69,079 research outputs found

    Making time for mindfulness

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    Objective: Digital mental wellbeing interventions are increasingly being used by the general public as well as within clinical treatment. Among these, mindfulness and meditation programs delivered through mobile device applications are gaining popularity. However, little is known about how people use and experience such applications and what are the enabling factors and barriers to effective use. To address this gap, the study reported here sought to understand how users adopt and experience a popular mobile-based mindfulness intervention. / Methods: A qualitative semi-structured interview study was carried out with 16 participants aged 25–38 (M = 32.5) using the commercially popular mindfulness application Headspace for 30–40 days. All participants were employed and living in a large UK city. The study design and interview schedule were informed by an autoethnography carried out by the first author for thirty days before the main study began. Results were interpreted in terms of the Reasoned Action Approach to understand behaviour change. / Results: The core concern of users was fitting the application into their busy lives. Use was also influenced by patterns in daily routines, on-going reflections about the consequences of using the app, perceived self-efficacy, emotion and mood states, personal relationships and social norms. Enabling factors for use included positive attitudes towards mindfulness and use of the app, realistic expectations and positive social influences. Barriers to use were found to be busy lifestyles, lack of routine, strong negative emotions and negative perceptions of mindfulness. / Conclusions: Mobile wellbeing interventions should be designed with consideration of people's beliefs, affective states and lifestyles, and should be flexible to meet the needs of different users. Designers should incorporate features in the design of applications that manage expectations about use and that support users to fit app use into a busy lifestyle. The Reasoned Action Approach was found to be a useful theory to inform future research and design of persuasive mental wellbeing technologies

    Can Practicing Mindfulness Improve Lawyer Decision-Making, Ethics, and Leadership?

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    Jon Kabat-Zinn, the founder of mindfulness-based stress reduction, defines mindfulness as paying attention in a curious, deliberate, kind, and non-judgmental way to life as it unfolds each moment. Psychologist Ellen Langer defines mindfulness as a flexible state of mind actively engaging in the present, noticing new things, and being sensitive to context. Langer differentiates mindfulness from mindlessness, which she defines as acting based upon past behavior instead of the present and being stuck in a fixed, solitary perspective, oblivious to alternative multiple viewpoints. Something called mindfulness is currently very fashionable and has been so for some time now in American business, education, media, medicine, popular culture, and sports. Many business, legal, and medical organizations are considering how mindfulness can help alleviate stress, improve productivity, reduce mistakes, and resolve conflicts. Many people from Hollywood, Silicon Valley, and Wall Street practice some form of mindfulness. Much of the widespread popularity of mindfulness stems from (popular media coverage about) empirical, experimental research data in psychology and neuroscience about how practicing mindfulness improves emotional, mental, and psychological health by boosting attention, concentration, immune response, and positive affect, while reducing mind wandering, distress, emotional reactivity, and negative affect. Practicing mindfulness is a form of experiential learning that provides a temporal space to pause and reflect upon more thoughtful decisions, including sustaining ethical behavior and leadership. This Article draws upon various novel interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches, ranging from biology, decision theory, financial economics, management science, medicine, neuroscience, psychology, and psychiatry to analyze how practicing mindfulness can improve the decision-making, ethics, and leadership of non-lawyers. To date, there is little empirical or experimental research about how practicing mindfulness affects law students, lawyers, or law professors. There is a large and growing body of empirical or experimental research about how practicing mindfulness affects people who are not in the legal profession. Based on this research, this Article makes three recommendations. First, law professors and lawyers should team up with neuroscientists and psychologists to conduct multimethods waitlist controlled research studies involving law students, lawyers, and law professors to determine if practicing mindfulness improves legal decision-making, ethics, and leadership. Second, law students, lawyers, and law professors should try practicing mindfulness to see if they improve their legal decision-making, ethics, and leadership. Third, law schools, law firms, and bar associations should try offering voluntary mindfulness training and supporting mindfulness practice to see if doing so improves legal decision-making, ethics, and leadership

    Can Practicing Mindfulness Improve Lawyer Decision-Making, Ethics, and Leadership?

    Get PDF
    Jon Kabat-Zinn, the founder of mindfulness-based stress reduction, defines mindfulness as paying attention in a curious, deliberate, kind, and non-judgmental way to life as it unfolds each moment. Psychologist Ellen Langer defines mindfulness as a flexible state of mind actively engaging in the present, noticing new things, and being sensitive to context. Langer differentiates mindfulness from mindlessness, which she defines as acting based upon past behavior instead of the present and being stuck in a fixed, solitary perspective, oblivious to alternative multiple viewpoints. Something called mindfulness is currently very fashionable and has been so for some time now in American business, education, media, medicine, popular culture, and sports. Many business, legal, and medical organizations are considering how mindfulness can help alleviate stress, improve productivity, reduce mistakes, and resolve conflicts. Many people from Hollywood, Silicon Valley, and Wall Street practice some form of mindfulness. Much of the widespread popularity of mindfulness stems from (popular media coverage about) empirical, experimental research data in psychology and neuroscience about how practicing mindfulness improves emotional, mental, and psychological health by boosting attention, concentration, immune response, and positive affect, while reducing mind wandering, distress, emotional reactivity, and negative affect. Practicing mindfulness is a form of experiential learning that provides a temporal space to pause and reflect upon more thoughtful decisions, including sustaining ethical behavior and leadership. This Article draws upon various novel interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches, ranging from biology, decision theory, financial economics, management science, medicine, neuroscience, psychology, and psychiatry to analyze how practicing mindfulness can improve the decision-making, ethics, and leadership of non-lawyers. To date, there is little empirical or experimental research about how practicing mindfulness affects law students, lawyers, or law professors. There is a large and growing body of empirical or experimental research about how practicing mindfulness affects people who are not in the legal profession. Based on this research, this Article makes three recommendations. First, law professors and lawyers should team up with neuroscientists and psychologists to conduct multimethods waitlist controlled research studies involving law students, lawyers, and law professors to determine if practicing mindfulness improves legal decision-making, ethics, and leadership. Second, law students, lawyers, and law professors should try practicing mindfulness to see if they improve their legal decision-making, ethics, and leadership. Third, law schools, law firms, and bar associations should try offering voluntary mindfulness training and supporting mindfulness practice to see if doing so improves legal decision-making, ethics, and leadership

    Brief online mindfulness training for medical students: a randomized control study

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    BACKGROUNDMedical students experience high levels of stress during their training. Literature suggests that mindfulness can reduce stress and increase self-compassion levels in medical students. However, most mindfulness training programs are delivered face-to-face and require significant time commitments, which can be challenging for rurally-based students with heavy academic workloads and limited support networks. PURPOSETo evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of a brief online Mindfulness training program for medical students based in rural areas, with regards to reducing stress, increasing self-compassion, mindfulness and study engagement. METHODSThis is a non-registered randomised control trial. Participants included both urban and rural medical students from UWA, University of Notre Dame and the RCSWA from 2018-2020. Participants were randomised to the intervention group, an 8-week online mindfulness training program, or the control group. Using quantitative-qualitative mixed-methods approach, we measured the frequency, duration and quality of the participants mindfulness meditation practice, and assessed changes in their perceived stress, self-compassion, mindfulness and study engagement levels. Further, the intervention group recorded a weekly reflective journal documenting their experience of the program. RESULTS114 participants were recruited to the study. 61 were randomised to the intervention, and 53 to the control. Quantitative analysis of the frequency, duration and quality of mindfulness meditation practice and changes in stress, self-compassion, mindfulness and study engagement is currently being conducted. Preliminary qualitative results reveal that participants experienced increased self-awareness, more mindfulness of their day-to-day activities, improved emotional regulation and increased productivity, while also facing difficulties with making time for their mindfulness practice. CONCLUSIONWe anticipate that this study will demonstrate that an online mindfulness training program tailored to reach rurally located medical students is feasible and effective in modifying their stress levels and psychological wellbeing.

    A MINDFULNESS BASED APPROACH TO EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS (EMIS) UTILIZATION AND PERFORMANCE

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    The 13th of November terrorist attacks in Paris highlight a critical need within the emergency management (EM) domain to demonstrate the value of technological system capacities that support decision making. The world watched scores of police, paramedic, and fire teams communicating and coordinating together to save innocent civilian lives. Many researchers agree that systems should be designed informed by the “cognitive processes” used to respond to unanticipated emergencies. Mindfulness, within emergency management organizations (EMOs,) is created by the complex engagement of five organizational principles. They activate processes which produce capabilities uniquely supported by technology to anticipate and contain unexpected incidents for the EM domain. This paper explores organizational mindfulness (OM)) as a theoretical and methodological mechanism for design, assess and evaluation of emergency management information systems (EMIS). Mindfulness provides a basis for understanding both the EM domain and the organizational capabilities which allow for multiagency coordination. Design Science is proposed to conceptualize an IS artefact that refines our understanding of coordinated real- time decision making (CRDM). This research-in-progress paper adds to literature focused on system utilization and performance through the lens of the EM domain focusing on EMIS utilization to engage in CRDM within operational centres

    The Effectiveness of Mindfulness-based Programs on Physical Symptoms and Psychological Distress in Patients with Fibromyalgia: A Systematic Review

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    Objective: Research into and the clinical use of mindfulness as a therapeutic intervention have increased in recent years and the results have been promising in a range of illness populations. One area in which mindfulness has been trialled is fibromyalgia, a chronic pain condition currently with poor treatment outcomes. The aim of this systematic review was to examine the effectiveness of mindfulness-based interventions on physical symptoms and psychological distress in patients with fibromyalgia. Methods: Systematic review: PubMed, PsycINFO, Embase and Scopus were searched for randomised controlled trials and prospective and retrospective studies. A quality assessment and synthesis of the quantitative data (based on guidelines from the Joanna Briggs Institute) was completed on studies using a mindfulness-based intervention with patients with fibromyalgia on outcomes related to physical symptoms and psychological distress and wellbeing. Results: Ten studies met the inclusion criteria. All included studies used a mindfulness-based group program design. Although outcome measures and data presentation varied, making statistical pooling impossible, the narrative synthesis resulted in overall positive evidence for the efficacy of mindfulness-based interventions for patients with fibromyalgia on a range of physical symptom and psychological distress outcome measures. Conclusion: Mindfulness is a favourable treatment option for patients with fibromyalgia. Whilst demonstrated efficacy was generally positive, the number of studies addressing this topic is small and there was wide variation in outcome measures and data presentation. More research is needed, particularly large-scale randomised controlled trials with consistent methodology, outcome measures and sufficient follow-up time periods

    Mindful Stitch: Generating dialogue in and around the threads of wellbeing

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    This article investigates wellbeing and mindfulness within contemporary art and craft practice, exploring initial introductions by Jon Kabat-Zinn of mindfulness practices into modern westernised medicine as a group or independent outlet. 21st Century sociological observations suggest we are infected by the ‘Hurry Virus’ (Kickbusch, 2012). Studies into mindfulness practices through established services such as the NHS and Arts and Minds show how crafts can be used as a tool for slowing down pace of making/doing, influencing overall wellbeing. Mindful Stitch is a community derived workshop exploring hand embroidery as a mindful practice, using methods of social inclusion and outrospective empathy. Independent mindful craft practitioners, Kathryn Vercillo and Tara Jon Manning, show the benefits of mindfulness knit and crochet practices. Mindful Stitch addresses the gap in the research regarding hand embroidery as a mindful craft practice, catering for a wide audience, additionally welcomed to the 2013 conference The Subversive Stitch: Revisited, at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London

    Mindfulness meditation modulates reward prediction errors in a passive conditioning task

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    Reinforcement learning models have demonstrated that phasic activity of dopamine neurons during reward expectation encodes information about the predictability of reward and cues that predict reward. Self-control strategies such as those practiced in mindfulness-based approaches is claimed to reduce negative and positive reactions to stimuli suggesting the hypothesis that such training may influence basic reward processing. Using a passive conditioning task and fMRI in a group of experienced mindfulness meditators and age-matched controls, we tested the hypothesis that mindfulness meditation influence reward and reward prediction error (PE) signals. We found diminished positive and negative PE-related blood-oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) responses in the putamen in meditators compared with controls. In the meditator group this decrease in striatal BOLD responses to reward PE was paralleled by increased activity in posterior insula, a primary interoceptive region. Critically, responses in the putamen during early trials of the conditioning procedure (run 1) were elevated in both meditators and controls. Overall, these results provide evidence that experienced mindfulness meditators are able to attenuate reward prediction signals to valenced stimuli, which may be related to interoceptive processes encoded in the posterior insula
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