the box, often involves allowing the mind to wander in different directions bringing in new and different possible solutions. Since mindfulness is associated with less mind wandering, it seems logical that it would interfere with the process of insight.

 

So, mindfulness is not a uniformly good thing. Although we usually think of mind wandering and being off task as a bad thing to be inhibited, that mind wandering, in fact, may be the source of insightful creativity. Our schools focus on analytical thinking and many are adopting mindfulness training into their curriculum to improve attention and school performance. But, as desirable as this may be, it may come at the cost of lowering creative insights. Perhaps, there is a need to train the student to be mindful when appropriate but to let the mind wander at other times to promote creativity.

 

So, practice mindfulness but realize that it may make you less insightful.

 

“To be and to be creative are synonymous. It is impossible to be and not to be creative. But that impossible thing has happened, that ugly phenomenon has happened, because all your creative sources have been plugged, blocked, destroyed, and your whole energy has been forced into some activity that the society thinks is going to pay.” – Osho
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies