To what extent can meditation and mindfulness help future business leaders cultivate authenticity, tolerance, and empathy, leading to a heightened sense of belongingness and responsibility to the communities in which they will live and work? Proceeding from this question, this presentation highlights the vital role contemplative practices have to play in equipping business students with …
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The ReSource Project is a large-scale, multimethod, longitudinal study investigating the effects of different mental training practices on subjective experience, behavior, brain, and physiology. Over nine months, 180 participants underwent a structured curriculum with three separate modules training: (1) attention and interoceptive awareness; (2) loving kindness and prosocial motivation; and (3) cognitive perspective taking and …
Prescription opioid misuse among persons with chronic pain is an emerging public health threat of epidemic proportions. We conducted a randomized controlled trial of Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement, a multimodal intervention designed to simultaneously target mechanisms underpinning chronic pain and opioid misuse. In this study, a sample of 115 chronic pain patients who were taking long-term …
The two most widely used stress reduction programs are MBSR and the Relaxation Response (RR). Although both programs use meditation techniques and effectively reduce stress, proponents of each program postulate very different mechanistic models. We hypothesized that there would be both shared and unique neural mechanisms associated with each program, as well as differential psychological …
Physicians are trained with the explicit mandate of addressing suffering with compassion, yet mainstream medical training and the medical literature are largely silent about how to accomplish this. Through contemplative practice, written and oral narratives, deep listening, appreciative inquiry, and dialogue, our mindful practice programs were designed to enhance clinicians’ self-awareness, self-monitoring, and self-regulation during …
Two Stanford faculty will describe a new program at Stanford that seeks to integrate contemplative studies into the undergraduate curriculum and attract faculty and students, whether or not they are initially interested in meditation or mindfulness. The program, called LifeWorks, offers its own courses, which blend traditional cognitive learning with mindfulness practices and workshops for …
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Mindfulness training for youth is growing tremendously across the nation; however, few studies rigorously assess its effects. Studies that employ mindfulness training have shown promise in increasing emotional and cognitive regulation among youth, including those who are highly vulnerable. Rigorous controlled trials are vital for increasing our understanding of the efficacy of mindfulness-based interventions for …
Neuroscience research on contemplation usually considers only internally induced (self-directed) methods for attaining mindfulness (e.g., meditation, prayer). We explored other “external methods” for cultivating mindfulness, focusing on architecture that we design and inhabit. Our study evaluated if buildings designed for contemplation would elicit brain activation patterns similar to those found under contemplation. We used a …
Contemplative Practice Starts with The Body: Understanding Somatic Awareness, Brain Dynamics, and Healing Presence in Mindfulness and Other Disciplines
An ever-growing number of studies provide evidence for the benefits of mindfulness-based interventions within a variety of clinical and nonclinical contexts. For the field to develop and solidify, it will be essential to go beyond demonstrating clinical effectiveness and to develop an evidence-based understanding of the psychological, physiological, and neural processes that underpin the reported …
