An estimated 280 million people globally experience depression, with more than 75 percent of people in low- and middle-income countries receiving no treatment at all. What role can mindfulness play in cultivating mental health and wellness? And how can researchers help ensure equitable access to mindfulness-based approaches? Clinical psychological scientist Sona Dimidjian has spent over …
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Contemplative Researchers Seek to Leverage Power of Technology for Well-being
A familiar scene for many: It’s the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and we’re missing social lunches and coffee dates. Connection is lacking and we’re confined to our homes for work, play, rest, and everything in between. In this reality, online tools like Zoom and social media skyrocketed as a resource for maintaining relationships and …
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Summer Research Institute 2023
A collaborative, interdisciplinary, and immersive opportunity for conversations around trauma, healing, and flourishing—for researchers, contemplatives, changemakers, and anyone interested in this topic.
Jon Kabat-Zinn – Sharing MBSR with the Dalai Lama
In a video clip from 2022, Mind & Life Founding Steward Jon Kabat-Zinn remembers sharing the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program with the Dalai Lama at the Mind & Life Dialogue in Dharamsala, India in 1990. We shared this video in 2022 as part of our 35th anniversary celebration.
Norm Farb: Strategies for Coping with Today’s Stress Epidemic
With cascading emergencies from the pandemic to war in Ukraine to the climate crisis now fueling a stress epidemic, social neuroscientist Norm Farb has a lot to say—and a lot on his plate—from ongoing research to co-authoring a new book. “A lot of us are spending our free time absorbing more threat signals,” says Norm, …
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Biological and psychological mechanisms of mindfulness meditation-based interventions for depression
Major depressive disorder (MDD) is highly burdensome and psychological and biological features are mechanistically implicated in its etiology. Fewer than one-in-three depressed patients achieve remission after treatment. Understanding treatment mechanisms of MDD is clearly an important objective. Mindfulness training emphasizes the development of attention and experiential acceptance, improves depressive symptoms, reduces the likelihood of relapse, …
Making data more accessible: Visualizing the Contemplative Coping during COVID-19 project
The purpose of this project is to make results from the Contemplative Coping during COVID-19 (CCC) research study accessible to a variety of stakeholders. The CCC study investigates the lived experience of ~350 meditation practitioners in the US during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Our aim is to understand how people are making use of meditation practices …
An intensive longitudinal study on a Centering Meditation: Exploring the temporal dynamics of nondual awareness and prosociality
Carl Rogers once said, “a high degree of empathy in a relationship is possibly the most potent and certainly one of the most potent factors in bringing about change”. Mental health counselors need empathy, compassion, and prosociality to provide quality care and reduce the unacceptably high rate of health disparities for Black, Indigenous and People …
2021 Mind & Life Conversation
Our December 2021 conversation with the Dalai Lama features Elissa Epel, Michelle Shiota, and John Dunne. The program asks: What is the role of activating hope in pursuing a positive vision of the future? Can action come with a heavy heart, and before we have a clear vision of the radical changes needed? How can we cultivate joy amidst adversity?
Inspiring Minds – November 2021
Our November conversation features Eric Garland and Durga Leela, with musician Geoffrey Menin. They discuss mindfulness and embodied practices for holistic healing.
