Mindfulness 

About: Mindfulness is an academic journal published by Springer Science+Business Media. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Mindfulness & Anxiety. It has an ISSN identifier of 1868-8527. Over the lifetime, 1984 publications have been published receiving 52143 citations.

Integrating Mindfulness Training into K-12 Education: Fostering the Resilience of Teachers and Students

Abstract: Over the past decade, training in mindfulness—the intentional cultivation of moment-by-moment non-judgmental focused attention and awareness—has spread from its initial western applications in medicine to other fields, including education.Thispaperreviewsresearchandcurriculapertaining to the integration of mindfulness training into K-12 education, both indirectly bytraining teachers andthrough direct teaching of students. Research on the neurobiology of mindfulness in adults suggests that sustained mindfulness practice can enhance attentional and emotional self-regulation and promote flexibility, pointing toward significant potential benefits for both teachers and students. Early research results on three illustrative mindfulness-based teacher training initiatives sug- gest that personal training in mindfulness skills can increase teachers' sense of well-being and teaching self-efficacy, as well as their ability to manage classroom behavior and establish and maintain supportive relationships with stu- dents. Since 2005, 14 studies of programs that directly train

The Effects of Mindfulness Meditation: A Meta-Analysis

Abstract: Previous meta-analyses on the effects of mindfulness meditation were predominantly concerned with clinical research. In contrast, the present study aims at giving a comprehensive overview of the effects of mindfulness meditation on various psychological variables, for meditators in nonclinical settings. Included are 39 studies that fulfilled our six selection criteria: (1) a mindfulness meditation treatment, (2) the existence of an inactive control group, (3) a population of nonclinical adults, (4) the investigation of psychological measures that were (5) assessed at temporal distance from a meditation session, and (6) the availability of sufficient data to calculate effect sizes. The dependent variables examined included, among others, attention, intelligence, self-attributed mindfulness, positive and negative emotions, emotion regulation, personality traits, self-concept, self-realization, stress, and well-being. We found an effect size of $$ \overline r = 0.27 $$ averaged across all studies and dependent variables. The effects differed widely across dependent variables. Moreover, we found large differences between the effect sizes reported for complete Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR) programs vs. “pure” meditation. MBSR seems to have its most powerful effect on attaining higher psychological well-being, whereas pure mindfulness meditation studies reported the largest effects on variables associated with the concept of mindfulness. This raises the question if some effect sizes found for MBSR might be partly inflated by effects that are not attributable to its mindfulness meditation component. Future theorizing should address meditation-specific concepts more extensively to account for the changes in healthy practitioners.

The Effects of a Mindfulness-Based Education Program on Pre- and Early Adolescents’ Well-Being and Social and Emotional Competence

Abstract: We report the results of a quasi-experimental study evaluating the effectiveness of the Mindfulness Education (ME) program. ME is a theoretically derived, teacher-taught universal preventive intervention that focuses on facilitating the development of social and emotional competence and positive emotions, and has as its cornerstone daily lessons in which students engage in mindful attention training (three times a day). Pre- and early adolescent students in the 4th to 7th grades (N = 246) drawn from six ME program classrooms and six comparison classrooms (wait-list controls) completed pretest and posttest self-report measures assessing optimism, general and school self-concept, and positive and negative affect. Teachers rated pre- and early adolescents on dimensions of classroom social and emotional competence. Results revealed that pre- and early adolescents who participated in the ME program, compared to those who did not, showed significant increases in optimism from pretest to posttest. Similarly, improvements on dimensions of teacher-rated classroom social competent behaviors were found favoring ME program students. Program effects also were found for self-concept, although the ME program demonstrated more positive benefits for preadolescents than for early adolescents. Teacher reports of implementation fidelity and dosage for the mindfulness activities were high and teachers reported that they were easily able to integrate the mindful attention exercises within their classrooms. Theoretical issues linking mindful attention awareness to social and emotional competence and implications for the development of school-based interventions are discussed.

Mindfulness Interventions with Youth: A Meta-Analysis

Abstract: Mindfulness meditation is a well-validated intervention for symptoms of depression and anxiety disorders in adults, with meta-analyses showing moderate effect sizes. This study marks the first published meta-analysis of the burgeoning literature on mindfulness meditation with youth (conducted between 2004 and 2011) and identifies specific outcomes and sub-populations for whom mindfulness may be particularly helpful. Inclusion criteria were peer-reviewed journal articles published in English, study participants under 18 years of age, and a description in the methods section of mindfulness as the chief component of an intervention. A systematic search was conducted, of which upon review, 20 articles met inclusion criteria. Mindfulness interventions with youth overall were found to be helpful and not to carry iatrogenic harm, with the primary omnibus effect size (del) in the small to moderate range (0.23, p < .0001), indicating the superiority of mindfulness treatments over active control comparison conditions. A significantly larger effect size was found on psychological symptoms compared to other dependent variable types (0.37 vs. 0.21, p = .028), and for studies drawn from clinical samples compared to non-clinical sample (0.50 vs. 0.20, p = .024). Mindfulness appears to be a promising intervention modality for youth. Although to date the majority of studies on mindfulness with youth engage generally healthy participants recruited from schools, the findings of this meta-analysis suggest that future research might focus on youth in clinical settings and target symptoms of psychopathology.

The Self-Compassion Scale is a Valid and Theoretically Coherent Measure of Self-Compassion

Abstract: Recently, the Self-Compassion Scale (SCS) has been criticized for problems with psychometric validity. Further, the use of an overall self-compassion score that includes items representing the lack of self-compassion has been called into question. I argue that the SCS is consistent with my definition of self-compassion, which I see as a dynamic balance between the compassionate versus uncompassionate ways that individuals emotionally respond to pain and failure (with kindness or judgment), cognitively understand their predicament (as part of the human experience or as isolating), and pay attention to suffering (in a mindful or over-identified manner). A summary of new empirical evidence is provided using a bi-factor analysis, which indicates that at least 90 % of the reliable variance in SCS scores can be explained by an overall self-compassion factor in five different populations, justifying the use of a total scale score. Support for a six-factor structure to the SCS was also found; however, suggesting the scale can be used in a flexible manner depending on the interests of researchers. I also discuss the issue of whether a two-factor model of the SCS—which collapses self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness items into a “self-compassion” factor and self-judgment, isolation, and over-identification items into a “self-criticism” factor—makes theoretical sense. Finally, I present new data showing that self-compassion training increases scores on the positive SCS subscales and decreases scores on the negative subscales, supporting the idea that self-compassion represents more compassionate and fewer uncompassionate responses to suffering.