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 …
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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 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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Exploring the role of self-compassion in the establishment and maintenance of a meditation practice
Although the benefits of meditation for physical and psychological well-being are well-known, little is known about factors that contribute to the successful completion of a meditation program and establishment of a regular meditation practice. Beginning meditators are often frustrated by the difficulties that they have meditating. Self-compassion, or treating oneself kindly in the face of …
Socially-Engaged Mindfulness Interventions (SEMI) and the Promise of Making Refuge
This Think Tank brings together engaged Buddhist and secular mindfulness practitioners, teachers, scholars, and activists from areas like minority rights and struggles, environmentalism and sustainability, critical pedagogy and liberal arts education. We draw on Buddhist and feminist and posthumanist thinking for inspiration to formulate our working questions: What is refuge? Where or when do we …
Study to design and assess the validity of the Emory Meditation Practice, Tradition, and Experience (EMPTE) scale
This study aims to develop and assess the Emory-Meditation Practice Tradition and Experience Inventory Short and Long Forms. These self-report measures are designed to capture research participants’ meditation experience in a particular contemplative tradition, and to standardize assessments of meditation practice in the field. These inventories, which rely primarily on common contemporary Buddhist-based contemplative practices …
Meditation and nonlinear neurodynamics: From state to trait
This study focused on brain dynamics changes in the meditative state (short-term changes) and their possible development into trait (long-term changes), in an EEG data set recorded from a group of Mindfulness Meditators (MM, n=36) with varying expertise, a group of transcendental meditators (TM, n=12), and suitable controls. We applied two measures: (a) a functional …
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A randomized controlled single-blinded pilot trial to compare effects of concentrative sitting meditation to moving meditation (tai chi) training on attentional network efficiency
Meditation training has been shown to positively affect executive attention function. Moderate aerobic exercise has also been shown to improve executive attention function. Tai Chi requires moderate aerobic exertion, is considered a form of moving meditation, and requires motor learning. Motor learning engages executive function. Thus, Tai Chi can be expected to positively affect executive …
Measurement and correlates of nonattachment
The Buddhist philosophy that non-attachment is important to well-being seems to contradict Western attachment theory’s notion that healthy attachment is a key to well-being. Nevertheless, the initial developmental paths of the two systems may overlap: Reliance on warm, responsive, and autonomy-supportive caregivers may promote felt security in both cases through the use of security inducing …
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Development and testing of determinants of meditation practice
Meditation health benefits have been difficult to document as efficacy studies have been marred by lack of statistical power secondary to small sample size and/or threats to validity from high attrition. To date no published studies have examined barriers to meditation which are likely responsible for low enrollment and high attrition. The purpose of our …
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