Scientific investigations of human thought usually equate it with only the deliberate, goal-directed mental processes that occur during problem solving and reasoning, while spontaneous thought processes that occur without individuals’ volition or direct control have largely been neglected. Given that spontaneous thought takes up as much as one-third of people’s waking lives, this other side …
Grant Type Archives:
How mindfulness impacts selective attention during emotional challenge
Emotional reactivity, the negative response to stress, is a rare predictor of relapse risk following recovery from MDD. ‘Trait’ mindfulness, the tendency to non-judgmentally engage with experience, has been linked to lower levels of emotional reactivity in a community sample, and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) has shown initial promise in reducing the risk of depressive …
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Attending to clinical social work practice: Mindful attention as holistic competence background and relevant literature
This study aimed to understand the structure of paying attention to better train mental health clinicians in their client sessions. The study focused on expert meditators who are also psychotherapists because meditators are specifically trained to pay attention to their experience. This study provided rich descriptions of the meditators’ experience using a specific interview method. …
The effect of mindfulness on physiological awareness: Blood glucose estimates and disease management in type 2 diabetics
By refining awareness of present-moment experiences, mindfulness purportedly increases physiological awareness. However, existing evidence of this is limited and inconclusive. One key population whose health is known to improve with awareness of certain physiological information is diabetics. Greater awareness of blood glucose levels can help diabetes patients to manage the disease. Thus, if mindfulness improves …
The impact of evaluative vs. experiential self-focus on emotional response
Studies assessing the relationship between self-focus and emotion processing are sparse. Evaluative self-focus may lead to attenuated affective response (Silvia et al, 2000), and is likely to be underpinned by dorsomedial prefrontal cortex activation (DMPFC). This is in contrast to non-judgmental, non-evaluative, present moment awareness which is the goal of Mindfulness, and likely to be …
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Effects of mind-body interventions in cancer supportive care: Oxytocin as a biological correlate of wellbeing and connectedness
This pilot project evaluates the neuropeptide oxytocin as a potentially useful biological indicator of changes in health-related quality of life (HRQOL) and well-being in two different randomized clinical studies investigating the effects of mind-body interventions in post-treatment cancer survivors. One study, targeting sleep disturbance, compares 3 sessions (one per week) of Mind-Body Bridging and Mindfulness …
The effectiveness of MBSR as an intervention among elderly family caregivers of persons with neurocognitive disorders
Providing care for a frail older adult is a stressful experience that may affect psychological and physical health of caregivers. When caregivers are elderly and the care recipient suffers from a neurocognitive disorder such as dementia, the burden and resulting stress is greatly increased. Many interventions involving support groups, counseling, and education have been implemented …
The effect of mindfulness meditation on sleep electrophysiology and duration
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 …
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Hedonic sustainability in the BOLD response to selfish and altruistic rewards
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 …
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Nonattachment, group identity, and memory of historical injustices
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 …
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