Seven minutes of meditation can reduce racial prejudice
November 19, 2015
Science Daily/University of Sussex
A popular meditation technique that's intended to create feelings of kindness can also reduce prejudice, according to new research. The study found that just seven minutes of Loving-kindness meditation (LKM), a Buddhist practise that promotes unconditional kindness towards oneself and others, is effective at reducing racial bias.
The study, published online in the journal Motivation and Emotion, found that just seven minutes of Loving-kindness meditation (LKM), a Buddhist practise that promotes unconditional kindness towards oneself and others, is effective at reducing racial bias.
Lead researcher Alexander Stell, a Doctoral student in Psychology, said: "This indicates that some meditation techniques are about much more than feeling good, and might be an important tool for enhancing inter-group harmony."
LKM is known to engender happiness and kindness to oneself and others through repeating phrases such as 'may you be happy and healthy' while visualising a particular person.
Some previous studies have shown that inducing happiness in people, for example by exposing them to upbeat music, can actually make them more likely to have prejudiced thoughts compared to those hearing sad music.
Mr Stell said: "We wanted to see whether doing LKM towards a member of another ethnic group would reduce the automatic preference people tend to show for their own ethnic group."
For the study, a sample of 71 white, non-meditating adults were each given a photo of a gender-matched black person and either received taped LKM instructions, or instructions to look at the photos and notice certain features of the face. Both conditions lasted just seven minutes.
Using the Implicit Association Test, the researchers then scored the reaction times of the participants who were asked to match up positive and negative words (for example "happiness" or "wrong") with faces that belonged to either their own or another ethnic group.
On average people are quicker to match positive stimuli with their own group and quicker to match negative stimuli to the other group. This produces a bias 'score' that is considered a more robust measure of prejudice than traditional questionnaire data, which are known to be strongly influenced by social desirability.
The researchers found that just seven minutes of LKM directed to a member of a specific racial group (in this case, a black person) was sufficient to reduce racial bias towards that group. However, there was no marked reduction in racial bias towards other groups.
Additionally the researchers measured levels of positive emotions that were either 'other-regarding' (e.g. love, gratitude, awe, elevation) and those that were more self-directed (e.g. contentment, joy, pride) and found that people doing LKM showed large increases specifically in other-regarding emotions. These other-regarding emotions were found to be what drives the reduction of bias.
Science Daily/SOURCE :http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/11/151119122244.htm
Mindfulness-based stress reduction diminishes chemo brain
December 7, 2015
Science Daily/Indiana University
Participation in a mindfulness-based stress reduction program yields robust and sustained improvement in cancer-related cognitive impairment, a prevalent and potentially debilitating condition that affects attention, memory and executive function in survivors, according to a new study.
Although cancer-related cognitive impairment, sometimes referred to as chemo brain or post-cancer cognitive fuzziness, is common among survivors -- disrupting social relationships, work ability, self-confidence, and quality of life -- clinicians have few treatment options to offer. Cognitive deficits have been seen to persist for more than a decade following cancer treatment for many survivors.
"Randomized Controlled Pilot Trial of Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction for Breast and Colorectal Cancer Survivors: Effects on Cancer-related Cognitive Impairment," published online in advance of print in the Journal of Cancer Survivorship, is the first randomized clinical trial to evaluate the effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction, known as MBSR, on fatigued breast and colorectal cancer survivors, the majority of whom had been treated with chemotherapy.
In the study, MBSR participants reported significantly greater improvement in the ability to pay attention, and also made fewer mistakes on difficult cognitive tasks than those in the control group, which received patient education materials and supportive counseling. Both groups attended eight weeks of two-hour classes led by skilled facilitators.
Retention rates in the trial exceeded 95 percent, strongly suggesting that participants found the program to be worthwhile. Previous studies by the Regenstrief-IU research group have found MBSR to have a positive impact on post-cancer fatigue, depression and sleep disturbance.
Mindfulness training is thought to improve cognitive functioning through mechanisms of focused attention and non-reactive coping with one's internal experiences, such as thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations. Programs in MBSR include a variety of meditation and yoga practices and other elements. These programs typically range in cost between $200 and $800 for an eight-week program, and are widely available in communities and over the Internet.
Those who participated in the MBSR arm of the Regenstrief-IU study reported significant engagement with high rates of self-reported home practice of mindfulness techniques during the study. The majority continued to practice mindfulness throughout the six-month period following conclusion of the program.
"More people than ever are surviving cancer due to the development of targeted and effective treatments," said Shelley Johns, Psy.D., the clinical health psychologist and health services researcher who led the Regenstrief-IU study. "Yet many cancer survivors are living with difficult and persistent side effects of these treatments, which can be incapacitating.
"Mindfulness meditation practices enable cancer survivors to better manage cancer-related cognitive impairment, reported by approximately 35 percent of cancer survivors who have completed treatment," said Dr. Johns, who is a Regenstrief Institute investigator and assistant professor of medicine in the IU School of Medicine. "MBSR provides a creative solution for survivors whose social and occupational functioning may have been negatively impacted by cognitive difficulties."
While some oncologists provide patients with information on cancer-related cognitive impairment, the majority of clinicians do not address this symptom due to lack of evidence-based treatments for the condition according to Dr. Johns.
Science Daily/SOURCE :http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/12/151207131717.htm
Brain study reveals mindfulness could help prevent obesity in children
Research links imbalance in brain connections to childhood obesity
January 21, 2016
Science Daily/Elsevier
Mindfulness, described as paying attention on purpose and being in the present moment with acceptance, could be an effective way to help children avoid obesity. New research suggests that the balance in brain networks in children who are obese is different compared to healthy-weight children, making them more prone to over-eating.
Long-lasting weight loss is difficult; this may be because it requires changes in how the brain functions in addition to changes in diet and exercise. The authors of the study, from Vanderbilt University, say identifying children at risk for obesity early on and using mindfulness approaches to control eating may be one way to approach weight management.
Mindfulness has been shown to increase inhibition and decrease impulsivity. Since obesity and unhealthy eating behaviors may be associated with an imbalance between the connections in the brain that control inhibition and impulse, the researchers say mindfulness could help treat or prevent childhood obesity.
"We know the brain plays a big role in obesity in adults, but what we understand about the neurological connections associated with obesity might not apply to children," explained lead author BettyAnn Chodkowski, from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. "We wanted to look at the way children's brains function in more detail so we can better understand what is happening neurologically in children who are obese."
Chodkowski and her mentors, Ronald Cowan and Kevin Niswender, defined three areas of the brain that may be associated with weight and eating habits: the inferior parietal lobe, which is associated with inhibition, the ability to override an automatic response (in this case eating); the frontal pole, which is associated with impulsivity; and the nucleus accumbens, which is associated with reward.
They used data collected by the Enhanced Nathan Kline Institute -- Rockland Sample from 38 children aged 8-13. Five of the children were classified as obese, and six were overweight. Data included children's weights and their answers to the Child Eating Behaviour Questionnaire, which describes the children's eating habits. The researchers also used MRI scans that showed the function of the three regions of the brain they wanted to study.
The results revealed a preliminary link between weight, eating behavior and balance in brain function. In children who behave in ways that make them eat more, the part of the brain associated with being impulsive appears to be more strongly connected than the part of the brain associated with inhibition.
Conversely, in children who behave in ways that help them avoid food, the part of the brain associated with inhibition is more strongly connected compared to the part of the brain associated with being impulsive.
"Adults, and especially children, are primed towards eating more," said Dr. Niswender, from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. "This is great from an evolutionary perspective -- they need food to grow and survive. But in today's world, full of readily available, highly advertised, energy dense foods, it is putting children at risk of obesity."
"We think mindfulness could recalibrate the imbalance in the brain connections associated with childhood obesity," said Dr. Cowan, from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. "Mindfulness has produced mixed results in adults, but so far there have been few studies showing its effectiveness for weight loss in children."
Science Daily/SOURCE :http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/01/160121092312.htm
Neurobiological changes explain how mindfulness meditation improves health
February 4, 2016
Science Daily/Carnegie Mellon University
New research provides a window into the brain changes that link mindfulness meditation training with health in stressed adults. The study shows that mindfulness meditation training, compared to relaxation training, reduces Interleukin-6, an inflammatory health biomarker, in high-stress, unemployed community adults.
Over the past decade, mindfulness meditation has been shown to improve a broad range of health and disease outcomes, such as slowing HIV progression and improving healthy aging. Yet, little is known about the brain changes that produce these beneficial health effects.
New research from Carnegie Mellon University provides a window into the brain changes that link mindfulness meditation training with health in stressed adults. Published in Biological Psychiatry, the study shows that mindfulness meditation training, compared to relaxation training, reduces Interleukin-6, an inflammatory health biomarker, in high-stress, unemployed community adults.
The biological health-related benefits occur because mindfulness meditation training fundamentally alters brain network functional connectivity patterns and the brain changes statistically explain the improvements in inflammation.
"We've now seen that mindfulness meditation training can reduce inflammatory biomarkers in several initial studies, and this new work sheds light into what mindfulness training is doing to the brain to produce these inflammatory health benefits," said David Creswell, lead author and associate professor of psychology in the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences.
For the randomized controlled trial, 35 job-seeking, stressed adults were exposed to either an intensive three-day mindfulness meditation retreat program or a well-matched relaxation retreat program that did not have a mindfulness component. All participants completed a five-minute resting state brain scan before and after the three-day program. They also provided blood samples right before the intervention began and at a four-month follow-up.
The brain scans showed that mindfulness meditation training increased the functional connectivity of the participants' resting default mode network in areas important to attention and executive control, namely the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Participants who received the relaxation training did not show these brain changes.
The participants who completed the mindfulness meditation program also had reduced IL-6 levels, and the changes in brain functional connectivity coupling accounted for the lower inflammation levels.
"We think that these brain changes provide a neurobiological marker for improved executive control and stress resilience, such that mindfulness meditation training improves your brain's ability to help you manage stress, and these changes improve a broad range of stress-related health outcomes, such as your inflammatory health," Creswell said.
This work bridges health psychology and neuroscience and falls under the new field of health neuroscience, which Creswell is credited with co-founding. It also is another example of the many brain research breakthroughs at Carnegie Mellon. CMU has created some of the first cognitive tutors, helped to develop the Jeopardy-winning Watson, founded a groundbreaking doctoral program in neural computation, and is the birthplace of artificial intelligence and cognitive psychology. Building on its strengths in biology, computer science, psychology, statistics and engineering, CMU launched BrainHub, an initiative that focuses on how the structure and activity of the brain give rise to complex behaviors.
In addition to Creswell, the research team included CMU's Emily Lindsay, April Fairgrieve and Jennifer L. Ferris; the University of Pittsburgh's Adrienne A. Taren, Carol M. Greco, Peter J. Gianaros, Anna L. Marsland and Rhonda K. Rosen; Virginia Commonwealth University's Kirk Warren Brown; and Baldwin M. Way of the Ohio State University.
Science Daily/SOURCE :http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/02/160204121956.htm
Meditation eases pain, anxiety and fatigue during breast cancer biopsy
February 4, 2016
Science Daily/Duke University Medical Center
Meditation eases anxiety, fatigue and pain for women undergoing breast cancer biopsies, according to researchers. They also found that music is effective, but to a lesser extent.
The researchers note that adopting these simple, inexpensive interventions could be especially helpful in light of recent reports citing anxiety and pain as potential harms from breast cancer screenings and testing.
"Image-guided needle biopsies for diagnosing breast cancer are very efficient and successful, but the anxiety and potential pain can have a negative impact on patient care," said Mary Scott Soo, M.D., associate professor of radiology at Duke Cancer Institute and lead author of the study published online February 4 in the Journal of the American College of Radiology.
"Patients who experience pain and anxiety may move during the procedure, which can reduce the effectiveness of biopsy, or they may not adhere to follow-up screening and testing," Soo said.
She added that the study comes at a time when federal reimbursement requirements are increasingly focusing on patient care and adjusting payments based on patient satisfaction.
"It's important that we address these issues to provide a better experience and more compassionate care for our patients," Soo said.
Soo and colleagues enrolled 121 women undergoing breast cancer diagnosis at Duke and randomly assigned them to receive one of three approaches as they underwent stereotactic and ultrasound-guided biopsy: a recorded meditation, music, or standard care with a technologist offering casual conversation and support.
The meditation was a guided "loving/kindness" script that focused on building positive emotions such as compassion towards oneself and others and releasing negative emotions.
Patients in the music group listened to their choice of instrumental jazz, classical piano, harp and flute, nature sounds or world music.
Standard-care patients received supportive and comforting dialogue with the radiologist or technologist.
Immediately before and after biopsy, participants completed questionnaires measuring nervousness and anxiety, ranking biopsy pain between a low of zero to a high of 10, and assessing feelings of weakness and fatigue.
Patients in the meditation and music groups reported significantly greater reductions in anxiety and fatigue after biopsy than those receiving standard care. The standard-care patients reported increased fatigue after biopsy.
The meditation group also showed significantly lower pain during biopsy when compared to the music group.
"Listening to guided meditation resulted in significantly lower biopsy pain during imaging-guided breast biopsy, and both meditation and music reduced patient anxiety and fatigue," Soo said. "There are medical approaches to this -- providing anti-anxiety drugs -- but they sedate patients and require someone to drive them home.
"Meditation is simple and inexpensive, and could be a good alternative in these settings," Soo said. "We would like to see this study scaled up to include a multi-center trial, and see if the findings could be generalized to different practices."
Science Daily/SOURCE :http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/02/160204094915.htm
Exercise and meditation together help beat depression
Scientists say learning new cognitive skills can help reduce overwhelming negative thoughts
February 10, 2016
Science Daily/Rutgers University
A mind and body combination of exercise and meditation, done twice a week for only two months, reduced the symptoms for a group of students by 40 percent.
Meditation and aerobic exercise done together helps reduce depression, according to a new Rutgers study.
The study, published in Translational Psychiatry this month, found that this mind and body combination -- done twice a week for only two months -- reduced the symptoms for a group of students by 40 percent.
"We are excited by the findings because we saw such a meaningful improvement in both clinically depressed and non-depressed students," says Brandon Alderman, lead author of the research study. "It is the first time that both of these two behavioral therapies have been looked at together for dealing with depression."
Alderman, assistant professor in the Department of Exercise Science, and Tracey Shors, professor in the Department of Psychology and Center for Collaborative Neuroscience, both in the School of Arts and Sciences, discovered that a combination of mental and physical training (MAP) enabled students with major depressive disorder not to let problems or negative thoughts overwhelm them.
"Scientists have known for a while that both of these activities alone can help with depression," says Shors. "But this study suggests that when done together, there is a striking improvement in depressive symptoms along with increases in synchronized brain activity."
The men and women in the Rutgers study who completed the eight-week program -- 22 suffering with depression and 30 mentally healthy students -- reported fewer depressive symptoms and said they did not spend as much time worrying about negative situations taking place in their lives as they did before the study began.
This group also provided MAP training to young mothers who had been homeless but were living at a residential treatment facility when they began the study. The women involved in the research exhibited severe depressive symptoms and elevated anxiety levels at the beginning. But at the end of the eight weeks, they too, reported that their depression and anxiety had eased, they felt more motivated, and they were able to focus more positively on their lives.
Depression -- a debilitating disorder that affects nearly one in five Americans sometime in their life -- often occurs in adolescence or young adulthood. Until recently, Rutgers scientists say, the most common treatment for depression has been psychotropic medications that influence brain chemicals and regulate emotions and thought patterns along with talk therapy that can work but takes considerable time and commitment on the part of the patient.
Rutgers researchers say those who participated in the study began with 30 minutes of focused attention meditation followed by 30 minutes of aerobic exercise. They were told that if their thoughts drifted to the past or the future they should refocus on their breathing -- enabling those with depression to accept moment-to-moment changes in attention.
Shors, who studies the production of new brain cells in the hippocampus -- the portion of the brain known to be necessary for some types of new learning--says even though neurogenesis cannot be monitored in humans, scientists have shown in animal models that aerobic exercise increases the number of new neurons and effortful learning keeps a significant number of those cells alive.
The idea for the human intervention came from her laboratory studies, she says, with the main goal of helping individuals acquire new skills so that they can learn to recover from stressful life events. By learning to focus their attention and exercise, people who are fighting depression can acquire new cognitive skills that can help them process information and reduce the overwhelming recollection of memories from the past, Shors says.
"We know these therapies can be practiced over a lifetime and that they will be effective in improving mental and cognitive health," says Alderman. "The good news is that this intervention canbe practiced by anyone at any time and at no cost."
Science Daily/SOURCE :http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/02/160210134834.htm
Everyday mindfulness linked to healthy glucose levels
February 23, 2016
Science Daily/Brown University
Researchers investigating how mindfulness may affect cardiovascular health have measured a significant association between a high degree of 'everyday' mindfulness and a higher likelihood of having normal, healthy glucose levels. Their analysis showed that a lower risk of obesity and greater sense of control among more mindful people may play mediating roles.
The results show an association and do not prove a cause, but they are part of a program led by Brown University where researchers are studying whether interventions that increase mindfulness can improve cardiovascular health. Their overarching hypotheses are that people practicing higher degrees of mindfulness may be better able to motivate themselves to exercise, to resist cravings for high-fat, high-sugar treats, and to stick with diet and exercise regimens recommended by their doctors.
The researchers therefore sought to identify factors that might explain the connection they saw between higher mindfulness and healthier glucose levels. Their analysis of the data showed that obesity risk (mindful people are less likely to be obese) and sense of control (mindful people are more likely to believe they can change many of the important things in their life) both contribute to the link.
"This study demonstrated a significant association of dispositional mindfulness with glucose regulation, and provided novel evidence that obesity and sense of control may serve as potential mediators of this association," wrote the authors led by Eric Loucks, assistant professor of epidemiology in the Brown University School of Public Health. "As mindfulness is likely a modifiable trait, this study provides preliminary evidence for a fairly novel and modifiable potential determinant of diabetes risk."
The study, published in the American Journal of Health Behavior, did not show a direct, statistically significant link between mindfulness and type 2 diabetes risk, which is the medical concern related to elevated blood glucose. Participants with high levels of mindfulness were about 20 percent less likely to have type 2 diabetes, but the total number of people in the study with the condition may have been too small to allow for definitive findings, Loucks said.
Measuring mindfulness, gauging glucose
To gather their data, Loucks and his team enrolled 399 volunteers who've been participating in the New England Family Study. The subjects participated in several psychological and physiological tests including glucose tests and the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS), a 15-item questionnaire to assess dispositional mindfulness on a 1 to 7 scale. The researchers also collected data on a host of other potentially relevant demographic and health traits including body-mass index, smoking, education, depression, blood pressure, perceived stress, and sense of control.
After adjusting their data to account for such confounding factors as age, sex, race or ethnicity, family history of diabetes, and childhood socioeconomic status, the researchers found that people with high MAAS scores of 6 or 7 were 35 percent more likely to have healthy glucose levels under 100 milligrams per deciliter than people with low MAAS scores below 4.
The analysis found that obesity made about a 3-percentage point difference of the total 35-percent point risk difference. Sense of control accounted for another 8 percentage points of the effect. The rest may derive from factors the study didn't measure, but at least now researchers have begun to elucidate the possible mechanisms that link mindfulness to glucose regulation.
"There's been almost no epidemiological observational study investigations on the relationship of mindfulness with diabetes or any cardiovascular risk factor," Loucks said. "This is one of the first. We're getting a signal. I'd love to see it replicated in larger sample sizes and prospective studies as well."
Science Daily/SOURCE :https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/02/160223132541.htm