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 …
Grant Type Archives:
Remote mindfulness training for health following early life adversity
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 …
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Mindfulness-based interventions targeting first-generation college student retention in rural environments
This project will explore mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) as a potential tool for increasing rural, first-generation college student retention. Rural, first-generation college students face increased risks for dropping out of college compared to their counterparts. This is a significant gap because when rural, first-generation students struggle to graduate, it perpetuates generational systems of class divide as …
Teacher equanimity for improving behavior management
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 …
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Reexamining mechanisms of mind-wandering in mindfulness-based interventions
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 …
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Cultivating early adults’ flourishing with mindfulness training & technology-assisted skill transfer: A pilot comparative effectiveness trial
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 …
Exploring experiences and features of mindfulness and contemplative practices for autistic adults
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 …
The impact of a mindfulness-based intervention on spinal cord activity in chronic pain: A pilot crossover study
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 …
Meditative and real-time fMRI training for the cultivation of compassion
Grant voided.
Mindful interactions: effects on couple conflict-related stress and relationship function
Accumulating research has shown that conflictual romantic relationships are powerful instigators of stress, as measured by subjective reports, hormonal and cardiovascular reactivity, and immune functioning in both laboratory contexts and naturalistic settings. Significantly, couple conflict appears to increase cortisol levels via hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activation, such that individuals under chronic relationship stress may have increased health …
