Mind Your Expectations: Exploring the Roles of Suggestion and Intention in Mindfulness Training

Mindfulness training (MT) has received increasing recognition for its therapeutic benefits in a variety of clinical contexts. Despite acknowledgement that MT effects are predicated upon the development of both mindful attention and intention, research on MT mechanisms has focused chiefly upon attentional effects. By contrast, hypnosis research has focused explicitly on suggestion techniques for cultivating beneficial therapeutic expectations. Comparing similarities between mindfulness and hypnosis techniques, this paper explores mechanisms of suggestion tacitly employed in mindfulness interventions. Distinctions between mindfulness meditation and hypnotic induction are then used to identify a form of intentionality that is unique to MT, including candidate markers of mindful intention that may help to explain mindfulness’ salutary effects. Finally, the idea of changing intentions during MT is discussed, generating suggestions for how best to monitor the interaction between expectation and attentional practice when studying mindfulness interventions. Studies of intention and expectation in MT could help to determine: i) the degree to which MT benefits are driven by expectation effects rather than changes to attention, ii) how to best motivate the development of mindful attention in therapeutic interventions, and iii) what factors predict the generalization of mindfulness techniques to improve emotion regulation. By acknowledging that suggestion may be important for cultivating mindful intentions, it may be possible to deepen our understanding of how to optimally deliver mindfulness training and improve participant well-being

Personalising Practice Using Preferences for Meditation Anchor Modality

Many people are starting to establish contemplative practices and Mindfulness-Based Interventions have become quite popular. While Mindfulness-Based Interventions positively impact well-being, drop-out and lack of practice-maintenance plagues these interventions. Such adherence issues may reveal a lack of fit between participant partiality for attentional anchors of meditative practice and the intervention’s use of the breath as the anchor of attention. No study had yet compared partiality towards practices using anchors from different sensory modalities (e.g., auditory and visual) thus the present study examined such individual differences, sharing resources on the Open Science Framework1. Participants (N = 82) engaged 10-min practices within three modalities (somatosensory, auditory, and visual) and partiality towards these meditations was modelled. Partiality differences did exist: 49% preferred the breath, 30% the auditory-phrase, and 21% the visual-image. Pre-practice motivation and anchor-modality predicted partiality while cardiac responses were also positively associated with partiality. Preferences were updated through experience and over half of participants left the experiment partial to a different anchor than their initial meditation-naïve bias. Tangible next-steps are discussed, including integrating additional anchor modalities into existing interventions by offering brief practices with a variety of anchors. Suggestions are made for increasing post-training contact using email-automation to answer central practice-maintenance questions, including whether and which contemplative benefits are predicated on continued practice

A História da Alimentação: balizas historiográficas

Os M. pretenderam traçar um quadro da História da Alimentação, não como um novo ramo epistemológico da disciplina, mas como um campo em desenvolvimento de práticas e atividades especializadas, incluindo pesquisa, formação, publicações, associações, encontros acadêmicos, etc. Um breve relato das condições em que tal campo se assentou faz-se preceder de um panorama dos estudos de alimentação e temas correia tos, em geral, segundo cinco abardagens Ia biológica, a econômica, a social, a cultural e a filosófica!, assim como da identificação das contribuições mais relevantes da Antropologia, Arqueologia, Sociologia e Geografia. A fim de comentar a multiforme e volumosa bibliografia histórica, foi ela organizada segundo critérios morfológicos. A seguir, alguns tópicos importantes mereceram tratamento à parte: a fome, o alimento e o domínio religioso, as descobertas européias e a difusão mundial de alimentos, gosto e gastronomia. O artigo se encerra com um rápido balanço crítico da historiografia brasileira sobre o tema

From Retreat Center to Clinic to Boardroom? Perils and Promises of the Modern Mindfulness Movement

From its venerable Buddhist roots, mindfulness training (MT) has spread rapidly across the globe in the past few decades due to its strong salutary claim, i.e., the notion that meditation practice is an efficacious means for self-improvement. However, concerns have arisen that the appropriation of MT techniques from classical Buddhist tradition into modern secular practice has diluted the benefits of these practices. The “great danger” to the movement is that inadequately adapted MT techniques, combined with unreasonable inflation of expectations regarding MT’s benefits, may undermine MT’s true potential to effect positive change in the world. And yet, these concerns can be mitigated by consideration of the salutary claim as a persistent “quality check” on MT efficacy. It is argued that scientific investigation can take an important role in delineating the necessary characteristics for fulfilling mindfulness’ salutary claim, as well as identifying contraindicated techniques and risk factors for training. By accepting that we cannot control the spread of MT into commercial domains, researchers may still work to distinguish “right” from “wrong” mindfulness through empirical study. In this way, modern science may help to realize the salutary claim and even contribute to classical Buddhist conceptions of mindfulness, advancing our understanding of how best to promote well-being

To Which of Thine Selves be True? Changes in Viscerosomatic Neural Activity with Mindfulness Meditation Training Reflect Improved Present-moment Self-awareness

Mindfulness training cultivates momentary awareness, a form of attention directed to non-evaluative, immediate sensation. This form of attention stands in contrast to a more temporally extended awareness, which allows for the evaluative organization of experience into a personal narrative. The neural mechanisms underlying such awareness, and their role in regulating emotions, are poorly understood. Thus, in three functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiments, I explored the thesis that momentary and extended awareness represent dissociable modes of self-reference, with momentary self-reference reducing ruminative elaboration of events by biasing attention towards interoceptive signals from the body. I compared individuals who were randomly-assigned to either an 8-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) training course against a waitlisted group (Controls). Three distinct studies examined the impact of Mindfulness on: 1) the contrast between explicitly directed momentary and extended self referential processing; 2) reactions to an induced sadness challenge; and 3) the contrast between interoceptive (breath-monitoring) and exteroceptive (visual) attention. In all three studies MBSR led to a shift in neural activity away from cortical midline structures, such as the medial prefrontal and posterior cingulate cortices, to predominantly right-lateralized viscerosomatic structures, and specifically the insular cortex. Cortical midline activity is thought to support habitual patterns of evaluation, and stands as the neural correlate of a narrated, extended self, while right-lateralized insula activity is thought to represent the recurrent integration of present moment context, the neural correlate of the momentary self. These data revealed that MBSR may enhance the distinction between momentary and extended self-reference, reducing cortical midline responses and recruiting a novel, right-lateralized viscerosomatic network. Additionally, MBSR graduates demonstrated reduced emotional reactivity to a film-based sadness mood induction, reducing cortical midline activity and inhibition of the right insula. Moreover, the MBSR group demonstrated enhanced right middle insula recruitment during the monitoring of sensory experience associated with breath monitoring, a core mindfulness practice. The data from this final study also suggest that MBSR promoted an integration of posterior insular sensory representations with anterior insular subjective representations of present moment status. Preserved viscerosomatic activity in the face of emotional challenge may be a predictor of enhanced well-being following mindfulness training.Ph

Attentional and affective consequences of technology supported mindfulness training: a randomised, active control, efficacy trial

Abstract Background Mindfulness training (MT) programs represent an approach to attention training with well-validated mental health benefits. However, research supporting MT efficacy is based predominantly on weekly-meeting, facilitator-led, group-intervention formats. It is unknown whether participants might benefit from neurofeedback-assisted, technology-supported MT (N-tsMT), in which meditation is delivered individually, without the need for a facilitator, travel to a training site, or the presence of a supportive group environment. Mirroring the validation of group MT interventions, the first step in addressing this question requires identifying whether N-tsMT promotes measurable benefits. Here, we report on an initial investigation of a commercial N-tsMT system. Methods In a randomized, active control trial, community-dwelling healthy adult participants carried out 6 weeks of daily practice, receiving either N-tsMT (n = 13), or a control condition of daily online math training (n = 13). Training effects were assessed on target measures of attention and well-being. Participants also completed daily post-training surveys assessing effects on mood, body awareness, calm, effort, and stress. Results Analysis revealed training effects specific to N-tsMT, with attentional improvements in overall reaction time on a Stroop task, and well-being improvements via reduced somatic symptoms on the Brief Symptom Inventory. Attention and well-being improvements were correlated, and effects were greatest for the most neurotic participants. However, secondary, exploratory measures of attention and well-being did not show training-specific effects. N-tsMT was associated with greater body awareness and calm, and initially greater effort that later converged with effort in the control condition. Conclusions Preliminary findings indicate that N-tsMT promotes modest benefits for attention and subjective well-being in a healthy community sample relative to an active control condition. However, the findings would benefit from replication in a larger sample, and more intensive practice or more comprehensive MT instruction might be required to promote the broader benefits typically reported in group format, facilitated MT. Trial registration Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN43629398 . Retrospectively registered on June 16, 2016