CONTEXT: Patients who have received solid organ transplants continue to experience a myriad of complex symptoms related to their underlying disease and to chronic immunosuppression that reduce the quality of life. Beneficial nonpharmacologic therapies to address these symptoms have not been established in the transplant population.OBJECTIVE: Assess the efficacy of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) in reducing symptoms of anxiety, depression, and poor sleep in transplant patients.
DESIGN, SETTING, AND PATIENTS: Controlled trial with a two-staged randomization. Recipients of kidney, kidney/pancreas, liver, heart, or lung transplants were randomized to MBSR (n=72) or health education (n=66) initially or after serving in a waitlist. Mean age was 54 years (range 21-75); 55% were men, and 91% were white.
INTERVENTIONS: MBSR, a mindfulness meditation training program consisting of eight weekly 2.5-hour classes; health education, a peer-led active control.
PRIMARY OUTCOME MEASURES: Anxiety (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory), depression (Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale), and sleep quality (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index) scales assessed by self-report at baseline, 8 weeks, 6 months, and 1 year.
RESULTS: Benefits of MBSR were above and beyond those afforded by the active control. MBSR reduced anxiety and sleep symptoms (P < .02), with medium treatment effects (.51 and .56) at 1 year compared to health education in intention-to-treat analyses. Within the MBSR group, anxiety, depression, and sleep symptoms decreased and quality-of-life measures improved by 8 weeks (P < .01, all), and benefits were retained at 1 year (P < .05, all). Initial symptom reductions in the health education group were smaller and not sustained. Comparisons to the waitlist confirmed the impact of MBSR on both symptoms and quality of life, whereas health education improvements were limited to quality-of-life ratings.
CONCLUSIONS: MBSR reduced distressing symptoms of anxiety, depression, and poor sleep and improved quality of life. Benefits were sustained over 1 year. A health education program provided fewer benefits, and effects were not as durable. MBSR is a relatively inexpensive, safe, and effective community-based intervention.
OBJECTIVE: We explored the potential impact of mindfulness-based yoga (MBY) for youth with persistent concussion by examining occupation-based and neurophysiological outcomes.METHOD: In this case series design study, 6 youths ages 13-17 yr with concussion symptoms for >4 wk participated in an 8-wk MBY intervention, 1×/wk for 45 min. Participation, self-efficacy, and heart rate variability (24 hr) were collected before, after, and 3 mo after the intervention. Heart rate variability was also measured during each session.
RESULTS: Trends of increased self-efficacy in academic, social, and emotional domains were found after MBY and maintained at 3-mo follow-up. Trends of increasing heart rate variability were also found pre- to postintervention and within the eight MBY sessions.
CONCLUSION: Preliminary results reveal positive trends after a novel, safe intervention for youth with persistent concussion symptoms and the value of exploring both occupation-based and neurophysiological measures. Future research with a larger sample and control group is warranted.
This study is the first to examine the potential role of mindfulness for attenuating anger and aggression in prospective criminal justice professionals. The Mindful Attention Awareness Scale, Aggression Questionnaire, Hostile Attribution Bias Scale, and Thought Recognition Inventory were administered to 272 undergraduate criminal justice majors. The results of a multivariate analysis of variance model indicated that dispositional mindfulness related negatively with self-reported aggression and hostile attribution bias and positively with thought recognition. A possible relationship between mindfulness and thought recognition may operate to influence other mechanisms to heighten mental health, as well as reduce anger and aggression. The potential benefits of mindfulness and thought recognition training for criminal justice professionals and prospective criminal justice professionals are discussed.
Empirical evidence for the effectiveness of mindfulnessbased cognitive therapy (MBCT) is encouraging. However, dataconcerning the role of mindfulness in its relapse preventive effect
are lacking. In our study, 25 formerly depressed patients received
MBCT. Mindfulness was assessed before and immediately after
MBCT using the Mindful Attention and Awareness Scale. Mindfulness significantly increased during MBCT, and posttreatment levels
of mindfulness predicted the risk of relapse/recurrence to major
depressive disorder in the 12-month follow-up period. Mindfulness
predicted the risk of relapse/recurrence after controlling for numbers
of previous episodes and residual depressive symptoms. The results
provide preliminary evidence for the notion that mindfulness is an
important factor in relapse prevention in major depression.
While mindfulness is an ancient concept, it has only relatively recently begun to be investigated as a practice in the western world. Mindfulness has shown promise as an intervention to be used for a broad range of ages and presenting concerns. It has very recently begun to be explored as an effective way to enhance the services provided by various caregiver professions. A pilot study found that classroom teachers believed mindfulness to have been helpful in their personal and professional lives. This study explored how mindfulness practitioners related mindfulness to their livelihoods, looking specifically at teachers in PreK-12 classrooms. Participants found mindfulness to be useful in their personal and professional lives, taught mindfulness to their students without being asked, and thought that their own mindfulness practice was helpful to their students even in the absence of directly teaching the practices to them. Recommendations include offering CEU courses on mindfulness to teachers, bringing mindfulness to all school personnel at schools that are in crisis, integrating mindfulness into existing teacher preparation programs, and intentionally incorporating mindful conversation into mindfulness programs for teachers and others. Future in depth qualitative studies of mindfulness for classroom teachers will be useful for further developing ideas about how best to bring mindfulness to this population and what the qualifications should be, if any, for teachers to teach mindfulness to their students and/or other school staff members.
Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) has shown effectiveness for a variety of mental health conditions. However, it is not known for whom the intervention is most effective. In a randomized controlled trial (N = 30), we explored whether individuals with higher levels of pretreatment trait mindfulness would benefit more from MBSR intervention. Results demonstrated that relative to a control condition (n = 15), MBSR treatment (n = 15) had significant effects on several outcomes, including increased trait mindfulness, subjective well-being, and empathy measured at 2 and 12 months after treatment. However, relative to controls, MBSR participants with higher levels of pretreatment mindfulness showed a larger increase in mindfulness, subjective well-being, empathy, and hope, and larger declines in perceived stress up to 1 year after treatment. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol 00:1–11, 2011.
The Anthropocene is rooted in the proposition that human activity has disrupted earth systems to the extent that it has caused us to enter a new geological age. We identify three popular discourses of what the Anthropocene means for humanity's future: the Moral Jeremiad admonishes the transgression of planetary boundaries and advocates reductions to live sustainably within Earth's limits; the Technofix Earth Engineer approach depicts the Age of Humanity as an engineering opportunity to be met with innovative technological solutions to offset negative impacts; and the New Genesis discourse advocates re-enchantment of humanity's connections to earth. By contrast, we find that in many indigenous and premodern narratives and myths disseminated across the North Pacific and East Asia, it is the trickster-demiurge Raven that is most closely linked to environmental change and adaptation. Whereas Raven tales among northern Pacific indigenous communities emphasize a moral ecology of interdependence, creative adaptation, and resilience through practical knowledge (mētis), robustly centralizing Zhou Dynasty elites transposed early Chinese Raven trickster myths with tales lauding the human subjugation of nature. Raven and his fate across the northern Pacific reminds us that narratives of environmental crisis, as opposed to narratives of environmental change, legitimate attempts to invest power and authority in the hands of elites, and justify their commandeering of technological xes in the name of salvation.
This metatheoretical paper investigates mind wandering from the perspective of philosophy of mind. It has two central claims. The first is that on a conceptual level, mind wandering can be fruitfully described as a specific form of mental autonomy loss. The second is that most of what we call “conscious thought” is better analysed as a subpersonal process that more often than not lacks crucial properties traditionally taken to be the hallmark of personal-level cognition, such as mental agency, explicit, consciously experienced goal-directedness, or availability for veto control. I claim that for roughly two thirds of our life-time we do not possess mental autonomy (M-autonomy) in this sense. Empirical data from research on mind wandering and nocturnal dreaming clearly show that phenomenally represented cognitive processing is mostly an automatic, non-agentive process and that personal-level cognition is an exception rather than the rule. This raises an interesting new version of the mind-body problem: How is subpersonal cognition causally related to personal-level thought? More fine-grained phenomenological descriptions for what we called “conscious thought” in the past are needed, as well as a functional decomposition of umbrella terms like “mind wandering” into different target phenomena and a better understanding of the frequent dynamic transitions between spontaneous, task-unrelated thought and meta-awareness.. In an attempt to lay some very first conceptual foundations for the now burgeoning field of research on mind wandering, the third section proposes two new criteria for individuating single episodes of mind-wandering, namely, the “self-representational blink” (SRB) and a sudden shift in the phenomenological “unit of identification” (UI). I close by specifying a list of potentially innovative research goals that could serve to establish a stronger connection between mind wandering research and philosophy of mind.
The environmental connectedness perspective posits that direct encounter with generalized, or non-specific “nature,” leads to environmental connectedness and subsequent pro-environmental behavior. This article examines this perspective and proposes a place-based application of the nature encounter-environmental behavior relation. An empirical study using data from a national survey on outdoor recreation and nature-based tourism is presented. Results show a minimal relationship between measures of environmental connectedness and self-reports of environmental behavior. The following examination of the environmental connectedness perspective reveals that environmental connectedness is rooted in a material/objective perspective, neglecting the human domain of perceptions, values, and representations. The environment as “nature” is portrayed as a geographically undefined agent with the inherent power to change human attitudes and behavior. Based on this, the article concludes with a proposed replacement of the elusive concept of nature for the relational concept of place.
Anxiety is a debilitating symptom of many psychiatric disorders including generalized anxiety disorder, mood disorders, schizophrenia, and autism. Anxiety involves changes in both central and peripheral biology, yet extant functional imaging studies have focused exclusively on the brain. Here we show, using functional brain and cardiac imaging in sequential brain and cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) sessions in response to cues that predict either threat (a possible shock) or safety (no possibility of shock), that MR signal change in the amygdala and the prefrontal and insula cortices predicts cardiac contractility to the threat of shock. Participants with greater MR signal change in these regions show increased cardiac contractility to the threat versus safety condition, a measure of the sympathetic nervous system contribution to the myocardium. These findings demonstrate robust neural-cardiac coupling during induced anxiety and indicate that individuals with greater activation in brain regions identified with aversive emotion show larger magnitude cardiac contractility increases to threat.
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One of the best-loved books by one of the great spiritual authors of our time, with a new introduction by best-selling author Sue Monk Kidd. New Seeds of Contemplation is one of Thomas Merton's most widely read and best-loved books. Christians and non-Christians alike have joined in praising it as a notable successor in the meditative tradition of St. John of the Cross, The Cloud of Unknowing, and the medieval mystics, while others have compared Merton's reflections with those of Thoreau. New Seeds of Contemplation seeks to awaken the dormant inner depths of the spirit so long neglected by Western man, to nurture a deeply contemplative and mystical dimension in our lives. For Merton, "Every moment and every event of every man's life on earth plants something in his soul. For just as the wind carries thousands of winged seeds, so each moment brings with it germs of spiritual vitality that come to rest imperceptibly in the minds and wills of men. Most of these unnumbered seeds perish and are lost, because men are not prepared to receive them: for such seeds as these cannot spring up anywhere except in the soil of freedom, spontaneity and love."
This study explored the question of whether a relationship exists between the Nordic cultural idea of friluftsliv and the psychological construct of environmental connectedness (EC). This quantitative study employed a correlational design with existing data from the Swedish Outdoor Recreation in Change national survey. Results indicate that there is a significant and meaningful relationship between friluftsliv, operationally defined as nature-based outdoor recreation participation, and EC even when controlling for other predictor variables. In addition, research findings indicate that age group moderates this relationship with one group exception. It was also found that activity participation by respondents shows a correlation with both EC and age group. Implications of this study support a cultural understanding of nature-based outdoor recreation and an awareness of the important role of access to nature as an essential component of nature-based outdoor recreation. Age group differences supported a variety of implications and recommendations for future research. A consideration of how the results may have implications for environmental education and sustainability efforts were explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]; Copyright of Environmental Education Research is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
Background High stress and depression during pregnancy are risk factors for worsened health trajectories for both mother and offspring. This is also true for pre-pregnancy obesity and excessive gestational weight gain. Reducing stress and depression may be one path to prevent excessive caloric intake and gestational weight gain. Study Purpose We tested the feasibility of two novel interventions aimed at reducing stress and overeating during pregnancy. Reflecting different theoretical underpinnings, the interventions target different mechanisms. Mindful Moms Training (MMT) uses mindfulness to improve awareness and acceptance of experiences and promote conscious rather than automatic behavior choices. Emotional Brain Training (EBT) uses active coping to change perceptions of negative experience and promote positive affective states. Methods Forty-six overweight/obese low-income women were assigned to either MMT (n = 24) or EBT (n = 22) for an 8-week feasibility study. Pre-post changes in perceived stress, eating and presumed mechanisms were assessed. Results Women reported high levels of stress at baseline. Both interventions were well attended and demonstrated clinically significant pre-post reductions in stress, depressive symptoms, and improved eating behaviors. MMT significantly decreased experiential avoidance, whereas EBT significantly increased positive reappraisal; these changes were marginally significantly different by group. Conclusions This feasibility study found that both interventions promoted meaningful reductions in stress and depressive symptoms and improved reported eating behaviors in a high-risk group of pregnant women. Each intervention has a potentially different pathway-acceptance for MMT and reappraisal for EBT. Larger studies are needed to test efficacy on longer term reductions in stress and overeating.
This study sought to establish pupil and teacher views about a six-hour, whole-class mindfulness programme called Paws.b. Pupil post-intervention focus groups and teacher semi-structured interviews were used to ascertain what was interesting and useful about Paws.b, and how it could be developed. Audio recordings were transcribed and thematically analysed. Findings indicated the vast majority of pupils enjoyed Paws.b and it was deemed to be both accessible to pupils and feasible for teachers to deliver. A number of themes highlighted the impact of Paws.b upon pupils’ attention but also on their metacognition and social/emotional functioning, both within and beyond the classroom. Several potentially fruitful adaptations were also proposed. Findings are discussed relative to mindfulness and educational psychology literature, and future directions for research are outlined.
Adolescents with implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) or pacemakers (PMs) face unique challenges that can cause psychosocial distress. Psychosocial interventions are effective for adults with cardiac devices and could potentially impact adolescents' adjustment to these devices. Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) is a structured psycho-educational program that includes meditation, yoga, and group support and has been studied extensively among adults. This study examined the feasibility of the MBSR program for adolescents with ICDs/PMs, a population previously unexamined in the research literature. The participants completed measures of anxiety and depression (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale) and coping (Responses to Stress Questionnaire) at baseline and after the six-session MBSR intervention. Mean age of the cohort (n = 10) was 15 +/- 3 years, 6 were male, 6 had a PM, and 4 had an ICD. Feasibility was demonstrated by successful recruitment of 10 participants, 100 % participation and completion. Anxiety decreased significantly following the intervention, with a large effect size, t[9] = 3.67, p < .01, eng (2) = .59. Anxiety frequency decreased from baseline to post-intervention (Fisher's exact test p = .024), and 90 % of participants reported decreased anxiety scores post-intervention. Coping skills related negatively to anxiety (r = -.65, p = .04) and depression (r = -.88, p = .001). Post-intervention, the group independently formed their own Facebook group and requested to continue meeting monthly. Although generalizability is limited due to the small sample size, this successful pilot study paves the way for larger studies to examine the efficacy of MBSR interventions in adolescents with high-risk cardiac diagnoses.
Adolescents with implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) or pacemakers (PMs) face unique challenges that can cause psychosocial distress. Psychosocial interventions are effective for adults with cardiac devices and could potentially impact adolescents' adjustment to these devices. Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) is a structured psycho-educational program that includes meditation, yoga, and group support and has been studied extensively among adults. This study examined the feasibility of the MBSR program for adolescents with ICDs/PMs, a population previously unexamined in the research literature. The participants completed measures of anxiety and depression (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale) and coping (Responses to Stress Questionnaire) at baseline and after the six-session MBSR intervention. Mean age of the cohort (n = 10) was 15 +/- 3 years, 6 were male, 6 had a PM, and 4 had an ICD. Feasibility was demonstrated by successful recruitment of 10 participants, 100 % participation and completion. Anxiety decreased significantly following the intervention, with a large effect size, t[9] = 3.67, p < .01, eng (2) = .59. Anxiety frequency decreased from baseline to post-intervention (Fisher's exact test p = .024), and 90 % of participants reported decreased anxiety scores post-intervention. Coping skills related negatively to anxiety (r = -.65, p = .04) and depression (r = -.88, p = .001). Post-intervention, the group independently formed their own Facebook group and requested to continue meeting monthly. Although generalizability is limited due to the small sample size, this successful pilot study paves the way for larger studies to examine the efficacy of MBSR interventions in adolescents with high-risk cardiac diagnoses.
Just as there are rational requirements on thought, there are rational requirements on action. This book defends a conception of ethics, and a related conception of human nature, according to which altruism is included among the basic rational requirements on desire and action.
BACKGROUND:Prepregnancy body mass index and excessive gestational weight gain (GWG) are associated with adverse maternal and infant outcomes. Because stress contributes to obesity and eating behaviors, stress reduction interventions during pregnancy may be a novel way to influence GWG, positively affect maternal and infant outcomes, and address the obesity epidemic intergenerationally.
METHODS:
Our research team is developing a mindfulness-based stress reduction and nutrition intervention for low-income, overweight and obese pregnant women, with healthy GWG as the primary outcome measure. To inform development of the intervention, we conducted focus groups with our target population. Focus group transcripts were analyzed for themes related to sources and importance of stress, relationship between stress and eating, and motivation for a stress reduction pregnancy intervention.
FINDINGS:
Fifty-nine low-income pregnant women from the San Francisco Bay Area participated in focus groups and completed a questionnaire. The vast majority of women (80%) reported experiencing significant stress from a variety of sources and most recognized a relationship between stress and eating in their lives.
CONCLUSIONS:
This at-risk population seems to be extremely interested in a stress reduction intervention to support healthy GWG during pregnancy. The women in our groups described high levels of stress and a desire for programs beyond basic dietary recommendations. These findings inform practitioners and policymakers interested in pregnancy as a "window of opportunity" for behavior change that can affect the metabolic and weight trajectory both for women and their offspring.
Researchers have shown that mood and sense of control over one's life are significantly affected by testimony and other forms of disclosure and that learning to control breathing has positive effects on mood and anxiety. This preliminary experiment tests whether African American and European American abused women who give testimony about their experiences of intimate partner violence and learn how to use yogic breathing techniques have reduced feelings of depression. Results indicate that learning yogic breathing techniques alone and combined with giving testimony significantly reduces feelings of depression. Recasting women as authorities on domestic violence and teaching them how to calm their minds by focusing on yogic breathing may be simple and effective ways to help women take control over their bodies and lives.
By some estimates, more than half of inmates held in jails and prisons in the United States have a substance use disorder. Treatments involving the teaching of meditation and other contemplative practices have been developed for a variety of physical and mental disorders, including drug and alcohol addiction. At the same time, an expanding volunteer movement across the country has been bringing meditation and yoga into jails and prisons. This review first examines the experimental research on one such approach—mindfulness meditation as a treatment for drug and alcohol addiction, as well as the research on mindfulness in incarcerated settings. We argue that to make a substantial impact on recidivism, such programs must mirror volunteer programs which emphasize interdependency and non-duality between the “helper” and the “helped,” and the building of meditation communities both inside and outside of prison.
The promotion of social and emotional learning (SEL) in schools may help prevent emotional and behavioral problems of students. This study evaluated the effects of a SEL curriculum, "Strong Start," on the social-emotional competence of 26 second grade students, using a quasi-experimental, non-equivalent control group design. Results revealed statistically significant and meaningful improvements in teacher ratings of students' internalizing and peer-related pro-social behaviors, particularly for students at greater risk. Conversely, control group students experienced significant worsening of internalizing behaviors and decreased levels of peer-related pro-social behaviors. No changes were reported in externalizing behaviors for either group. Treatment integrity and social validity ratings of "Strong Start" were high. Limitations and implications of this study are addressed.
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