I was looking at how meditation affects the sleeping brain. The results were paradoxical, in that the more a person meditates, the better they report sleeping, but the worse they sleep on pretty much any objective measure of worse (as in, measured by polysomnography). I think this points to how meditation creates 24-hour vigilance and …
Continue reading “The effect of mindfulness meditation on sleep electrophysiology and duration”
Psychological well-being is known to be related to factors of affective chronometry, in particular, the ability to sustain positive responses (hedonic sustainability) and the ability to rapidly recover from negative responses. Both of these are under the phenomenological umbrella of “emotion regulation” and the methodological umbrella of “affective chronometry”. Here we focus on recovery from …
Continue reading “Hedonic sustainability in the BOLD response to selfish and altruistic rewards”
The aim of this project is to extend my previous work on nonattachment by assessing its role in group identity and memory of historical injustices. I will assess individual differences in nonattachment in the general American population and test the effect of nonattachment on (1) previously known effects of group identity on biases in memory …
Continue reading “Nonattachment, group identity, and memory of historical injustices”
We evaluated the effects of mindfulness on impulsivity during smoking cessation. Current methods for self-reporting formal mindfulness practice are inaccurate, so we used accelerometer-based watches to monitor formal mindfulness practice testing. In this study, we attempted to replicate the Yale trial comparing Mindfulness Training (MT) to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for smoking cessation. We randomized …
Although the benefits of meditation for physical and psychological well-being are well-known, little is known about factors that contribute to the successful completion of a meditation program and establishment of a regular meditation practice. Beginning meditators are often frustrated by the difficulties that they have meditating. Self-compassion, or treating oneself kindly in the face of …
This project will examine how mindfulness training affects dispositional mindfulness, parental monitoring, a child’s effortful control of attention, and the quality of the parent-child relationship. In addition to how changes in these variables are related to changes in problem behavior. Forty families (with children ages 10-12) will be recruited from a Northwestern city, and half …
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This study aimed to examine the longitudinal effects of a short-term mindfulness intervention on psychological and immune variables in a student sample with moderate depressive symptoms. 64 college females were assigned to a mindfulness intervention group or a contact-control condition. Participants received three separate assessments: (a) before treatment initiation (baseline), (b) following treatment completion (6-week …
Continue reading “Effects of short-term mindfulness intervention on depression and immunity”
We conducted a study to see how a very short mindfulness training would affect smokers who were trying to quit. We wanted to know whether <20 minutes of instruction would affect peoples’ cigarette cravings and what the brain mechanisms might be. In this study, we invited smokers who were about to participate in a mindfulness-based …
Attentional function is one possible mechanism underlying meditation’s impact on stress and psychopathology, but few studies examine this newly discovered factor. Attentional allocation, in the context of cognitive and emotional self-regulation, may underlie changes observed following meditation training and practice. Additionally, meditation’s potential to ameliorate subjective and biochemical reactions to an acute stressor remains unexplored. …
The aim of this multi-investigator award was to assess the effects of school-based mindfulness training in two different educational settings: college students and middle schoolers. Because common emotional disturbances are already present in the college sample, and ameliorated with meditation practice, it is feasible that teaching these skills before the onset of emotional disturbance may …
Continue reading “School-based mindfulness training in middle school and college students”
