Emotions

Improve Fertility with Mindfulness

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“Using your mind to improve your fertility? Not as strange as you might think! If you have ever blushed, you’ll understand what I mean. That embarrassment you felt, visible to the world. Research shows emotions influence all body functions, especially fertility hormones. Fertility Mindfulness tips the odds of conceiving in your favor. Re-align your mindset and prepare for conception success, no matter what you have experienced.” – Helena Tubridy

 

Infertility is primarily a medical condition due to physiological problems. It is quite common. It is estimated that in the U.S. 6.7 million women, about 10% of the population of women 15-44, have an impaired ability to get pregnant or carry a baby to term and about 6% are infertile.

 

Infertility can be more than just a medical issue. It can be an emotional crisis for many couples, especially for the women. Couples attending a fertility clinic reported that infertility was the most upsetting experience of their lives. Women with infertility reported feeling as anxious or depressed as those diagnosed with cancer, hypertension, or recovering from a heart attack. Men’s reactions are more complicated. If the reason for the infertility is due to an issue with the woman, then men aren’t as distressed as the women. But if they are the ones who are infertile, they experience the same levels of low self-esteem, stigma, and depression as infertile women do. In addition, infertility can markedly impact the couple’s relationship, straining their emotional connection and interactions and the prescribed treatments can take the spontaneity and joy from lovemaking making it strained and mechanical.

 

The stress of infertility and engaging in infertility treatments may exacerbate the problem. The anxiety and stress may actually make it more difficult to conceive. In fact, recent studies found that higher rates of infertility treatment success in people who were undergoing a mind–body interventions. So, reducing stress and anxiety may be beneficial for conception. Since mindfulness training has been shown to reduce anxiety (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/anxiety/) and stress (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/stress/) it is reasonable to believe that mindfulness training may be helpful for conception in women with fertility issues.

 

In today’s Research News article “Effects of a mindfulness-based intervention on fertility quality of life and pregnancy rates among women subjected to first in vitro fertilization treatment”

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Li and colleagues conducted a 6-week mindfulness training with women undergoing in-vitro fertilization treatment. In comparison to a treatment as usual control group, they found that the mindfulness training produced significant improvements in mindfulness, self-compassion, emotion regulation, improved coping responses and fertility quality of life. There was also a decrease in the influence of infertility on physical health, cognition, and behavior. Importantly, the treatment resulted in significantly higher proportion of the participants who had a viable pregnancy by virtue of in vitro fertilization.  Hence it appears that mindfulness treatment improves the women’s psychological and physical well-being and this in turn improves their ability to have a successful outcome to in vitro fertilization, becoming pregnant.

 

These are wonderful and encouraging findings that mindfulness can have such significant positive benefits for women with infertility. The fact that mindfulness is known to reduce the physical and psychological responses to stress, reduce anxiety, and improve emotion regulation is likely responsible for these benefits. This allows the women to better cope with the difficulties of infertility and its treatment.

 

Mindfulness training is a safe and effective treatment with many benefits for virtually everyone and for many psychological and medical issues. The results from this study add infertility treatment to the usefulness and positive effects of mindfulness training. This can be of great benefit to large numbers of women who struggle with infertility.

 

So, improve fertility with mindfulness.

 

“My bottom line is that if mindfulness and meditation are things that you would be interested in anyway, then using them as a strategy to help cope with fertility treatment sounds logical and beneficial.” – Erin Stronach

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

Meditate to Respond More Effectively to Self-Praise and Criticism

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 “If you’ve ever felt too depressed to solve a problem, it might be because your brain is having a hard time regulating your emotions. One solution? Mindfulness training.” – Ruth Buczynsk

 

Meditation is known to improve the physical and mental health of practitioners. To some extent, it does so by improving emotion regulation (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/emotions/). This improvement involves fully experiencing emotions, not suppressing them, and responding to them in a rational and adaptive fashion. In other words, meditators appear to be able to feel and work with their emotions responsibly, non-judgmentally, and with acceptance, and not react in ways that are harmful to themselves and others.

 

Emotion regulation is in part improved in meditators by helping them to take things less personally. Meditation tends to reduce self-referential thinking (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/self/). Mindfulness tends to reduce self-critical thinking and their emotional aftermaths and improve self-esteem. As a result, meditation tends to reduce responses to self-related thoughts, ideas, and stimuli. This improved emotion regulation contributes to many facets of the individual’s mental health.

 

Meditation is also known to alter the nervous system. Actions that are repeated often tend to produce changes in the nervous system in a process called neuroplasticity and meditation is no exception. It tends to increase the size, activity, and connectivity of structures in the nervous system that are involved in attention and emotion regulation, frontal cortex regions, and decrease the size, activity, and connectivity of structures involved in mind wandering, self-referential thinking, and stress, the so called default mode network  (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/neuroplasticity/).

 

In today’s Research News article “Altered processing of self-related emotional stimuli in mindfulness meditators”

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http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811915008794

Lutz and colleagues investigate emotional regulation responses in the nervous system of long term meditators (> a year of regular practice) in comparison to meditation naïve participants. As expected the meditators were higher in mindfulness especially in observing and non-reacting, self-compassion, and emotional awareness. The participants were then presented with personality descriptor adjectives that were either positive (attractive, handsome, funny) or negative (unattractive, unsightly, ugly) and recorded the responses of the nervous system to the stimuli.

 

Self-relevant items either positive or negative, but particularly positive, produced greater activation of the Dorsomedial Prefrontal Cortex in the meditators. The mindfulness component of non-reacting was positively correlated with activation of the Dorsomedial Prefrontal Cortex in the meditators but not the naïve participants. Finally, they found lower functional connectivity to posterior midline and parietal regions in the meditators compared to the naïve participants during both types of self-relevant items.

 

The meditators stronger activations of the frontal regions suggest that they have stronger self-awareness and focus on inner feelings. It also suggests that they have greater emotion regulation with non-reactive attitudes towards these experiences. Since the posterior structures of the default mode network in the nervous system are associated with self-referential thinking, the decreased connectivity to these regions in the meditators suggest that they have lesser self-focus than meditation naïve participants.

 

In sum, these results indicate that meditation produces changes in the brain that allows for greater emotion regulation and less thinking about self. These neural changes may in part account for the improved mental health in meditators. They are better able to cope with emotions and respond to them constructively and take everything less personally. So, meditation appears to change the brain making it better able to respond more constructively and less personally to emption laden events.

 

So, meditate to respond more effectively to self-praise and criticism.

 

“mindful attention does not inhibit initial evaluations insomuch as it limits the automatic expansion of initial evaluative reactions into activation of a broader set of implications about the self and the world.” – Norman Farb
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

Reduce Discrimination Produced Depression with Mindfulness

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“The stigmatized individual is asked to act so as to imply neither that his burden is heavy nor that bearing it has made him different from us; … he is advised to reciprocate naturally with an acceptance of himself and us, an acceptance of him that we have not quite extended to him in the first place. A PHANTOM ACCEPTANCE is thus allowed to provide the base for a PHANTOM NORMALCY.” ― Erving Goffman

 

Discrimination based upon race, religion, gender, national origin, sexual orientation, etc. has been going on since the beginning of recorded history. Even though quite common it can have considerable negative impact for all who are involved but especially for the subject of the discrimination. General well-being, self-esteem, self-worth, and social relations can be severely impacted as a result of discrimination. This can, in turn, result in depression.

 

In the U.S. discrimination against African Americans is very common. In a recent poll, 51% of Americans expressed anti-black sentiments which was increased from four years ago, African-Americans comprise only 13% of the U.S. population and 14% of the monthly drug users, but are 37% of the people arrested for drug-related offenses in America, and African Americans receive 10% longer sentences than whites for the same crimes. Discrimination against women is also common. Women on average earn 22.5% less than men, have to work for more years before receiving promotion, the greater the education level the greater the disparity, and minority women fare even worse. In addition, women are 10 times more likely to be exposed to high levels of domestic violence and are nearly 4 times more likely to be exposed to sexual harassment than men. As a society we should do everything in our power to fight against discrimination in any form. But, we also need to deal with the consequences of discrimination when it occurs.

 

Mindfulness practices have been shown to reduce prejudice (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/prejudice/). It has also been shown to reduce depression (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/depression/). Mindfulness has also is known to enhance positive emotions (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/emotions/) and positive emotions reduce the negative effects of discrimination. So perhaps mindfulness is related to the impact of discrimination on the individual. In today’s Research News article “Discrimination hurts, but mindfulness may help: Trait mindfulness moderates the relationship between perceived discrimination and depressive symptoms”

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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3862075/

Brown-Iannuzzi and colleagues analyzed responses on an on-line questionnaire of perceived racism, mindfulness, depression, and positive emotions completed by community participants.

 

They found that “the most common source of discrimination was gender (19.7%), followed by race or ethnicity (17%), body weight (14.4%) and age (14.3%).” They also found that high levels of discrimination were accompanied by high levels of depression while high levels of positive emotions and mindfulness were accompanied by low levels of depression. In addition, high levels of mindfulness were found to mitigate the effects of discrimination on depression. Participants high in mindfulness showed less of an increase in depression when exposed to discrimination.

 

Mindfulness has been repeatedly demonstrated to reduce the psychological and physiological responses to stress (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/stress/). So, mindfulness may reduce the negative impact of the stress produced by the discrimination thereby reducing depression. Mindfulness may also act by focusing the individual more in the present moment. Rumination about past discrimination and worries regarding future discrimination may well amplify discrimination’s impact on depression. Focusing on the present moment may make it easier to cope with the discrimination, isolating it and thereby decreasing its effects.

 

Regardless of its mechanism of action, it is clear the mindfulness is associated with lower depression and a lessened effect of discrimination on depression. So, reduce discrimination produced depression with mindfulness.

 

“One of the best ways you can fight discrimination is by taking good care of yourself. Your survival is not just important; it’s an act of revolution.” ― DaShanne Stokes
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

Feel Better Emotionally with Loving-Kindness Meditation

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“Metta is the priceless treasure that enlivens us and brings us into intimacy with ourselves and others. It is the force of love that will lead beyond fragmentation, loneliness and fear. The late Hindu guru Neem Karoli Baba often said, “Don’t throw anyone out of your heart.” One of the most powerful healings (and greatest adventures) of our lifetime can come about as we learn to live by this dictum.” – Sharon Salzberg

 

In the past Psychology focused on negative states and emotions, such as mental illness and depression, anxiety, hate, anger etc. Although this resulted in greater understanding and better treatments for people who were suffering, it also resulted in a neglect of positive states and emotions such as happiness, love, compassion, joy, etc. But, in the last couple of decades it has dawned on the field that perhaps positive states may be important to cultivate. They could serve not only as antidotes and treatments for the negative states and emotions, but also could improve the existence of the mentally healthy. This new movement has been labelled Positive Psychology. It is dedicated to discovering ways to promote and enhance human flourishing; to develop better and happier lives.

 

An ancient practice of “metta” meditation has been promoted as a possible method to develop positive states and emotions. “Metta” meditation is also known as Loving Kindness Meditation (LKM). It is a deceptively simple practice (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/26/meditation-techniques-loving-kindness-meditation/) that is aimed at developing kindness and positive regard for the self and others. But, as simple as it may be, it has profound effects (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/contemplative-practice/loving-kindness/). LKM has been shown to improve positive mood, improve social interactions. and the complex understanding of others. It has also been shown to decrease negative emotions and to be an effective treatment for depression. This suggests that LKM may be an important practice for not only the treatment of negative states and emotions, but also for the promotion of human flourishing and happiness.

 

In today’s Research News article “The effect of loving-kindness meditation on positive emotions: a meta-analytic review”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1150546504969274/?type=3&theater

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4630307/

Zeng and colleagues review the literature on the effects of Loving Kindness Meditation (LKM) on positive emotions and well-being. The reviewed literature showed that LKM produced significant positive effects on the practitioners’ immediate and overall daily positive emotions with moderate effect sizes. These effects were seen both with short-term and long-tern LKM practice. LKM mainly cultivated peaceful or prosocial positive emotions. Thus, the published literature supports the use of Loving Kindness Meditation for enhancing positive emotional states.

 

There is a need to investigate the mechanisms by which LKM may be having its effects. One possibility that is supported in the research literature is that LKM improves emotion regulation. This allows the individual to fully experience the emotion yet respond to it adaptively and constructively. Hence, in part LKM may enhance positive states by allowing the individual to better deal with negative emotional states. It has also been shown that LKM reduces the psychological and physiological responses to stress. By feeling less stressed LKM practitioners may experience more positive emotions. Another possibility is that LKM enhances self-regard, allowing the individual to feel good about themselves as well as others. Regardless of the mechanism, it appears clear that Loving Kindness Meditation can be recommended as a practice to enhance positive emotions and states.

 

So, feel better emotionally with loving-kindness meditation.

 

For one who mindfully develops
Boundless loving-kindness
Seeing the destruction of clinging,
The fetters are worn away.

  • Buddha

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

Improve MS Quality of Life with Mindfulness

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“Multiple sclerosis (MS) can be an overwhelming challenge. One day you can feel strong and resilient, but the next day you can feel helpless and isolated. On these days, getting an extra push or boost from others just like you can make all the difference. ‘A positive attitude is the best medicine.’” – MS patient Lorri Lowe Peterson

“Multiple sclerosis (MS) is the most widespread disabling neurological condition of young adults around the world. more than 400,000 people in the United States and about 2.5 million people around the world have MS. About 200 new cases are diagnosed each week in the United States. The most common early symptoms of MS are: fatigue vision problems tingling and numbness vertigo and dizziness muscle weakness and spasms problems with balance and coordination.” – Healthline http://www.healthline.com/health/multiple-sclerosis/facts-statistics-infographic.

 

MS is most commonly diagnosed in people between the ages of 20 and 50 years with an average age between 30 and 35 years.  There is no cure for multiple sclerosis.  There are a number of approved medications that are used to treat MS but are designed to lessen frequency of relapses and slow the progression of the disease, but they don’t address individual symptoms. MS is not fatal with MS patients having about the same life expectancy as the general population. Hence, most MS sufferers have to live with the disease for many years. So, quality of life becomes a major issue. There is a thus a critical need for safe and effective methods to help relieve the symptoms of MS and improve quality of life.

 

Quality of life with MS is affected by fatigue, cognitive decrements, physical impairment, depression, and poor sleep quality. But, depressive symptoms are the most problematic with clinically significant depression present in 50% of MS sufferers. Since mindfulness has been previously shown to improve depression (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/depression/) sleep quality (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/mindfulness-is-a-snooze/), cognitive impairments (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/cognition/), and emotion regulation (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/emotions/, it would seem likely that mindfulness would affect the quality of life in MS patients.

 

In today’s Research News article “Examining trait mindfulness, emotion dysregulation, and quality of life in multiple sclerosis”

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Schirda and colleagues investigated the relationship of trait mindfulness with the quality of life and its associated symptoms in MS patients. They found that the higher the levels of trait mindfulness the lower the levels of depression and emotion dysregulation and the higher the quality of life in the patients. They also found that the reduction in emotion dysregulation was partially responsible for the positive relationship between mindfulness and quality of life. In addition, the higher the depression level the larger the impact of mindfulness’ association with emotion dysregulation on quality of life.

 

So, as predicted, mindfulness played an important role in mitigating the effects of MS on quality of life and its associated symptoms. These relationships in MS patients parallel the effects of mindfulness on healthy individuals and so would seem to be universal regardless of the disease state. That emotion regulation appears to be central is very interesting. Mindfulness is known to allow the individual to fully experience emotions but to respond to them in a positive and constructive way. The results of the study then suggest that this may be the critical effect of mindfulness for the patient to experience a high quality of life

 

It should be kept in mind that Schirda and colleagues’ study did not manipulate mindfulness, rather simply looking at existing levels of trait mindfulness and their relationships with quality of life. Hence, it can’t be concluded that mindfulness causes quality of life improvements in MS. For example, it could be that people who have a high quality of life with MS become more mindful. It will take future manipulative research to establish mindfulness’ effectiveness in treating MS patients.

 

But, we can tentatively recommend to improve MS quality of life with mindfulness.

 

“I want America to know that you can still have a full, exciting and productive life even if you or your loved one is battling a debilitating, chronic disease such as MS.” – Michaele Salahi

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

Regulate Emotions with Mindfulness

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“If your emotional abilities aren’t in hand, if you don’t have self-awareness, if you are not able to manage your distressing emotions, if you can’t have empathy and have effective relationships, then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very far.” – Daniel Goleman

 

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. It has been shown to affect our ability to regulate emotions (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/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 emotion regulation in older and young adults.”

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Prakash and colleagues delve into mindfulness, emotion regulation and dysregulation, and overall well-being in younger (mean 23 years of age) and older (mean 65 years of age) adults. They found that older adults were significantly higher in mindfulness and lower in emotional difficulties (dysregulation). They further found that people who were high in mindfulness were lower in emotional difficulties (dysregulation). This may have been due to the fact that people high in mindfulness were less likely to use suppression or thought avoidance to regulate emotions. As a result, mindful people tended to regulate emotions by confronting them rather than avoiding them. This was substantiated by the finding that high mindfulness was associated with higher emotional clarity. Finally, they found that age made a difference. The younger group had a much stronger tendency to use suppression and thought avoidance than the older group and the influence of these strategies on emotion dysregulation was stronger in the younger group.

 

These results help to clarify how mindfulness may help us avoid emotional difficulties and why older adults appear to have less emotional troubles. The key appears to be the type of strategy used to deal with emotions. Younger people tend to try to suppress the emotion or avoid thinking about it and as a result don’t experience fully, confront, or regulate emotions as well as older adults. But, younger people benefit greatly from mindfulness, reducing the maladaptive suppression and avoidance strategies, and thereby reducing the dysregulation of emotions. Older adults, on the other hand are more mindful and tend not to avoid emotions but to confront them with clarity and thereby are better able to deal with them.

 

So, regulate emotions with mindfulness.

 

“Mindfulness is the aware, balanced acceptance of the present experience. It isn’t more complicated than that. It is opening to or receiving the present moment, pleasant or unpleasant, just as it is, without either clinging to it or rejecting it.” – Sylvia Boorstein

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

Be Less Dependent upon Others with Mindfulness

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“Authority refers to an interpersonal relation in which one person looks upon another as somebody superior to him.” – Erich Fromm
The human being is a social animal. We need other people as the oft quoted saying goes “no man is an island.” But people vary greatly in how much they need other people. Some people are very independent and do not have a strong need to rely upon and be with others, while other people are very dependent on others for comfort and support. High interpersonal dependency is frequently related to low self-esteem, depression, and social anxiety. This can reach a level of a pathological dependence where the individual is totally dependent on others and has an impaired sense of self.

 

An extreme level of dependency on other people is diagnosed as dependent personality disorder. This disorder occurs in about 0.6% of the population and is characterized by an inability to make decisions alone, a need for constant reassurance, feelings of uncomfortableness and helplessness when alone, unrealistic fears of being abandoned, and excessive effort to be supported by others. The individual who is so dependent will want to pass over the responsibly for their life to other people as much as possible. They will also tend to feel helpless if other people are not around to offer guidance and support, and will not disagree with others for fear of loss of that support. Needless to say, the individual cannot function effectively and some form of therapy is needed.

 

Mindfulness training would in theory be helpful for interpersonal dependency. This follows from the ability of mindfulness to help improve emotion regulation, reduce depression, worry, and anxiety, and improve reappraisal skills. In today’s Research News article “The Application of Mindfulness for Interpersonal Dependency: Effects of a Brief Intervention”

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McClintock and Anderson first induced a dependency mood in undergraduate students who were high in interpersonal dependency. This induction greatly increased anxiety and negative emotions in the students. They then treated the students with either a brief (20 min) mindfulness training or a similar control condition that required concentration and imagination but not mindfulness. They found that the brief mindfulness training significantly increased mindfulness, and decreased anxiety and negative emotions. They further found that the mindfulness facet of decentering was completely responsible for the effectiveness of the mindfulness training.

 

These results are very interesting and suggest that mindfulness training may be an effective treatment for interpersonal dependence. They further suggest that the mindfulness facet of decentering is responsible for the effectiveness. Decentering involves a change from personally identifying with thoughts and feelings to relating to one’s experience in a wider field of awareness. In other words mindfulness training produces a reduction in the personalization of experience. This allows the individual to interpret experience as not always about themselves, providing objectivity in interpreting experience. Since interpersonal dependence relies upon the individual interpreting experience as reflective of their personal ineffectualness and worthlessness, the reinterpretation allowed by decentering would be quite beneficial.

 

Obviously, much work needs to be done to demonstrate that mindfulness training is effective for dependent personality disorder in clinical application and over a longer period of time. But the present results suggest the more intensive investigation is warranted.

 

So, practice mindfulness and be less dependent on others.

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

Improve Teacher Well-Being with Mindfulness

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“The connection between mindfulness and education is both natural and fundamentally important, now more than ever.  The difference between a good teacher and a great teacher, it is often that ineffable quality that you know but cannot pin down in words.”  – The Mindful teacher

 

Teaching is a stressful profession causing many to burn out and leave the profession. A recent survey found that roughly half a million U.S. teachers move or leave the profession each year. That’s a turnover rate of about 20 percent compared to 9 percent in 2009. Indeed, anywhere from 40 and 50 percent of teachers will leave the classroom within their first five years, with over nine percent leaving before the end of their first year.

 

The high stress of the occupation shows up in higher rates of anxiety disorders, but particularly in physical ailments, with higher rates of laryngitis, conjunctivitis, lower urinary tract infections, bronchitis, eczema/dermatitis and varicose veins in female teachers. There is a pressing need to retain good teachers. So, it has become very important to identify means to help relieve the stress and lower burnout rates.

 

Mindfulness has been shown repeatedly to decrease physiological and psychological responses to stress (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/destress-with-mindfulness/ and http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/research-news/stress/). Mindfulness has also been shown to help improve performance and relieve stress in students (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/08/08/building-a-better-adult-with-elementary-school-mindfulness-training/ and http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/09/04/go-to-college-with-mindfulness/). In addition, mindfulness has been shown to decrease burnout in the medical profession (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/08/10/burnout-burnout-with-mindfulness/). So, it would seem reasonable to suspect that mindfulness training would help teachers to reduce stress, the consequent physical symptoms, and burnout.

 

In today’s Research News article “The Effectiveness of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction on Educator Stress and Well-Being: Results from a Pilot Study”

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Frank and colleagues investigate the effectiveness of a mindfulness -based stress reduction (MBSR) program to improve high school teacher stress and well-being. They found that MBSR produced significant improvement in emotion regulation, self-kindness, mindfulness, overall self-compassion, and sleep quality in comparison to a no-treatment control group.

 

Hence it appears that MBSR is effective in improving well-being and reducing stress in high school teachers. Of course, more research is needed particularly with randomly assigned active control conditions and long term follow-up. But, these results are very promising. Given the importance of education to the well-being of our entire society, helping to relieve the problems experienced by teachers has to be a high priority.

 

This as well as research with students points to a development of a total mindful environment in education, where both students and teachers are trained in mindfulness and mindfulness practice is incorporated in the school day. The research suggests that this could have a major positive effect on education.

 

So, teach and learn with mindfulness

 

“I had decided that this would be my last year teaching until the mindfulness program began at my school. Now I am rededicated to my profession.” – Teacher, East Oakland

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

Maintain Emotional Balance with Mindfulness

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“If your emotional abilities aren’t in hand, if you don’t have self-awareness, if you are not able to manage your distressing emotions, if you can’t have empathy and have effective relationships, then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very far.” – Daniel Goleman

 

There are four facets to emotions, the physiological response, the intensity, the label, and the time course. Emotions are accompanied by changes in our internal state, often an arousal response. These have an intensity being somewhere between mild to overwhelmingly strong. But neither the physiological response nor the intensity defines the emotion that we experience. Rather, we label the experience as a particular emotion depending upon the circumstance in which it occurs. So, if we come home late at night and upon entering our home we are surprised by unexpected people in the house. This may be labelled fear if these are strangers, anger if these are people whom you’ve earlier asked to leave, or happiness if it’s friends throwing you a surprise party.

 

One aspect of emotions that the scientific study of emotions has rarely addressed is the time course of the emotion; how quickly does it peak, how long does it last, and how quickly does it dissipate and return to normal. This aspect can be very important. If we get over fear quickly the consequences may be quite different that if it persists for a long period of time. Persistent emotions can become problematic leading to physical or mental problems. They can also be self-perpetuating, where fear of the fear results in an increasing spiral of more and more intense fear. So an important personal characteristic is the ability to recover from emotion quickly.

 

Mindfulness has been demonstrate to improve emotion regulation (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/09/10/take-command-and-control-of-your-emotions/ and http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/08/20/regulate-emotions-with-mindfulness/) and emotional intelligence (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/be-smart-about-emotions/). In today’s Research News article “Why It Pays to be Mindful: Trait Mindfulness Predicts Physiological Recovery from Emotional Stress and Greater Differentiation among Negative Emotions”

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Fogarty and colleagues identified participants with high levels of mindfulness and those with low levels. They then measured heart rate, hear rate variability, and the subjective emotional experiences of these participants while writing about an emotionally charged experience that they had or an emotionally neutral experience. They found that males with high mindfulness had lower heart rate variability to emotions than low mindful participants, suggesting that mindful men experience emotions at lower intensity. They also found that more mindful men had greater physiological reactivity to an emotional task followed by superior recovery. In addition, high mindfulness participants were better able to distinguish between emotions.

 

Of course these results are correlational and need to be repeated manipulating levels of mindfulness with training. But, like the literature, they suggest that mindful individuals have better emotion regulation including clearer experiences of different emotions and lower physiological intensity of emotions.

 

So, be mindful and improve emotional experiences.

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

“Mindful meditation has been discovered to foster the ability to inhibit those very quick emotional impulses.” – Daniel Goleman

Respond Better to Therapy with Mindfulness

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“Never be ashamed of what you feel. You have the right to feel any emotion that you want, and to do what makes you happy. That’s my life motto.” – Demi Lovato
A large proportion of psychological problems involve difficulties with emotions. These include depression, anxiety disorders, phobias, bipolar disorder, etc. Much of psychotherapy is devoted to treating these disorders. So, it is important to constantly work to improve treatment methodology for better treatment outcomes. Mindfulness has been shown to be effective in improving the regulation of emotions. (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/09/10/take-command-and-control-of-your-emotions/ and http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/08/20/regulate-emotions-with-mindfulness/). So, it would be expected that mindfulness would be a positive influence on the outcomes of psychotherapy.

 

Mindfulness is both a state and as a trait. We can be particularly mindful at a specific moment in time or we can be in general mindful most of the time. A person, high in trait mindfulness would simply be more likely to have state mindfulness at any particular time. People who are high in trait mindfulness tend to pay attention to their emotions more and be very aware of their emotions and internal sensations accompanying them. But they tend to experience these emotions at more moderate and manageable intensities, have a much lower tendency to judge the emotions as good or bad, and be better able to respond appropriately to the emotions. So, mindful individuals have superior emotion regulation. This should allow them to be better able to deal with emotions in therapy and have better therapeutic outcomes.

 

In a previous post we learned that mindfulness improves the performance of therapists by improving the therapeutic alliance with the client.This alliance, however, involves two people, the therapist and the client. It would be interesting to know if the client’s level of mindfulness was also important in psychotherapy. Would more mindful clients respond better to therapy and have improved outcomes?

 

In today’s Research News article “Does Patients’ Pretreatment Trait-Mindfulness Predict the Success of Cognitive Psychotherapy for Emotion Regulation?”

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Cousin and Page investigate the relationship between the clients’ levels of trait mindfulness and the success of group therapy for emotional issues. They treated clients with a variety of psychological disorders, and measured their improvements in emotion regulation over the 20 weeks of group therapy. They found that high trait mindfulness was associated with greater improvements in emotion regulation than for participants with low trait mindfulness.

 

These results strongly suggest that the client’s level of mindfulness is as important as the therapists in promoting positive outcomes in psychotherapy. They also strongly suggest that clients’ who are high in mindfulness are better able to improve regulation of their emotions in therapy. These are important findings as they suggest that mindfulness training may be an important way to improve the effectiveness of psychotherapy.

 

So, be mindful and respond better to therapy.

 

“To balance and control your emotions is one of the most important things in life. Positive emotions enhance your life. Negative emotions sabotage your life.”– Dr T.P.Chia
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies