Wellness Research for Mindful Living
March 18, 2024 - Breathe, don’t vent: Turning down the heat is key to managing anger - Ohio State University
"Venting about a source of anger might feel good in the moment, but it’s not effective at reducing the rage, new research suggests. Instead, techniques often used to address stress – deep breathing, mindfulness, meditation, yoga or even counting to 10 – have been shown to be more effective at decreasing anger and aggression."
Jan. 2, 2024 - Combine mindfulness with exercise for mental health boost in 2024 - University of Bath, UK
A study, published in the academic journal Mental Health and Physical Activity, suggests that life changes which combine both physical activity and mindfulness are most effective at lifting mood and improving health and wellbeing.
May 24, 2023 - Mind-body practice of qigong can improve cancer-related fatigue - Brown University
"Researchers at Brown University’s Carney Institute for Brain Science found that people with cancer-related fatigue who practiced qigong, a mind-body movement practice, showed clinically significant improvements in fatigue over the course of a 10-week study. And qigong was as effective at reducing fatigue as a more energy-intensive exercise and nutrition program, the researchers found."
Nov. 6, 2022 - Mindfulness shows promise as an effective intervention to lower blood pressure - American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2022
”Adults with elevated blood pressure who participated in a mindfulness behavior program for eight weeks had significantly lower blood pressure levels and greatly reduced sedentary time, when evaluated at six months follow up.”
Sept. 28, 2022 - Mind-body practices lower blood sugar levels in people - Keck School of Medicine of University of Southern California
”This study, the first to analyze a range of mind-body practices including meditation, qigong, yoga and mindfulness-based stress reduction and their effect on blood glucose levels, revealed that all mind-body practices led to significant reductions in blood sugar levels.
Taken as a whole, the mind-body practices averaged a .84% reduction in hemoglobin A1c, a measure of the average blood glucose level for the past 3 months. Yoga, the most-studied modality, provided the largest benefit, about a 1% reduction in hemoglobin A1c. The authors noted that a 1% reduction is particularly notable because metformin, the most prescribed diabetes drug, reduces hemoglobin A1c in people with type 2 diabetes by 1.1% on average.
Dec. 16, 2021 - Women Who Practice Self-Compassion are at Lower Risk of Cardiovascular Disease - University of Pittsburgh
"Middle-aged women who practiced self-compassion had lower risk of developing cardiovascular disease, irrespective of other traditional risk factors such as high blood pressure, insulin resistance and cholesterol levels."
March 22, 2021 - Want to improve your health? Head to a national park, and absorb the sounds - Colorado State University
This study focused on sounds within a national park, but I feel the takeaway message is that we can all benefit from the experience of natural sounds wherever we can find them, which may explain why I'm drawn to any place with waterfalls!
"Researchers from Colorado State University, Carleton University, Michigan State University and the National Park Service analyzed studies on the outcomes of listening to natural sounds and found striking human health benefits. The team found people experienced decreased pain, lower stress, improved mood and enhanced cognitive performance. The sounds of water were most effective at improving positive emotions and health outcomes, while bird sounds combat stress and annoyance."
Dec. 14, 2020 - Mindfulness Meditation May Decrease Impact of Migraine - Wake Forest Baptist Health
89 adults with a history of migraine were randomly assigned to either a MBSR (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction) group or headache education group. "Participants in both the MBSR and headache education groups reported fewer days with migraine. However, only MBSR also lessened disability and improved quality of life, depression scores and other measures reflecting emotional well-being, with effects seen out to 36 weeks."
Oct 1, 2020 - Study Finds Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Course Reduces Chronic Pain
"A mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) course was found to benefit patients with chronic pain and depression, leading to significant improvement in participant perceptions of pain, mood, and functional capacity, according to a study in The Journal of the American Osteopathic Association. Most of the study respondents (89%) reported the program helped them find ways to better cope with their pain while 11% remained neutral."
July 15, 2020 - Meditation linked to lower cardiovascular risk
"The researchers found that people who meditated had lower rates of high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke, and coronary artery disease, compared with those who did not meditate.”
Feb. 20, 2020 - Mindfulness as Antidote to pain and negativity
After a 20-minute introduction into mindfulness concepts "... participants reported less pain and negative emotions when employing mindfulness techniques, and at the same time their brains showed significant reductions in activity associated with pain and negative emotions."
Feb. 17, 2020 - The practice of meditation leaves marks in the brain
"The analysis of the data clearly showed that levels of anxiety and stress perceived by the subjects who followed the meditation program were significantly reduced in comparison with those of the volunteers who did not practice TM [Transcendental Meditation]."
Dec. 20, 2019 - Study: Mindfulness Improves Sleep, Reduces Stress In Cancer Survivors, Caregivers
"Cancer survivors and their caregivers who completed an eight-week mindfulness program experienced significant improvements in their sleep quality and resilience while decreasing their perceived stress, according to research led by The Ohio State University College of Medicine."
Dec. 5, 2019 - PET scans show Transcendental Meditation with cardiac rehabilitation increases blood flow to the heart
"The researchers randomly divided the subjects into four groups: cardiac rehabilitation, Transcendental Meditation, Transcendental Meditation plus cardiac rehabilitation, or usual care. The results showed that of the 37 patients who completed posttesting, myocardial blood flow increased by 20.7% in the group that did both Transcendental Meditation and cardiac rehabilitation. Blood flow in the group that practiced Transcendental Meditation alone increased 12.8%. Cardiac rehabilitation by itself showed an improvement of 5.8%."
Aug. 27, 2019 - New evidence that optimists live longer
”When individuals were compared based on their initial levels of optimism, the researchers found that the most optimistic men and women demonstrated, on average, an 11 to 15 percent longer lifespan, and had 50-70 percent greater odds of reaching 85 years old compared to the least optimistic groups.”
Dec. 4, 2019 - Mindfulness training may help lower blood pressure, new study shows
In this small study, the "...program aimed to use mindfulness techniques to enhance attention control, emotion regulation and self-awareness of both healthy and unhealthy habits, thereby diminishing some of the risk factors associated with elevated blood pressure..." According to researchers, "After undergoing mindfulness training, participants exhibited significant improvements in self-regulation skills and significantly reduced blood pressure readings."
Nov. 11, 2019 - How meditation can help you make fewer mistakes
"The participants, who had never meditated before, were taken through a 20-minute open monitoring meditation exercise while the researchers measured brain activity through electroencephalography, or EEG." According to researchers, ““These findings are a strong demonstration of what just 20 minutes of meditation can do to enhance the brain’s ability to detect and pay attention to mistakes..."
Sept. 2, 2019 - Study finds Body Scan Meditation reduces mental & physical stress levels
47 students were randomly assigned to either an intervention group that listened to a 20-minute long audio recording of a guided body scan or a control group that listened to an audiobook for the same amount of time. After 8 weeks, the body scan group showed a decreased level of the stress hormone cortisol as compared to the audiobook group.
Aug. 26, 2019 - Two studies reveal benefits of mindfulness for middle school students
Two new studies from MIT suggest that mindfulness — the practice of focusing one’s awareness on the present moment — can enhance academic performance and mental health in middle schoolers.
Sept. 6, 2017 -Yoga and meditation improve brain function and energy levels
"The study found that practicing just 25 minutes of Hatha yoga or mindfulness meditation per day can boost the brain’s executive functions, cognitive abilities linked to goal-directed behavior and the ability to control knee-jerk emotional responses, habitual thinking patterns and actions."
Feb. 7, 2019 - Being kind to yourself has mental and physical benefits, research shows.
“A study by the Universities of Exeter and Oxford has found that taking part in self-compassion exercises calms the heart rate, switching off the body’s threat response. Previous studies have shown that this threat response damages the immune system. Researchers believe the ability to switch off this response may lower the risk of disease.” The self-compassion exercise in this study consisted of an 11 minute audio recorded guided body scan.
Jan. 17, 2019 - Mindfulness may ease menopausal symptoms
Mayo Clinic study finds mindfulness may be associated with fewer menopausal symptoms and may be helpful for women struggling with irritability, anxiety and depression.
Aug 6, 2018 - Even quick meditation aids cognitive skills
Researchers at Yale University and Swarthmore College report even a quick 10-minute meditation can improve cognitive skills and "...even people who have never meditated before can benefit from even a short meditation practice."
Feb 7, 2018 - Positive attitudes about aging reduce risk of dementia in older adults
”… the study reports that older persons with positive age beliefs who carry one of the strongest risk factors for developing dementia — the ε4 variant of the APOE gene —were nearly 50% less likely to develop the disease than their peers who held negative age beliefs.”
Sept. 6, 2017 -Yoga and meditation improve brain function and energy levels
"The study found that practicing just 25 minutes of Hatha yoga or mindfulness meditation per day can boost the brain’s executive functions, cognitive abilities linked to goal-directed behavior and the ability to control knee-jerk emotional responses, habitual thinking patterns and actions."
April 9, 2015 - A Grateful Heart is a Healthier Heart according to a study at Univ. of California, San Diego.“We found that those patients who kept gratitude journals for those eight weeks showed reductions in circulating levels of several important inflammatory biomarkers, as well as an increase in heart rate variability while they wrote. Improved heart rate variability is considered a measure of reduced cardiac risk…”
Nov. 16, 2012 - Wandering Minds Associated With Aging Cells
"In the study, telomere length, an emerging biomarker for cellular and general bodily aging, was assessed in association with the tendency to be present in the moment versus the tendency to mind wander, in research on 239 healthy, midlife women ranging in age from 50 to 65 years." Researchers found "... those who reported more mind wandering had shorter telomeres, while those who reported more presence in the moment, or having a greater focus and engagement with their current activities, had longer telomeres, even after adjusting for current stress."