Pain is a multidimensional experience that involves interacting sensory, cognitive, and affective factors, rendering the treatment of chronic pain challenging and financially burdensome. The widespread use of opioids to treat chronic pain has led to an opioid epidemic characterized by exponential growth in opioid misuse and addiction. The staggering statistics related to opioid use highlight …
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Embodiment: Biocultural Dynamics in Pathways to Differential Well-Being
A focus on cultural ecology—how human actions or practices shape the physical, social, and mental landscapes in which we grow up and live—permits one to track the biocultural dynamics through which culture gets “under the skin.” Such embodiment is driven by adaptive context-expectant features of human development and biology that operate through experience-contingent, epigenetic, time-sensitive, …
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Social Connectivity, Mind States, and Biological Aging
This lecture will review salient examples of social connectivity — in mood, mind states, and physiology. We will explore how different states or tendencies — biases toward threat appraisals, mind wandering, and engagement in the present, are related to social, psychological, and biological well being. Elissa Epel will focus more deeply on social influences on …
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Plasticity of the Social Brain: Effects of a One-year Mental Training Study on Social Connectedness, Compassion, Theory of Mind, Social Stress, and the Body
In the last decades, plasticity research has suggested that training of mental capacities such as attention, mindfulness and compassion is effective and leads to positive changes in socio-affective and cognitive functions. Tania Singer will show first results of the ReSource Project, a large-scale multi-methodological one-year secular mental training program in which participants were trained in …
The Other as Part of the Self: Empathy, Understanding and Support
High-quality social relationships help us live longer, happier and healthier lives — facts that hold true, as far as anyone knows, regardless of geography or culture. Although links between relationships and health have been observed for decades (if not millennia), the mechanisms responsible for them remain speculative. In this talk, Jim Coan will first describe …
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Mindfulness for well-being and enhanced teaching in academia: A mindfulness-based program in South African higher education
Mindfulness and stress-reduction is a connection well established. However, it is important to analyze the specific effects of mindfulness in different professional fields. One such field is academia, where burn-out is pervasive, resulting in increased depersonalization, physical and mental exhaustion and cynicism. In this study, a Mindfulness-based Program will be offered free of cost to …
Fellow Spotlight: David Creswell
Mind & Life is excited to announce our first-ever Mind & Life Fellow Spotlight! The Fellow Spotlight is a new monthly segment where we will highlight the contributions of Mind & Life Fellows to our shared mission, featuring a different Fellow each month. In this month’s spotlight we are pleased to share the work of …
Six Positive Steps Toward Educational Renewal
While educational systems have long stressed academic achievement and individual advancement, a growing movement is calling for an education of the heart. And that’s good news for all of us. As Mind & Life Institute (MLI) strives to connect our support of contemplative research with real-world needs, education is now a critical theme. Our PEACE …
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MLI XXXII Session 5
Session #5 of The Mind and Life XXXII Dialogue at Botho University in Gaborone, Botswana held on August 17-19, 2017. African youth presentations Donald Molosi: 6:08 Justine Hamupolo: 20:19 Landa Mabenge: 25:07 Leonard Annan: 29:39 Agostine Ndung’u: 34:03 African youth panel discussion: 43:13 Presentation by Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela: 1:00:59 Panel discussion: 1:48:07 Audience Q&A: 2:07:33 Closing …
MLI XXXII Session 3
Session #3 of The Mind and Life XXXII Dialogue at Botho University in Gaborone, Botswana held on August 17-19, 2017. Clap exercise by Sechaba Maape: 0:54 Presentation by Rebecca Shansky: 6:11 First panel discussion: 29:52 Presentation by Uri Hasson: 1:03:11 Second panel discussion: 1:36:11 Audience Q&A: 2:10:45 Program Description: The Botswana Dialogue brings African humanitarian …
