Emotions

Adapt to Emotions with Mindfulness

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By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“Through mindfulness you can learn to turn your difficult emotions into your greatest teachers and sources of strength. How? Instead of ‘turning away’ from pain in avoidance we can learn to gently ‘turn towards’ what we’re experiencing. We can bring a caring open attention toward the wounded parts of ourselves and make wise choices about how to respond to ourselves and to life.” – Melissa O’Brien

 

One of the most important effects of mindfulness training is improving emotion regulation. Its importance arises out of the fact that we’re very emotional creatures. Without emotion, life is flat and uninteresting. Emotions provide the spice of life. We are constantly having or reacting to emotions. We often go to great lengths in an attempt to create or keep positive emotions and conversely to avoid, mitigate, or get rid of negative emotions. They are so important to us that they affect mostly everything that we do and say and can even be determinants of life or death. Anger, fear, and hate can lead to murderous consequences. Anxiety and depression can lead to suicide. At the same time love, joy, and happiness can make life worth living. Our emotions also affect us physically with positive emotions associated with health, well-being, and longevity and negative emotions associated with stress, disease, and shorter life spans.

 

The importance of emotions is only surpassed by our ignorance of them. Our rational side tries to downplay their significance and as a result research studies of emotions are fairly sparse and often ridiculed by politicians. So there is a great need for research on the nature of emotions, their effects, how they are regulated or not, and what factors affect them. One important factor is mindfulness. Research has demonstrated that people either spontaneously high in mindfulness or trained in mindfulness are better able to be completely in touch with their emotions and feel them completely, while being able to respond to them more appropriately and adaptively. In other words, mindful people are better able to experience yet control emotions.

 

In today’s Research News article “Mechanisms of mindfulness: the dynamics of affective adaptation during open monitoring.” See:

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1261033743920549/?type=3&theater

or below.

Uusberg and colleagues investigate the development of emotion regulation with mindfulness practice. It is difficult to measure emotion regulation directly while meditating. But, it can be measured indirectly by recording the electrical responses of the brain to emotional stimuli. In particular, the Late Positive Potential (LPP) has been shown to be sensitive to the intensity of emotional responses. It is a positive going waveform recorded from the brain that occurs between half a second to a second and a half after a picture is presented.

 

Uusberg and colleagues recruited meditation naïve participants and asked them to view either pictures that were neutral (everyday urban scenes) or that evoked negative emotional reactions (accidents or attacks). They viewed the pictures under three different conditions, an attention condition, where they were asked to pay attention to the details of the pictures, a mindful viewing condition where they were asked to experience “all arising thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations in an accepting manner without trying to change them”, or a distraction condition where they were asked to count backward while viewing the pictures. They then measured the Late Positive Potential (LPP) and how it changed as practice continued.

 

They found that during mindful viewing the amplitude of the LPP was initially significantly larger than the other conditions when negative images were viewed, suggesting that initially mindful viewing evokes strong emotional responses. But then the response disappeared and the LPP for the neutral and the negative images were equivalent for the mindfulness condition. This elimination of the emotional response in later trials did not occur in the other conditions. This suggests that the mindfulness condition produces an eventual loss of emotional responding.

 

These results are interesting and suggest that mindfulness meditation initially makes the meditator more sensitive to emotions but with practice becomes insensitive. Since mindfulness meditation requests that the meditator pay attention to their own internal reactions, it is reasonable that the emotional responses would be more vigorous. Over time however, the attention to the emotion responses appear to result in their extinction. This could be seen as simply getting used to it and not responding as before, sometimes called habituation. All of this suggests that the improvement in emotion regulation resulting from meditation is due to an enhancement of the extinction process produced by paying attention to the feelings.

 

These results also demonstrate how quickly the blunted emotional response occurs, within a brief time at the beginning of meditation practice for beginning meditators. As such, emotion regulation may be one of the earliest effects of mindfulness training. Hence, emotion regulation may make be the basis for later effects such as stress reduction or decreased inflammatory responses. Regardless, the results suggest that you can adapt to emotions with mindfulness and we know that this has profound effects on the health and well-being of the individual.

 

“This is just what the practice of mindfulness helps us remember. Working with emotions during our meditation sessions sharpens our ability to recognize a feeling just as it begins, not 15 consequential actions later. We can then go on to develop a more balanced relationship with it—neither letting it overwhelm us so we lash out rashly nor ignoring it because we’re afraid or ashamed of it.” – 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

Uusberg, Helen, Uusberg, Andero, Talpsep, Teri, Paaver, Marika, Mechanisms of mindfulness: the dynamics of affective adaptation during open monitoring. Biological Psychology http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2016.05.004

 

Highlights

  • Mindfulnessinitially increases and then reduces affective LPP amplification.
  • There is no affective amplification during re-exposure to mindfully viewed images.
  • These effects are milder in distraction and attentive-viewing control conditions.
  • In novices a 3-phase emotional adaptation may account for mindfulness effectiveness.

Abstract

Mindfulness − the nonjudgmental awareness of the present experience − is thought to facilitate affective adaptation through increased exposure to emotions and faster extinction of habitual responses. To test this framework, the amplification of the LatePositive Potential (LPP) by negative relative to neutral images was analyzed across stimulus repetitions while 37 novices performed an open monitoring mindfulness exercise. Compared to two active control conditions where attention was either diverted to a distracting task or the stimuli were attended without mindfulness instructions, open monitoring enhanced the initial LPP response to negative stimuli, indicating increased emotional exposure. Across successive repetitions, mindfulness reduced and ultimately removed the affective LPP amplification, suggesting extinction of habitual emotional reactions. This effect arose from reduced negative as well enlarged neutral LPPs. Unlike stimuli from control conditions, the images previously viewed with mindfulness instructions did not elicit affective LPP amplification during subsequent re-exposure, suggesting reconsolidation of stimulus meaning.

 

Practice Yoga in the Morning to Optimize Emotional Well-Being

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Practice Yoga in the Morning to Optimize Emotional Well-Being

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“Practice when your body is most limber. Some people find their bodies are stiff in the morning, making practice more difficult. Night practice, however may limit the kinds of postures you do as some are too stimulating and affect sleep. The key is regularity. Enjoy whatever time you have set aside for practice.” – Edith Howell

 

Yoga practice has been shown to have a large number of beneficial effects on the psychological, emotional, and physical health of the individual and is helpful in the treatment of mental and physical illness. As a result, it has been adopted widely in western society including with children in schools. As I quipped to my spouse, “you know yoga has gone mainstream, when yoga pants have become a fashion statement!” But, there are a wide variety of different yoga practices, practiced for different amounts of time, at different number of times per week, at different times of the day. So, as the application of yoga increases, it becomes more and more important to investigate these parameters of yoga practice and their differential effectiveness; to determine the optimal practice parameters for each application.

 

Traditional yoga practice consists of 4-5 practice sessions per week conducted primarily in the morning. But, Western yoga practice has become much looser, with yoga practiced less frequently and often in the evening. It is not known what the impact of this pattern of yoga practice might have on its effectiveness. In today’s Research News article “Evaluating Emotional Well-Being after a Short-Term Traditional Yoga Practice Approach in Yoga Practitioners with an Existing Western-Type Yoga Practice.” See:

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1240800935943830/?type=3&theater

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

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4829792/

Meissner and colleagues recruited Ashtanga Yoga practitioners who normally practiced in the evening for 90 minutes, twice a week. Half of the practitioners were asked to maintain their normal practice for two weeks.  The other half were asked to change their practice to the morning for 90 minutes, five times a week for two weeks. Both groups were measured for positive and negative affect, mindfulness, perceived stress, arousal states, and affective regulation style prior to and after the two-week practice period.

 

They found that there were no changes in the emotions, mindfulness, or arousal states of the evening practitioners. But, the morning practitioners showed significant increases in positive emotions (37%) and mindfulness (17.5%) and decreases in negative emotions (29%) and arousal states (15%). Hence, the findings indicate that switching from a twice per week, evening yoga practice to a five times per week morning practice is beneficial for the emotional well-being of the practitioners.

 

An obvious weakness in the study was a confounding of practice change, practice frequency, amount of practice, and time of day of practice. So, it is impossible to determine which of these variables or which combinations of these variables may be responsible for the emotional improvements. Future research should manipulate each of these variable independently and in combination to differentiate what works and what doesn’t. It should also be noted that the test was only conducted over two weeks. This leaves open the question as to whether the effects would be sustained into the future or perhaps just the novelty of change was responsible for the effects.

 

So, it is possible that practicing yoga in the morning improves emotional well-being.

 

“A morning yoga practice wakes you up, stretches stiff muscles you haven’t used all night, revs up your circulation, and breaks out a healthy sweat before your morning shower and breakfast.” – Lorraine Shea

 

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

Meissner, M., Cantell, M. H., Steiner, R., & Sanchez, X. (2016). Evaluating Emotional Well-Being after a Short-Term Traditional Yoga Practice Approach in Yoga Practitioners with an Existing Western-Type Yoga Practice. Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine : eCAM, 2016, 7216982. http://doi.org/10.1155/2016/7216982

 

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to examine the influence of a traditional yoga practice approach (morning daily practice, TY) compared to that of a Western yoga practice approach (once-twice weekly, evening practice, WY) on determinants of emotional well-being. To that end, in a pre/posttest between-subject design, measures of positive (PA) and negative affect (NA), mindfulness, perceived stress, and arousal states were taken in 24 healthy participants (20 women; mean age: 30.5, SD = 8.1 years) with an already existing WY practice, who either maintained WY or underwent a 2-week, five-times-per-week morning practice (TY). While WY participants maintained baseline values for all measures taken, TY participants showed significant beneficial changes for PA, NA, and mindfulness and a trend for improved ability to cope with stress at the completion of the intervention. Furthermore, TY participants displayed decreased subjective energy and energetic arousal. Altogether, findings indicate that the 2-week TY is beneficial over WY for improving perceived emotional well-being. The present findings (1) undermine and inspire a careful consideration and utilization of yoga practice approach to elicit the best benefits for emotional well-being and (2) support yoga as an evidence-based practice among healthy yoga practitioners.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4829792/

 

Promote Adaptive Emotions with Mindful Non-Judgment

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By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“By cultivating such mindfulness of emotions, we can build our resiliency to handle all of the intense experiences associated with urban living. We can limit our ability to get hijacked by emotions, which can carry us away to undesired places (like getting on the wrong subway).” – Jonathan Kaplan

 

We are very emotional creatures. Without emotion, life is flat and uninteresting. Emotions provide the spice of life. We are constantly having or reacting to emotions. We often go to great lengths in an attempt to create or keep positive emotions and conversely to avoid, mitigate, or get rid of negative emotions. They are so important to us that they affect mostly everything that we do and say and can even be determinants of life or death. Anger, fear, and hate can lead to murderous consequences. Anxiety and depression can lead to suicide. At the same time love, joy, and happiness can make life worth living. Our emotions also affect us physically with positive emotions associated with health, well-being, and longevity and negative emotions associated with stress, disease, and shorter life spans.

 

The importance of emotions is only surpassed by our ignorance of them. Our rational side tries to downplay their significance and as a result research studies of emotions are fairly sparse and often ridiculed by politicians. So there is a great need for research on the nature of emotions, their effects, how they are regulated or not, and what factors affect them. One important factor is mindfulness, which has been shown to affect our ability to regulate emotions. Research has demonstrated that people either spontaneously high in mindfulness or trained in mindfulness are better able to be completely in touch with their emotions and feel them completely, while being able to respond to them more appropriately and adaptively. In other words, mindful people are better able to experience yet control emotions.

 

In today’s Research News article “Mindfulness and Emotional Outcomes: Identifying Subgroups of College Students using Latent Profile Analysis.” See:

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1235541963136394/?type=3&theater

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

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4269250/

Pearson and colleagues explore the components of mindfulness and how they relate to emotions in college students. They measured mindfulness with the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) which measures the mindfulness components of observing, describing, acting with awareness, non-judging, and non-reactivity. Using sophisticated statistical analysis they were able to identify 4 distinct classes of student responses; a high mindfulness group that were relatively high on every facet of mindfulness; a low mindfulness group that were relatively low on every facet of mindfulness; a judgmentally observing group that is high in observing but very low on non-judging of inner experience and acting with awareness;  and a non-judgmentally aware group that were high on non-judging of inner experience and acting with awareness, but very low on the observing facet of mindfulness.

 

They found that the “high mindfulness” and “non-judgmentally aware” groups did not differ and had lower depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, affective lability, and distress intolerance. On the other hand, the “judgmentally observing” groups had higher depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, affective lability, and distress intolerance. Finally, they found that the “low mindfulness group” was in the middle significantly better than the “judgmentally observing” group, but significantly worse than the “non-judgmentally aware” and “high mindfulness groups” in adaptive emotionality. Hence, having high mindfulness and being aware without judging are associated with relatively positive emotional states while observing while judging experiences is associated with relatively negative emotional states. Simply being low in mindfulness is associated with an average emotional state.

 

These results suggest that mindfulness is associated with positive emotional states but judging experience is associated with poor emotional states. So, being overall mindful and particularly non-judging leads to the most adaptive emotional states. This reinforces the previous findings of mindfulness promotion emotional regulation. But, they extend this understanding to emphasize just how important judging experience is; if its judged it leads to poor emotional outcomes while if it’s not, it leads to positive emotional outcomes. Although correlational these observations suggest that emotional states can be elevated with mindful non-judgement.

 

So, promote adaptive emotions with mindful non-judgment.

 

“For many of us, instead of feeling our emotions, we criticize ourselves for having them. We call ourselves weak, dramatic, stupid, too sensitive. . . we get angry with ourselves for feeling scared or upset. We become disgusted when we’re jealous of others. We get frustrated when we’re still grieving a breakup or a fight. The key is to accept our emotions.” – Margarita Tartakovsky

 

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

Pearson, M. R., Lawless, A. K., Brown, D. B., & Bravo, A. J. (2015). Mindfulness and Emotional Outcomes: Identifying Subgroups of College Students using Latent Profile Analysis. Personality and Individual Differences,76, 33–38. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2014.11.009

 

Highlights

  • We used latent profile analysis to group college students based on mindfulness scores
  • A 4-class solution was selected, leading to four subgroups of college students
  • High mindfulness and non-judgmentally aware groups had adaptive outcomes
  • Low mindfulness and judgmentally observing groups had maladaptive outcomes
  • We discuss the implications of person-centered analyses for studying mindfulness

Abstract

In non-meditating samples, distinct facets of mindfulness are found to be negatively correlated, preventing the meaningful creation of a total mindfulness score. The present study used person-centered analyses to distinguish subgroups of college students based on their mindfulness scores, which allows the examination of individuals who are high (or low) on all facets of mindfulness. Using the Lo-Mendell-Rubin Adjusted LRT test, we settled on a 4-class solution that included a high mindfulness group (high on all 5 facets, N = 245), low mindfulness group (moderately low on all 5 facets, N = 563), judgmentally observing group (high on observing, but low on non-judging and acting with awareness, N =63), and non-judgmentally aware group (low on observing, but high on non-judging and acting with awareness, N =70). Consistent across all emotional outcomes including depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms (i.e., worry), affective instability, and distress intolerance, we found that the judgmentally observing group had the most maladaptive emotional outcomes followed by the low mindfulness group. Both the high mindfulness group and the non-judgmentally aware group had the most adaptive emotional outcomes. We discuss the implications of person-centered analyses to exploring mindfulness as it relates to important psychological health outcomes.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4269250/

Increase Health Behaviors with Mindfulness

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By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“Even though the academic research on mindfulness meditation isn’t as robust as, say, nutrition or exercise, there is a reason why it’s been around for literally thousands of years. And we’re starting to get a better understanding of why it seems to be beneficial for so many aspects of life, from disease and pain management, to sleep, to control of emotions.” – Amanda Chan

 

We tend to think that illness is produced by physical causes, disease, injury, viruses, bacteria, etc. But, many health problems are behavioral problems or have their origins in maladaptive behavior. This is evident in car accident injuries that are frequently due to behaviors, such as texting while driving, driving too fast or aggressively, or driving drunk. Other problematic behaviors are cigarette smoking, alcoholism, drug use, or unprotected sex. Problems can also be produced by lack of appropriate behavior such as sedentary lifestyle, not eating a healthy diet, not getting sufficient sleep or rest, or failing to take medications according to the physician’s orders. Additionally, behavioral issues can be subtle contributors to disease such as denying a problem and failing to see a physician timely or not washing hands. In fact, many modern health issues, costing the individual or society billions of dollars each year, and reducing longevity, are largely preventable. Hence, promoting healthy behaviors and eliminating unhealthy ones has the potential to markedly improve health.

 

Mindfulness training has been shown to promote health and improve illness. It appears to be associated with a number of factors that also promote health including emotion regulation, stress management, and immune function. Many of the improvements occur by changing health behaviors. This suggests that mindfulness may affect health indirectly through intermediaries, with mindfulness affecting an intermediary which in turn affects health behaviors which in turn affects health.

 

In today’s Research News article “Mindfulness facets, trait emotional intelligence, emotional distress, and multiple health behaviors: A serial two-mediator model.” See:

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1230914793599111/?type=3&theater

or see below

Jacobs and colleagues explore the role of emotional intelligence and stress management as intermediaries between mindfulness and health behaviors. They had a large group of occupational therapists complete a series of tests on-line and conducted sophisticated statistical analyses to determine mediation effects of emotional intelligence and stress management between four different facets of mindfulness, observing, describing, acting with awareness and accepting without judging, and health behaviors.

 

They found that all of the mindfulness facets were significantly associated with positive health behaviors. The observing facet was primarily associated directly with health behaviors while the mindfulness facets of acting with awareness and accepting without judging affected health behaviors indirectly by affecting emotional intelligence and stress management which in turn, improved health behavior. Hence, the effects of mindfulness on health behaviors is partially direct with observing and indirect through emotional intelligence and stress management for the acting with awareness and accepting without judging facets.

 

These results suggest that observing, being able to notice and pay attention to internal and external occurrences, allow the individual to be better able to change their health behavior. Perhaps, being more aware of the effects of behavior on the body, the condition of the body, and the links to external conditions is helpful in motivating behavioral change. In other words, improved awareness of what the individual is doing and its consequences produces positive change in what the individual does.

 

Emotional intelligence involves being able to experience emotions fully without judging them. The mindfulness facet of accepting involves “being nonjudgmental and allowing the experienced

phenomena to be as they are without attempting to avoid, change or eliminate them.” Hence, mindfully accepting emotions is itself a component of emotional intelligence. In addition, emotional intelligence involves acting appropriately and adaptively in response to the emotions. This includes acting with awareness. Hence, the mindfulness facet of acting with awareness would be directly linked to emotional intelligence. In turn, emotional intelligence would allow for a more rational and adaptive response to our situation which would include promoting health behavior. So, the ability of mindfulness to produce positive health behaviors occurs in part directly and in part through its relationship with emotional intelligence.

 

The most important message here is that mindfulness can contribute greatly to your health. It improves your behavior to take better care of your health and it also improves the way you deal with your emotions making you better able to cope with the stresses of everyday life, improving your health. So, increase health behaviors with mindfulness.

 

“people who have battled with health problems for years find relief through accepting and working with their condition in a new way, dropping the desperate struggle to make things different from how they are. Mindfulness training makes it possible for a different kind of healing to take place, creating an open space of awareness from which people can start choosing to live well, as best they can, even with a serious illness.” – Line Goguen-Hughes

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

 

Study Summary

Jacobs, I., Wollny, A., Sim, C.-W. & Horsch, A. (2016). Mindfulness facets, trait emotional intelligence, emotional distress, and multiple health behaviors: A serial two-mediator model. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology

 

Abstract

In the present study, we tested a serial mindfulness facets-trait emotional intelligence (TEI)-emotional distress-multiple health behaviors mediation model in a sample of N = 427 German-speaking occupational therapists. The mindfulness facets-TEI-emotional distress section of the mediation model revealed partial mediation for the mindfulness facets Act with awareness (Act/Aware) and Accept without judgment (Accept); inconsistent mediation was found for the Describe facet. The serial two-mediator model included three mediational pathways that may link each of the four mindfulness facets with multiple health behaviors. Eight out of 12 indirect effects reached significance and fully mediated the links between Act/Aware and Describe to multiple health behaviors; partial mediation was found for Accept. The mindfulness facet Observe was most relevant for multiple health behaviors, but its relation was not amenable to mediation. Implications of the findings will be discussed.

 

Promote Adaptive Emotions with Mindfulness

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Promote Adaptive Emotions with Mindfulness

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“Mindfulness allows us to watch our thoughts, see how one thought leads to the next, decide if we’re heading toward an unhealthy path, and if so, let go and change directions. It allows us to see that who we are is much more than a fearful or envious or angry thought. We can rest in the awareness of the thought, in the compassion we extend to ourselves if the thought makes us uncomfortable, and in the balance and good sense we summon as we decide whether and how to act on the thought.” – Upaya Zen Center

 

Mindfulness is associated with the health and well-being of the individual. It affects a strikingly wide variety of physical and mental capacities and conditions, from cognitive process, to emotions, to stress, to disease states, to mental health, etc. Its effects are so widespread and diverse that it would seem unlikely that mindfulness would directly affect each individual process or state. It is more likely that mindfulness works through intermediaries. That is, it has direct effects on a few processes that in turn have influences on even more processes. This would suggest that many of the effects of mindfulness are indirect.

 

One possibility for an intermediary is coping style. Mindfulness has been shown to heighten adaptive coping. This is a form of coping with stresses in which the individual does not personalize it but looks directly at its environmental causes and addresses them directly. Mindfulness has also been shown to reduce maladaptive coping such as avoidant coping, where the individual does not directly confront the stress but rather turns away from, ignore, or escape from stress. This form of coping does not adequately address the stress which can reemerge in the future.

 

Mindfulness has also been shown to improve emotion regulation, such that the individual fully experiences emotions but reacts appropriately and adaptively to them. Emotion regulation, then, involves coping with the emotion adaptively. It would seem logical then that the improved emotion regulation that occurs with mindfulness may be a secondary effect of the effect of mindfulness on adaptive and maladaptive coping. So, improved emotion regulation may be the result of the improved adaptive coping or less maladaptive coping produced by mindfulness.

 

Emotions are quite complex and dynamic. They can be considered as reasonably stable traits that characterize and individual. But, emotions also vary from moment to moment and different individuals have different patterns of emotional variation over the course of the day. Some people have highly variable emotions that show frequent changes over the day, while some people tend to have more stable emotions that don’t change much, called emotional inertia, while some people have great instability in their emotions, changing wildly from moment to moment, and some people switch back and forth between positive and negative emotional states frequently over the day. To date the effect of mindfulness on these aspects of dynamic daily emotions has not been investigated, nor their relationships to coping styles.

 

In today’s Research News article “Riding the Tide of Emotions with Mindfulness: Mindfulness, Affect Dynamics, and the Mediating Role of Coping.” See:

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1230334476990476/?type=3&theater

or see below

Keng and Tong address these questions. They measured trait mindfulness, coping styles, positive and negative affect, self-esteem, depression, openness, and habitual reappraisal and suppression. They also acquired reports of the emotional states of participants at 19 different points a day for 2 days from which they calculated the individual’s emotional variability, inertia, instability, and switching.

 

Keng and Tong found the higher the levels of trait mindfulness, the lower the levels of emotional variability, instability, and inertia. High mindfulness people were also more likely to switch from feeling negatively in the morning to feeling positively in the afternoon. These relationships with mindfulness were not due to positive and negative affect, self-esteem, depression, openness, and habitual reappraisal and suppression. So highly mindful people tend to have less variability in their emotions, but also less inertia being able to change emotions when appropriate. They were also less likely to have unstable, wildly varying emotions and be more likely to switch from a negative to a positive emotional state. Hence mindfulness appears to produce less variable and unstable emotions that are better attuned to the events of the day and more likely to become positive.

 

Keng and Tong also found that maladaptive coping meditated these effects. Highly mindful people were less likely to use maladaptive coping strategies in their emotional reactivity to daily stressors. Interestingly adaptive coping styles did not mediate these effects. These results suggest that mindfulness does not affect emotional well-being by producing adaptive coping styles, but rather by interfering with maladaptive styles. Thus mindfulness makes it less likely that the individual will use ineffective maladaptive coping with stress and thereby have higher emotional wellbeing.

 

The most important message here is that mindfulness improves your emotional life and makes you less likely to cope with your emotions in such a way as to make matters worse. It doesn’t change your life, just how you experience and deal with your emotions and this make life better. So, promote adaptive emotions with mindfulness.

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

“The next time you sense a strong emotion, take some time to put a finger on exactly what you’re feeling. Get quiet, turn inward, and just listen.” – Lisa Nichols

 

Study Summary

 

Keng, S., & Tong, E. W. (2016). Riding the Tide of Emotions with Mindfulness: Mindfulness, Affect Dynamics, and the Mediating Role of Coping. Emotion, doi:10.1037/emo0000165

 

Abstract:

Little research has examined ways in which mindfulness is associated with affect dynamics, referring to patterns of affect fluctuations in daily life. Using ecological momentary assessment (EMA), the present study examined the associations between trait mindfulness and several types of affect dynamics, namely affect variability, affect inertia, affect switch, and affect instability. Three hundred ninety undergraduate students from Singapore reported their current emotions and coping styles up to 19 times per day across 2 days. Results showed that trait mindfulness correlated negatively with variability, instability, and inertia of negative affect and positively with negative-to-positive affect switch. These relationships were independent of openness, habitual reappraisal, habitual suppression, depression, and self-esteem. Importantly, lower maladaptive coping was found to mediate these relationships. The study suggests that trait mindfulness independently promotes adaptive patterns of affective experiences in daily life by inhibiting maladaptive coping styles.

 

Improve Security Guards Coping with Emotions with Yoga

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Improve Security Guards Coping with Emotions with Yoga

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“Officer safety and wellness can improve when agency leaders are willing to support a shift in the culture that is innovative and supports mind-body approaches to health and well-being.” – Jennifer Elliott

 

It is understood that policing is difficult and stressful. Police are hired, trained, and paid by government entities and as such have reasonable compensations and job security. But, private security service is one of the most rapidly growing occupations worldwide employing a large cadre of people. They are generally hired, trained, and paid by private companies or in some cases are volunteers. In the United States there are over a million security guards employed and providing security services to businesses, schools, medical facilities, private homes, casino surveillance, and involved in investigations. Their compensation tends to be low with a median yearly income of $24,410.

 

It has been demonstrated that officers and civilian staff in law enforcement agencies face enormous stress that can have a negative impact on physical, psychological, and emotional health. But, with security guards, there is very little known about the stresses involved in these positions and their impact on the health and well-being of the guards. In one study, people in different occupations rated their satisfaction and happiness with their jobs. Security guard was rated as the unhappiest career. This was primarily due to a perceived lack of rewards and growth opportunities. Another study found that security guard was rated as a stressful occupation, to some extent due to often working late hours alone. Stress is known to have negative effects on physical and mental health. It is likely that security guards are not immune.

 

It has been shown that mindfulness practices in general can reduce the physiological and psychological responses to stress and improve emotion regulation. Yoga practice in particular has been shown to reduce stress and improve emotions. So, it would make sense to investigate whether yoga practice could be used to improve the emotional states of guards.

 

In India, the Home Guards are a volunteer group that provides security for public events such as festivals, elections, sporting events, traffic control, etc. In today’s Research News article “Effect of integrated Yoga module on positive and negative emotions in Home Guards in Bengaluru: A wait list randomized control trial”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1212075688816355/?type=3&theater

or see below, or for full text see

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4728956/

Amaranath and colleagues studied the emotional health of these Home Guards and investigated the impact of integrated yoga practice. Home Guards were randomly assigned to either a yoga group or no treatment. The yoga group practiced yoga for 2 months for 1 hour per day for 6 days per week. Positive and negative emotions were measured. Positive emotions included attentive, interested, excited, strong, enthusiastic, determined, proud, inspired, active, alert, happy, pleased, content, and glad.  Negative emotions included afraid, distressed, upset, jittery, guilty, nervous, scared, hostile, ashamed, irritable, disappointed, sad, unhappy, troubled, and miserable. These positive and negative emotions were measured before and after the 2-months of yoga practice.

 

They found that yoga practice produced and increase in positive emotions and a decrease in negative emotions in the Home Guards. On the other hand, the control group had the opposite effect with a decrease in positive emotions and an increase in negative emotions.  The yoga group showed the greatest changes in the positive emotions of content, glad, pleased, and excited and the greatest reductions in the negative emotions of disappointed, distressed, upset, sad, and unhappy. Hence yoga practice had a large beneficial effect on the emotional states of the Home Guards .

 

These results are interesting but it should be noted that the study lacked an active control. So, it is impossible to determine if the effects were due to yoga practice specifically, or possibly simply to exercise or subject expectancy effects, demand characteristic, etc. It remains for more tightly controlled studies to determine the exact cause of the emotional improvements in the Home Guards.

 

Nevertheless, it is clear that yoga practice can improve security guards coping with emotions.

 

“the scientific study of yoga demonstrates that mental and physical health are not just closely allied, but are essentially equivalent. The evidence is growing that yoga practice is a relatively low-risk, high-yield approach to improving overall health.” – Harvard Medical Health Letter

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

 

Study Summary

Amaranath, B., Nagendra, H. R., & Deshpande, S. (2016). Effect of integrated Yoga module on positive and negative emotions in Home Guards in Bengaluru: A wait list randomized control trial. International Journal of Yoga, 9(1), 35–43. http://doi.org/10.4103/0973-6131.171719

 

Abstract

Background: The beneficial aspect of positive emotions on the process of learning and the harmful effect of negative emotions on coping with stress and health are well-documented through studies. The Home Guards (HGs) are working in a very stressful situation during election, managing traffic and other crowded places. It is quite essential in present day circumstances that they have to manage their emotions and cope up with different stressful situations.

Objective: To study the efficacy of integrated Yoga module (IYM) on emotions (positive and negative affect [PA and NA]) of HGs.

Methods: A total of 148 HGs both males and females who qualified the inclusion and exclusion criteria were randomly divided into Yoga group (YG) and control groups (CG). The YG had supervised practice sessions (by trained experts) for 1 h daily, 6 days a week for 8 weeks along with their regular routine work whereas CG performing their routine work. Positive affect negative affect scale (PANAS) was assessed before and after 8 weeks using a modified version of PANAS.

Results: PA in YG had significantly increased (P < 0.05) whereas it had decreased significantly (P < 0.05) in CG. Other positive effect in YG had significantly increased (P < 0.001), whereas it had decreased significantly (P< 0.001) in CG. NA in YG had significantly decreased (P < 0.001), whereas it had significantly increased (P< 0.001) in CG. Other NA in YG had significantly decreased (P < 0.001), whereas it had significantly increased (P < 0.01) in CG.

Conclusions: The results suggested that IYM can be useful for HGs to improve the PA and to decrease NA score. Moreover, IYM is cost-effective and helps HGs for coping up with emotions in stressful situations.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4728956/

Mindfully Control Back Pain

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By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“MBSR is a practice that can help you “turn the volume down” on the perception of back pain by teaching you to look into the pain, and being with the experience and not resisting it so much. Looking into our emotional reactivity to it. Focusing on the present, rather than being bitter about the past or worried about the future about your back pain, helps you take ownership of the situation (i.e., accept your pain), and ultimately, find creative solutions for pain relief. It trains you to be in control of your mind, not for your mind to control you.” – Mark Neenan
Low Back Pain is the leading cause of disability worldwide and affects between 6% to 15% of the population. It is estimated, however, that 80% of the population will experience back pain sometime during their lives. There are varied treatments for low back pain including chiropractic care, acupuncture, biofeedback, physical therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, massage, surgery, opiate pain killing drugs, steroid injections, and muscle relaxant drugs. These therapies are sometimes effective particularly for acute back pain. But, for chronic conditions the treatments are less effective and often require continuing treatment for years and opiate pain killers are dangerous and can lead to abuse and addiction. Obviously, there is a need for safe and effective treatments for low back pain that are low cost and don’t have troublesome side effects.

 

Pain involves both physical and psychological issues. The stress, fear, and anxiety produced by pain tends to elicit responses that actually amplify the pain. So, reducing the emotional reactions to pain may be helpful in pain management. Mindfulness practices have been shown to improve emotion regulation producing more adaptive and less maladaptive responses to emotions. So, it would seem reasonable to project that mindfulness practices would be helpful in pain management. Indeed, these practices have been shown to be safe and  beneficial in pain management in general and Yoga and mindfulness has been shown to specifically improve back pain. Mindfulness Based Stress Reductions (MBSR) programs contain both yoga and mindfulness practices. So, it would seem reasonable to project that MBSR practice would improve emotion regulation and thereby be beneficial for back pain.

 

In today’s Research News article “Brain and behavior changes associated with an abbreviated 4-week mindfulness-based stress reduction course in back pain patients”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1205293852827872/?type=3&theater

or see below.

Braden and colleagues investigate the effectiveness of a 4-week program of Mindfulness Based Stress Reductions (MBSR) for the treatment of low back pain. They randomly assigned patients with chronic low back pain to either an MBSR or reading control group. They found that only the MBSR group reported a significant decrease in low back pain and the somatic-affective aspects of depression following the MBSR training. In addition, they performed functional magnetic imaging of the brains of the patients, both before and after training, during a task designed to induce emotions. They found that after MBSR training there was increased activity in response to emotions in the subgenual Anterior Cingulate Cortex and the ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortex. Both of these areas have been associated with emotion regulation processing.

 

Hence the results suggest that a 4-week MBSR training program can be effective for the relief of low back pain and the improvement in emotions. The results suggest that the improvements may have been due to changes in brain processing of emotions produced by the MBSR training. Unfortunately, at a one year follow up the reductions in pain and depression were not maintained. This suggests that an abbreviated program of 4 weeks of MBSR (the standard program is 8-weeks) may be able to improve the patients but not sufficient to produce lasting effects. It remains to be shown if the standard 8-week program can produce more lasting effects. Regardless, the findings provide support for further research into the utility of MBSR training for the treatment of chronic low back pain.

 

So, mindfully control back pain.

 

“Mindfulness soothes the circuits that amplify secondary pain and you can see this process happening in a brain scanner. In effect, mindfulness teaches you how to turn down the volume control on your pain. And as you do so, any anxiety, stress and depression that you may be feeling begins to melt away too. Your body can then relax and begin to heal.” – Danny Penman

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

 

Study Summary

Braden BB, Pipe TB, Smith R, Glaspy TK, Deatherage BR, Baxter LC. Brain and behavior changes associated with an abbreviated 4-week mindfulness-based stress reduction course in back pain patients. Brain Behav. 2016 Feb 16:e00443. [Epub ahead of print]

 

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) reduces depression, anxiety, and pain for people suffering from a variety of illnesses, and there is a growing need to understand the neurobiological networks implicated in self-reported psychological change as a result of training. Combining complementary and alternative treatments such as MBSR with other therapies is helpful; however, the time commitment of the traditional 8-week course may impede accessibility. This pilot study aimed to (1) determine if an abbreviated MBSR course improves symptoms in chronic back pain patients and (2) examine the neural and behavioral correlates of MBSR treatment.

METHODS: Participants were assigned to 4 weeks of weekly MBSR training (n = 12) or a control group (stress reduction reading; n = 11). Self-report ratings and task-based functional MRI were obtained prior to, and after, MBSR training, or at a yoked time point in the control group.

RESULTS: While both groups showed significant improvement in total depression symptoms, only the MBSR group significantly improved in back pain and somatic-affective depression symptoms. The MBSR group also uniquely showed significant increases in regional frontal lobe hemodynamic activity associated with gaining awareness to changes in one’s emotional state.

CONCLUSIONS: An abbreviated MBSR course may be an effective complementary intervention that specifically improves back pain symptoms and frontal lobe regulation of emotional awareness, while the traditional 8-week course may be necessary to detect unique improvements in total anxiety and cognitive aspects of depression.

 

Improve Gastrointestinal Disorders with Mindfulness

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By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

 “The functional gastrointestinal disorders (FGIDs) are a group of more than 20 chronic and hard to treat medical conditions of the gastrointestinal tract that constitute a large proportion of the presenting problems seen in clinical gastroenterology.” – Jennifer Wolkin

 

Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders are the most common disorders of the gastrointestinal tract in the general population. The most common disorder in this group is Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders can involve the esophagus, stomach and/or intestines and are disorders of function (how these structures work), not structural or biochemical abnormalities. Estimates vary, but about 25% of people in the United States have one of these disorders. The conditions account for about 40% of GI problems seen by doctors and therapists.

 

The cause(s) of Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders are not known. But, emotion dysregulation is suspected to be involved. It is clear that psychological stress exacerbates the illnesses and anxiety amplifies the symptoms. This suggests that mindfulness or the lack thereof may be involved as mindfulness is known to be helpful in reducing the psychological and physical responses to stress and mindfulness is known to improve emotion regulation. In addition, contemplative practice has been shown to improve the symptoms of Irritable Bowel Syndrome. So, it would make sense to further investigate the relationship of mindfulness to emotion regulation, stress, and Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders.

 

In today’s Research News article “Difficulties in Emotion Regulation and Mindfulness in Psychological and Somatic Symptoms of Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1178359818854609/?type=3&theater

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4733315/

Mazaheri investigated the relationships between gastrointestinal symptoms, emotions, emotion regulation, and mindfulness in patients diagnosed with Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders. They found that the higher the levels of either depression, anxiety, or stress the greater the GI symptoms and that the lower the levels of emotion regulation the greater the symptoms. Significantly, they found that high levels of mindfulness were associated with lower levels of GI symptoms, depression, anxiety, and stress and with higher levels of emotion regulation.

 

The results support the contention that an inability to regulate emotions and stress are an important factor in Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders. In addition, they suggest that mindfulness is not only associated with lower levels of emotion and psychological stress but also with a greater ability to regulate these emotions. It should be noted that the results of this study are strictly observational and correlational and as such no conclusion about causation can be reached. But, the results give strong support to the need to perform a randomized controlled trial where mindfulness is trained and its effects on emotion regulation and Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders are measured.

 

With the caveat that causation hasn’t been established, it can be speculated that mindfulness training may be a safe and effective method for both the prevention and treatment of Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders. Mindfulness’ ability to improve emotion regulation may help the individual to be able to better experience emotions but respond to them in an effective and adaptive manner, lessening their impact. It remains for future research to investigate this exciting possibility.

 

So, improve gastrointestinal disorders with mindfulness.

 

“patients with heightened GI-specific anxiety may benefit from participation in a mindfulness programme as an adjunct to their usual clinical care.” – D. J. Kearney

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

Better Control Drinking with Mindfulness

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“mindfulness gives us the strength psychologically and neurologically to sit in discomfort, to lean into the void, as opposed to avoid it and jump to our addiction.” – Mindful Muscle

 

Inappropriate use of alcohol is a major societal problem. In fact, about 25% of US adults have engaged in binge drinking in the last month and 7% have what is termed an alcohol use disorder. Alcohol abuse is very dangerous and frequently fatal. Nearly 88,000 people in the US and 3.3 million globally die from alcohol-related causes annually, making it the third leading preventable cause of death in the United States. Drunk driving accounted for over 10,000 deaths; 31% of all driving fatalities. Excessive alcohol intake has been shown to contribute to over 200 diseases including alcohol dependence, liver cirrhosis, cancers, and injuries. It is estimated that over 5% of the burden of disease and injury worldwide is attributable to alcohol consumption.

 

Alcohol abuse often develops during adolescence and it on display with college students where about four out of five college students drink alcohol and about half of those consume alcohol through binge drinking. About 25 percent of college students report academic consequences of their drinking including missing class, falling behind, doing poorly on exams or papers, and receiving lower grades overall. More than 150,000 students develop an alcohol-related health problem.

 

Alcohol abuse can have dire consequences as 1,825 college students die each year from alcohol-related unintentional injuries and between 1.2 and 1.5 percent of students indicate that they tried to commit suicide within the past year due to drinking or drug use. But, drinking has widespread consequence to not only the students but also the college communities, and families. More than 690,000 students are assaulted by another student who has been drinking. More than 97,000 students are victims of alcohol-related sexual assault or date rape. 599,000 students receive unintentional injuries while under the influence of alcohol.

 

These facts clearly highlight the need to explore methods to control excessive alcohol intake. One potential method is mindfulness as it has been shown to assist in the control of alcohol intake (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/alcoholism/) and in recovery from alcohol addiction (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/addiction/). So it would make sense to further explore the effects of mindfulness on alcohol intake in college students.

 

In today’s Research News article “How to think about your drink: Action-identification and the relation between mindfulness and dyscontrolled drinking”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1172645472759377/?type=3&theater

Schellhas and colleagues do exactly that, examining the relationships between mindfulness, alcohol intake, difficulty in controlling alcohol intake, and their identification with alcohol intake in college students. Interestingly, they did not find a relationship between mindfulness and weekly use of alcohol. But there was a relationship between mindfulness and the ability to control alcohol intake. In other words, mindful individuals drink as much as those with low mindfulness but they are better able to control their intake.

 

They also found that mindfulness also had an indirect effect on alcohol consumption. Mindfulness was negatively related to the use of alcohol to escape emotional problems. This escape use of alcohol intake was strongly related to the inability to control alcohol intake. In other words, students high in mindfulness were less likely to use alcohol to deal with their emotional problems and this in turn allowed the students to better control, their intake.

 

The results suggest that mindfulness may help students control alcohol intake. The study, however, did not actively change levels of mindfulness, but simply measured existing levels and their relations to alcohol consumption. As a result, it cannot be concluded that mindfulness was responsible for the better control of intake. It could be that individuals who are better at controlling behavior are more mindful or that some third factor such as emotional maturity was related to both. Future research is needed where mindfulness training is implemented to increase students’ mindfulness and observe its subsequent effect on intake and ability to control intake.

 

Regardless it is clear the mindfulness and control of alcohol intake are positively related. So, better control drinking with mindfulness.

 

“mindfulness is likely an effective tool in helping people with addiction because it’s a single, simple skill that a person can practice multiple times throughout their day, every day, regardless of the life challenges that arise. With so much opportunity for practice—rather than, say, only practicing when someone offers them a cigarette—people can learn that skill deeply.” – Sarah Bowen

 

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