The proposed research combines the thorough behavioral investigation of Tibetan dreaming practices with a neuroscience perspective. Buddhist traditions have cultivated techniques to induce, enhance, and refine lucid dreaming—the ability to understand that one is dreaming amid a dream. Building on the ability to experience a lucid dream, one can then volitionally engage is specific practices …
Continue reading “Investigating the practices, benefits and neural correlates of Tibetan Dream Yoga”
Intergenerational trauma occurs when the traumas that occurred to one generation have an impact on the health and wellbeing of future descendants. Despite its prevalence among Vietnamese Americans, no research has been done to explore interventions which could promote healing from intergenerational trauma and building resilience in this community. Ample evidence supports that intergenerational trauma …
Think about when you make a mistake or experience a failure—do you shame yourself, or feel like you’re the only person this could’ve happened to? For many, these reactions are habitual. However, research shows that self-compassion—relating to yourself as a caring friend would—in these moments can promote several positive benefits, like improved mental health and …
Early life adversity (ELA) confers lifelong health risk in the 25% of youth who are exposed to trauma in childhood. ELA is thought to program biological adaptations to stress that contribute to inflammatory disease risk. Interventions to reduce this health risk are lacking. Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) have been effective for reducing stress and improving markers …
Continue reading “Remote mindfulness training for health following early life adversity”
Teachers’ interactions with their students have a significant impact on children’s well-being and development in schools. Unfortunately, teachers often enter the profession unprepared to manage challenging student behavior. As a result, they experience stress that undermines how they interact with students and contributes to exhaustion and burnout. Teacher education programs offer curriculum and training, but …
Continue reading “Teacher equanimity for improving behavior management”
While mind-wandering (MW) and perseverative negative thinking (PNT) are considered problematic, recent work has unpacked both positive and negative aspects of MW. While mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) reduce MW in general, it is unclear how MBIs affect specific kinds of MW, and how those changes impact well-being. We propose to examine the mechanisms of MW changes …
Continue reading “Reexamining mechanisms of mind-wandering in mindfulness-based interventions”
As students prepare to leave high school and transition from adolescence to early adulthood, they face many challenges. The current study seeks to support students’ use of mindfulness practices as one method for navigating discomfort during this period of change, specifically during the transition to college. Early adulthood is optimal for introducing mindfulness practice given …
A small number of research studies have found that mindfulness helps to reduce symptoms of depression, anxiety, and rumination in people who are autistic. However, there has been little qualitative research about the experience of autistic adults who practice mindfulness and other contemplative practices. In addition, we don’t yet know if the questionnaires that are …
Fibromyalgia (FM) is a prevalent problem that remains poorly understood and thus also difficult to treat. Mutually reinforcing relationships between pain and affect complicate mechanistic understanding and treatment development; high rates of comorbid affective disturbances compound pain-related suffering and make parsing the mechanistic underpinnings of FM particularly difficult. Over the last decade, spinal cord imaging …
Grant voided.
