While attending Mind & Life’s 33rd Dialogue with the Dalai Lama in 2018, Kirk and Gael Benson were inspired. The Dialogue, now available online as the “Education of the Heart,” explored new frontiers in youth education rooted in science and contemplative wisdom, expanding beyond Social and Emotional Learning (SEL). During the Dialogue, Dr. Kimberly Schonert-Reichl, a renowned expert in …
Continue reading “Mind & Life Impact Story: Bringing Mindfulness to Utah Public Schools”
Cultivation of mindfulness, the nonjudgmental awareness of experiences in the present moment, produces profound beneficial effects on well-being. However, whether and how mindful presence affects one of the most fundamental fields of human prosperity – interpersonal relationships – is largely unknown. Relying on recent methodological advancements in research of interactions, the current proposal aims to …
Combat deployments by military personnel such as to Iraq (OIF) and Afghanistan (OEF) involve long separation from spouses, financial / social strain for the partner at home, and often combat trauma to the deployed partner. These can cause negative effects on relationship quality in some couples. Our clinical research group and others across the country …
The proposed research will investigate the role of mindfulness in mother-infant relationships and how this impacts biological aging. Telomeres, the repeated nucleotide sequences at the end of chromosomes, protect chromosomes from deterioration and enable cellular integrity. Age, relational stress, and inflammation degrade telomeres, which in turn is thought to relate to a range of health …
Continue reading “Impacts of maternal mindfulness on mother-infant biological integrity”
Research on mindfulness has increased in recent years necessitating the development of subjective and objective methods of measuring this construct. We aim to develop a theoretically based, objective measure of daily mindfulness by examining peoples’ behavior and language use in their daily lives. Specifically, we will use the Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR) to collect audio …
Continue reading “Developing an objective measure of mindfulness in daily life”
While there is some initial indication that mindfulness meditation interventions can improve social relationship functioning outcomes, this work has not been well controlled and we know little about how mindfulness interventions improve social relationships. We conducted an active treatment controlled 3-arm trial of mindfulness meditation training programs in a stressed community sample (N=153), using a …
Caregivers of persons with dementia are a considerably understudied segment of the population. Caregiver burden is widely recognized and characterized by an increased risk for stress-related disorders and illness, including depression, sleep disorder, and cognitive impairment. Employing a randomized controlled trial, this study examined the effect of mindfulness training on cognitive function and psychological wellbeing …
The chronic stress of caregiving can lead to experiences of chronic fear, and impair relationships, creating frequent conflict and mistrust. We developed a tailored mindfulness-based intervention, (Health Enhancement and Resiliency Training (HEART) for caregiving mothers of children with autism and mothers of neurotypical children. HEART aims to promote awareness, reduce experiential avoidance, promote acceptance of …
Having close social connections powerfully predicts well-being and longevity (Holt-Lunstad, Smith, & Layton, 2010). Our study examined whether taking a 6-week mindfulness meditation training would lead to gains in perceived social connection from pre to post training, compared to an active-control wellness training group. We also examined possible cognitive and emotional mechanisms of this hypothesized …
Continue reading “Mindfulness in interpersonal judgments and relationships in daily life”
This pilot randomized control trial (RCT) addressed the design and evaluation of a trauma-informed adaptation of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (TI-MBSR) as a trauma-informed intervention for women who identified themselves as survivors of interpersonal violence and felt that these past experience still negatively affected them currently. A mixed methods approach included using quantitative measures to …
