Just 10 minutes of meditation helps anxious people have better focus
May 1, 2017
Science Daily/University of Waterloo
Just 10 minutes of daily mindful mediation can help prevent your mind from wandering and is particularly effective if you tend to have repetitive, anxious thoughts, according to a study.
The study, which assessed the impact of meditation with 82 participants who experience anxiety, found that developing an awareness of the present moment reduced incidents of repetitive, off-task thinking, a hallmark of anxiety.
"Our results indicate that mindfulness training may have protective effects on mind wandering for anxious individuals," said Mengran Xu, a researcher and PhD candidate at Waterloo. "We also found that meditation practice appears to help anxious people to shift their attention from their own internal worries to the present-moment external world, which enables better focus on a task at hand."
The term mindfulness is commonly defined as paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and without judgement.
As part of the study, participants were asked to perform a task on a computer while experiencing interruptions to gauge their ability to stay focused on the task. Researchers then put the participants into two groups at random, with the control group given an audio story to listen to and the other group asked to engage in a short meditation exercise prior to being reassessed.
"Mind wandering accounts for nearly half of any person's daily stream of consciousness," said Xu. "For people with anxiety, repetitive off-task thoughts can negatively affect their ability to learn, to complete tasks, or even function safely.
"It would be interesting to see what the impacts would be if mindful meditation was practiced by anxious populations more widely."
Science Daily/SOURCE :https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170501094325.htm
Effectiveness of yoga in treating major depression evaluated
May 8, 2017
Science Daily/Care New England
New research indicates that the benefits of hatha yoga in treating depression are less pronounced in early treatment, but may accumulate over time.
When treating depression, the goal is to help individuals achieve full recovery and normal functioning. While traditional treatment such as medication or psychotherapy is effective for many patients, some may not fully recover even with these treatments. Researchers sought to determine if the addition of hatha yoga would improve treatment outcomes for these patients. They found that the benefits of yoga were less pronounced early in treatment, but may accumulate over time.
The research, entitled "Adjunctive yoga v. health education for persistent major depression: a randomized controlled trial," has been published in Psychological Medicine. The research was led by Lisa Uebelacker, PhD, a research psychologist in the Psychosocial Research Department at Butler Hospital, a Care New England hospital, and an associate professor of psychiatry and human behavior at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. The team also included Gary Epstein-Lubow, MD; Ana M. Abrantes, PhD; Audrey Tyrka, MD, PhD; Brandon A. Gaudiano, PhD; and Ivan W. Miller III, PhD, of Butler Hospital and the Warren Alpert Medical School; Geoffrey Tremont, PhD and Tanya Tran of Rhode Island Hospital and the Warren Alpert Medical School; Tom Gillette of Eyes of the World Yoga; and David Strong of the University of California, San Diego.
"The purpose of this study was to examine whether hatha yoga is effective for treating depression when used in addition to antidepressant medication," explained Dr. Uebelacker. "We did not see statistically significant differences between hatha yoga and a control group (health education) at 10 weeks, however, when we examined outcomes over a period of time including the three and six months after yoga classes ended, we found yoga was superior to health education in alleviating depression symptoms."
According to Dr. Uebelacker, this is the largest study of yoga for depression to date. The team enrolled individuals with current or recent major depression who were receiving antidepressant medication and continued to have clinically significant depression symptoms. Participants were randomized into two groups -- those who participated in a hatha yoga class and a control group who took part in a health education class. The intervention phase lasted 10 weeks and participants were followed for six months afterward.
"We hypothesized that yoga participants would show lower depression severity over time as assessed by the Quick Inventory of Depression Symptomatology (QIDS), as well as better social and role functioning, better general health perceptions and physical functioning, and less physical pain relative to the control group," said Dr. Uebelacker. "We found that yoga did indeed have an impact on depression symptoms."
Science Daily/SOURCE :https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170508130918.htm
Tai chi relieves insomnia in breast cancer survivors
May 10, 2017
Science Daily/University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Health Sciences
Slow-moving meditation practice works just as well as talk therapy, and better than medication in treating sleep loss in breast cancer survivors, investigators report.
If you've ever had insomnia, you know worrying about sleep makes it even harder to fall asleep. For the 30 percent of breast cancer survivors who have insomnia, sleepless nights can lead to depression, fatigue and a heightened risk of disease.
Now, new UCLA research shows that tai chi, a form of slow-moving meditation, is just as effective as cognitive behavioral therapy, which has been considered the "gold standard" treatment, with both showing enduring benefits over one year.
The results, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, show that tai chi promotes robust improvements in sleep health in breast cancer survivors with insomnia, with additional benefits of improving depressive symptoms and fatigue. Furthermore, both tai chi and cognitive behavioral therapy, which is a form of talk therapy, showed similar rates of clinically significant improvements in symptoms or remission of insomnia.
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine considers cognitive behavioral therapy the treatment of choice for insomnia. This approach involves identifying and changing negative thoughts and behaviors that are affecting the ability to fall asleep and stay asleep.
While cognitive behavioral therapy treats insomnia, it's too expensive for some people and there is a shortage of trained professionals in the field, said Dr. Michael Irwin, the study's lead author and a UCLA professor of psychiatry and director of the Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior.
"Because of those limitations, we need community-based interventions like tai chi," Irwin said. Free or low-cost tai chi classes are often offered at libraries, community centers or outdoors in parks. Do-it-yourselfers can find instructional videos on YouTube and smartphone apps.
In previous research, Irwin and colleagues found that tai chi, which relaxes the body and slows breathing, reduced inflammation in breast cancer survivors with the potential to lower risk for disease including cancer recurrence.
To test tai chi's effect on insomnia, researchers recruited 90 breast cancer survivors, who had trouble sleeping three or more times per week and who also reported feeling depressed and fatigue during the daytime. The participants ranged in age from 42 to 83 and were randomly assigned to weekly cognitive behavioral therapy sessions or weekly tai chi instruction for three months. The tai chi group learned a Westernized form of the practice called tai chi chih.
The researchers evaluated the participants at intervals for the next 12 months to determine if they were having insomnia symptoms, as well as symptoms of fatigue and depression, and determined whether they showed improvement.
At 15 months, nearly half of the participants in both groups (46.7 percent in the tai chi group; 43.7 percent in the behavioral therapy group) continued to show robust, clinically significant improvement in their insomnia symptoms.
"Breast cancer survivors often don't just come to physicians with insomnia. They have insomnia, fatigue and depression," said Irwin, who is also a member of the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. "And this intervention, tai chi, impacted all those outcomes in a similar way, with benefits that were as robust as the gold standard treatment for insomnia."
Many of the tai chi participants continued to practice on their own after the study concluded, reflecting the motivation he's observed among breast cancer survivor, Irwin said. "They often are seeking health-promoting activities because they recognize that the mindfulness approach, or health-based lifestyle interventions, may actually protect them," he said.
Science Daily/SOURCE :https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170510175136.htm
Mindfulness takes practice
May 23, 2017
Science Daily/Aarhus University
Mindfulness meditation practice is set at 45 minutes a day at home, as well as weekly group sessions with the teacher. And the 45 minutes is every day, six days a week as long as the course lasts. These are the guidelines for students taking part in the standard Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy or Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction courses, but an average course student practices only 30 minutes. Nevertheless, this practice is related to positive benefit.
The typical student on a standard mindfulness course says they practice for 30 minutes at home every day, and it actually makes a difference, a new study from Aarhus University in Denmark, finds. This is the case, even though teachers ask for more. But can we rely on what people say?
Mindfulness meditation practice is set at 45 minutes a day at home, as well as weekly group sessions with the teacher. And the 45 minutes is every day, six days a week for the eight weeks that the course lasts.
These are the guidelines for students taking part in the standard Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) or Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) courses. Not all students practice for 45 minutes a day. An average course student practices 30 minutes daily at home, but the good news is that nevertheless, this practice is related to positive benefit. This can be measured as reduced stress, pain, better well-being and so on.
These are the main findings of the study "Home practice in Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy and Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction: a systematic review and meta-analysis of participants' mindfulness practice and its associations with outcomes," an international collaboration between the Universities of Aarhus, Oxford and Bristol. The study has recently been published in the journal Behavior Research and Therapy, and according to associate professor Christine Parsons from the Interacting Mind Center at the Department of Clinical Medicine at Aarhus University, it is new and important knowledge:
"This is the clearest evidence we have that mindfulness-home practice can make a difference. This is a big source of debate because there are many components at play in a MBSR or MBCT course. The support of a teacher might bring about benefit, practicing mindfulness on the actual course, or being in a group with similar other people," Christine Parsons says.
According to the study, the effect of doing home practice is small, but statistically significant in the 28 scientific studies included in the analysis. In all studies, the MBCT or MBSR courses were eight weeks long, and the participants kept diaries of their practice at home. The diaries were used by researchers to examine the benefits of practice. Unfortunately, there is always uncertainty linked to a self-report diary, which Christine Parsons is trying to minimize.
Can we rely on students to tell their own teacher about their home practice? Do student fill in their diaries faithfully? We know that people have difficulty reporting on their food or alcohol consumption or even physical activity. Should mindfulness practice be any different?
Similarly, Christine Parsons is concerned about the difference between quantity of mindfulness practice and the of practice. Anyone who has tried to meditate knows that practice can be difficult. For example, it is easy to spend time thinking about a conflict at work or writing a long mental shopping list. Mindfulness practice is about cultivating awareness of the present moment, without judging or evaluating, not just spending time on a yoga mat.
"We need to understand how people truly engage with their home practice. There are many problems with self-report as our only assessment method. I have therefore received money from Trygfonden to develop and test a number of other measurement methods that will clarify how mindfulness students behave outside the classroom. How they practice and what works -- and how it works," Christine Parsons says.
She worked at Oxford University for the past six years, but she has moved her research to the Interacting Minds Center at Aarhus, where she will remain as long as the grant of 2.3 millioner kroner pays for her stay.
Christine Parsons in collaboration with engineers from Aarhus University, led by associate professor Kasper Løvborg Jensen and the Danish Center for Mindfulness, is developing an app that records how long participants listen to the guided meditations, which are part of the home practice in MBCT or MBSR.
The information will be sent via the mobile phone app to a server that registers and compares the incoming data with information from a 'fitness' wristband. This enables the research team to see what happens to, for example, the student's heartbeat when he or she is practicing mindfulness.
"It's all little pieces of the big jigsaw puzzle -- how students actually behave outside the classroom. How they practice, what it means, and what actually works," says Christine Parsons, without wanting to undermine the importance of the recently published result.
"This study forms the basis of our new work, and now we know, that practicing at home has an impact. The question is whether we can use new technology to measure and support participants doing their home practice. And can we support behavior changes in the long run? For example, if you receive a smartphone reminder to practice," Christine Parsons says before she -- again -- praises the unique opportunities for interdisciplinary research at the Interacting Minds Center.
"It's invaluable to sit down with an engineer who poses completely different questions than I can imagine with my psychology background. It opens for a lot of new opportunities. Bringing together mindfulness teachers, engineers and designers allows us to really think about what we can do to best support our students," says Christine Parsons.
Science Daily/SOURCE :https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170523081904.htm
Mindfulness-focused childbirth education leads to less depression
May 24, 2017
Science Daily/University of Wisconsin-Madison
A new study shows mindfulness training that addresses fear and pain during childbirth can improve women's childbirth experiences and reduce their depression symptoms during pregnancy and the early postpartum period.
"Fear of the unknown affects us all, and perhaps none more so than pregnant women," says lead author Larissa Duncan, UW-Madison professor of human development and family studies. "With mindfulness skills, women in our study reported feeling better able to cope with childbirth and they experienced improved mental well-being critical for healthy mother-infant adjustment in the first year of life."
The study also suggests that pregnant women who practice mindfulness may use less medication for pain during labor. Many women and their healthcare providers are concerned about the use of medications during pregnancy, labor and while breastfeeding because of the potential risks to infants. Yet, left untreated, maternal mental health problems also pose a significant risk to infants.
"A mindfulness approach offers the possibility of decreasing the need for these medications and can reach women who may not know they are at risk for perinatal depression or can't access mental health services," Duncan says.
The new study, published in the journal BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, is a randomized, controlled trial called Prenatal Education About Reducing Labor Stress (PEARLS), compares mainstream childbirth education with childbirth education that includes mindfulness skills focused on reducing fear among first-time mothers. Fear of childbirth has been shown in previous studies to be linked to poorer labor-and-delivery outcomes and to depression.
While many consider childbirth education classes a primary resource for pregnant women and their partners to learn information and strategies for the birthing process and remedies for coping with labor pain, there is limited data that demonstrates they achieve these goals for the more than 2 million pregnant women who attend them each year in the United States.
In fact, Duncan says, "sometimes women report that the information in childbirth education actually increases their fear of childbirth."
For the study, considered a pilot because funding limited participation to 30 women and their partners, first-time mothers late in their third trimester of pregnancy were offered either a standard childbirth preparation course lacking a mind-body focus or an intensive weekend workshop called Mind in Labor: Working with Pain in Childbirth.
The workshop was based on the Mindfulness-Based Childbirth and Parenting education course developed by study co-author, Nancy Bardacke, a certified nurse-midwife and senior mindfulness teacher at UCSF. It focused on practices like mindful movement, walking meditation, and pain coping strategies. Previous research shows that mindfulness training can be an effective way to manage both chronic and acute pain.
Participants represented a diversity of ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. They completed self-reported assessments before and after taking part in a childbirth education course and after giving birth. The mindfulness group also received handouts and guided audio materials so they could practice mindfulness on their own. The study team collected medical record data from each woman.
The researchers found a reduction in depression symptoms in the mindfulness group, which continued through their post-birth follow up at approximately six weeks. In contrast, depression symptoms worsened among women who participated in the standard childbirth education courses.
While mothers in the mindfulness group sought epidurals at similar rates to those in the control group and retrospectively reported similar levels of perceived pain during labor, the study did see a trend toward lower use of opioid-based pain medication during labor. While these results were not statistically significant, the rate of narcotic use during labor was around 62 percent in the control group and just 31 percent in the mindfulness group. A larger study is needed to better understand this effect.
"The encouraging results of this small study point to the possibility that mindfulness skills can transform the way expectant parents prepare for this profound life change," says Bardacke. "In addition to supporting moms and babies, we may also be benefiting fathers, who are themselves experiencing the birth of their child and becoming parents. While more research is clearly needed, the larger public health implications of this work are motivating."
Science Daily/SOURCE :https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170524131122.htm
Meditation could be a cheaper alternative to traditional pain medication
June 12, 2017
Science Daily/Leeds Beckett University
Just ten minutes of mindfulness meditation could be used as an alternative to painkillers, according to new research.
Results of the study suggest that a single ten-minute mindfulness meditation session administered by a novice therapist can improve pain tolerance, pain threshold and decrease anxiety towards pain.
The research was carried out by the School of Clinical and Applied Sciences at Leeds Beckett and used a group of 24 healthy university-aged students (12 men and 12 women). They were randomly split into a control group and a meditation group.
A cold-pressor task was used to cause pain to the participants; they put their hand in warm water for two minutes before removing it and placing it immediately into ice water for as long as they could manage and only removed it when the pain became too much and could no longer be tolerated. They then either sat quietly for ten minutes (control group) or meditated for ten minutes before repeating the cold-pressor task.
Five groups of data were then collected; anxiety towards pain, pain threshold, pain tolerance, pain intensity and pain unpleasantness. Pre-intervention the figures didn't differ greatly between the control and meditation groups but following the ten-minute meditation session, the participants from the meditation group saw a significant decrease in anxiety towards pain and a significant increase in pain threshold and pain tolerance.
Speaking about the results of the study, Dr Osama Tashani, Senior Research Fellow in Pain Studies, said: "While further research is needed to explore this in a more clinical setting on chronic pain patients, these results do show that a brief mindfulness meditation intervention can be of benefit in pain relief. The ease of application and cost effectiveness of the mindfulness meditation may also make it a viable addition to the arsenal of therapies for pain management.
"The mindfulness mediation was led by a researcher who was a novice; so in theory clinicians could administer this with little training needed. It's based on traditional Buddhist teachings which focuses attention and awareness on your breathing."
Science Daily/SOURCE :https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/06/170612094633.htm
Mindfulness and the Importance of Developing Compassion in your Career
November 22, 2016
By Anne Foy, Guest Contributor
Mindfulness has become something of a buzzword amongst professionals hoping to de-stress, enhance their wellbeing, and take control of their lives. And yet many people aren’t really clear about what mindfulness actually is. Put simply, mindfulness is the practice of paying close attention to the world around you and the way it impacts on your wellbeing: thinking about the clean fresh air as you take several deep breaths, enjoying the sensation of warm water on your skin as you wash your hands.
Effectively, mindfulness involves focusing on the present moment and processing on the thoughts and feelings that moment creates, and is now regarded as a very effective therapeutic tool. Mindfulness helps people to feel calmer, more connected with the world around them, and more aware of their role within it. As a result, one of the ‘side effects’ of practicing mindfulness is that mindful people are more compassionate: and this is becoming increasingly important within the modern working environment, and is something that many professionals are now striving to achieve, separately to a state of mindfulness.
The Professional Benefits of Compassion
There are many professional benefits of demonstrating compassion in the workplace. Creating a culture of compassion within a workplace has been shown to bring out the best in employees within a wide range of different industries, and increases both morale, productivity, and both of these things will ultimately impact the financial bottom line of the company.
Bringing people together in a supportive environment can also lead to career progression Acknowledging the strength and attributes of others doesn’t negate your own achievements: in fact, if anything, showing this kind of support and compassion will only increase your own standing within your company and bring the right attention to you at the same time.
Most important though is the impact it has on individual employee wellbeing: it is important that compassion is not viewed as a self-serving act and simply as a tool to assist career progression. Rather, you should consider the ways that learning to demonstrate true compassion can enhance every aspect of your life and enrich your journey through the world, as well as through your career.
Learning to Show Self-Compassion
As well as showing compassion to others, is it important that we learn to show self-compassion. According to researcher Kristen Neff, self-compassion is composed of three parts: “self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness.” We often find it easier to forgive others, to show them this common humanity, whilst not forgiving ourselves for the mistakes that we make in life.
Many people choose to consider self-compassion to be something of a self-indulgence, but in reality showing compassion to yourself when you fail, make a mistake, or fall short of expectations (both your own and others) will make you a happier and healthier individual. Showing self-compassion when you fail can also help to get rid of the fear of failure so common in many young professionals.
When you are no longer afraid to fail, you are free to take risks, to make leaps of faith, and to ultimately be brave enough to further your career more than you ever felt possible. Everyone fails: everyone suffers hardships, whether they be personal or professional. Forgiving yourself for those mistakes, showing self-compassion, and accepting that you are infallible, just like everyone else, is an important step in your personal development.
Self-compassion may sound like just another buzz word (it has even been called ‘the new mindfulness’) but in reality it is an important life skill to develop if you want to be happy and successful, both in your life and in your career.
Compassion and Mindfulness are a much more important part of career development than you might thing; getting your mind in a happy and healthy space is an important aspect of developing your career and becoming the person you want to be.
Citations
“Why Self-Compassion is the new Mindfulness”, Mindful.org, http://www.mindful.org/self-compassion-new-mindfulness/
“The importance of Mindfulness and compassion at work: LinkedIn Speaker Series with Matthieu Ricard”, LinkedIn, https://blog.linkedin.com/2015/06/25/the-importance-of-mindfulness-and-compassion-at-work-linkedin-speaker-series-with-matthieu-ricard
“Compassion: An essential ingredient of recovery”, Recovery.org, http://www.recovery.org/compassion-an-essential-ingredient-of-recovery/
"What is compassion and how can we cultivate it", The Oxford Mindfulness Centre, http://www.oxfordmindfulness.org/cultivating-compassion/
“Does Mindfulness Make you More Compassionate?”, Berkeley University, http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/does_mindfulness_make_you_compassionate
“10 ways to bring more compassion to the workplace”, The Chopra Center, http://www.chopra.com/articles/10-ways-to-bring-more-compassion-to-the-workplace