Summary:
A little relaxation can go a long way. Mind-body practices such as meditation, mindfulness-based stress reduction / mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBSR/MBCT) and qi gong employ the connections between brain, body and behavior to positively affect physical functioning and promote overall well-being. Mind-body practices have utility in treating ailments such as symptoms relating to pain, cancer and cardiovascular disease. These practices can also promote overall well-being and psychological health in healthy, disease-free individuals. More research is being done to determine which of these mind-body practices are effective, when they are effective, how the mechanisms of these practices work, and how to best measure these effects.
Goals:
Our goals here at Samueli Institute are to investigate how mind-body practices facilitate healing and sustain wellness. Our work in this area focuses on determining benefits and the most effective way of measuring the impact of meditation and mindfulness in various theaters. Some of our efforts have been:
- developing the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory (FMI);
- developing reliable ways of capturing self-assessments of mindfulness; and
- developing hardware to more accurately capture data related to the effects of Transcendental Meditation
Our work aims to determine why mind-body practices promote healing and wellness and how to best translate these scientific findings into clinical practice.
Projects:
Frontiers in Consciousness Conference
March 4 and 5, 2014, National Academy of Science, West Coast Headquarters, Beckman Center, University of California, Irvine
Tech pioneers Henry Samueli and Federico Faggin hosted an in-depth discussion with scientists actively engaged in extended consciousness—leading critical discussions, surveying the scientific and sociopolitical challenges presented by the research, investigating its implications and recommending next steps.
Mindfulness Assessment
Sauer S, Walach H, Schmidt S, Hinterberger T, Lynch S, Bussing A, Kohls N, Assessment of Mindfulness: Review on State of the Art. Mindfulness, July, 2012. 1(2): p. 15.
Many scales have been created to measure mindfulness, but this is the first study that describes, contrasts and evaluates other mindfulness metrics. While the metrics created have been validated, the studied methodologies do not accurately measure mindfulness.
Stress Reduction and Cognitive Therapy
Fjorback LO, Arendt M, Ornbol E, Fink P, Walach H, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy - A Systematic Review of Randomized Controlled Trials. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 2011. 124(2): p. 102-19.
This paper reviews the evidence for Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). Two conclusions were drawn from the 21 articles review included :MBSR improves mental health and MBCT prevents depressive relapse.
Facets of Mindfulness
Kohls, N., Sauer S, Walach H, Facets of mindfulness. an online study investigating the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory. Personality and Individual Differences, 2009. 46: p. 224-230.
Investigators looked at the psychometric properties of the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory (FMI) using an online convenience sample, the beck depression inventory (BDI-V) and the trait subscale of the state-trait-anxiety-inventory (STAI-T) to determine criterion validity. The investigators determined the FMI is a valid scale for measuring mindfulness.