Mindfulness has historically been cultivated via formal meditation practice and the majority of meditation research examines individuals with extensive training or participants in Mindfulness based stress reduction programs that require considerable expense, a trained facilitator, and take approximately 8 weeks to complete. However, current literature does not speak directly to those who do not have the time or ability for such commitments. Formal mindfulness meditation practice and interventions reduce stress in various populations; however, the outcomes of a one-time intervention are relatively unknown. This study aims to examine whether a one-time (20-min) mindfulness meditation intervention would improve cardiovascular variables during acute stressors in a meditation naïve sample when compared to a control group. Fifty-eight (58) normotensive undergraduate students (27 males, 31 females) with no prior meditation experience were randomly placed into either a treatment group that participated in one-time 15-minute audio training session on mindfulness meditation or a control group which listened to an audio health article. Following the training, participants participated in a psychosocial stressor modeled after the Trier Social Stress Test. Heart rate and blood pressure were assessed before and after the intervention and during the stress task. Results showed the mindfulness meditation condition group was effective in decreasing blood pressure response during the study, when compared to the control group. These results indicate that brief meditation training has beneficial effects on cardiovascular variables. These findings suggest that the benefits of a brief one-time mindfulness meditation intervention can be recognized immediately after a brief training treatment.

Nursing students face many stressors throughout their nursing education. These stressors include course assignments, exams, and clinical experiences. At graduation, nursing students face additional stressors due to the requirement of passing the national exam to become licensed as well as finding and starting a job as a graduate nurse. This stress can impact their academic performance, mental health, and the care they deliver to patients. Mindfulness is a way of paying attention to the present moment that can help reduce stress. Nursing students should learn coping skills that they can also use as they transition to practice. This quality improvement project aims to evaluate the implementation of an evidence-based mindfulness-based intervention program to reduce stress in an Undergraduate Nursing Program. Participants will rate their satisfaction with the program, state whether they used exercises for home practice, prefer an in-person or online program, and whether or not the program reduced their stress. Four mindfulness sessions will be recorded and uploaded to YouTube where participants will be able to watch. Once participants have completed the four sessions, they will complete a demographics survey and program evaluation. A foreseeable barrier is participant time and availability. Nursing students are historically busy and may feel they do not have the time to participate in mindfulness.

Syftet med denna studie är att försöka förstå barnens tankar och idéer när de får prova på mindfulness. Ytterligare ett syfte är att undersöka hur mindfulness kan motverka negativ stress och hur mindfulness kan användas i förskolans vardag. Inom buddismen har mindfulness funnits i över 2500 år och är alltså en gammal filosofi. Under fyra veckor har jag undersökt olika avslappningsmetoder tillsammans med en liten barngrupp på en förskola. Här har jag tillsammans med fem barn, i åldrarna tre till fem år, undersökt mindfulness. Samtal med pedagoger har även skett under undersökningen för att få en rikare bild på hur man kan arbeta med mindfulness i förskolans vardag tillsammans med barn. Jag har under mitt forskningsarbete insett att mindfulness är mycket mer än att meditera, och att individer använder mindfulness omedvetet som medvetet under sin vardag. För att kunna studera barns reflektioner, tankar och uppfattningar har jag dokumenterat (genom film och anteckningar), samtalat och reflekterat tillsammans med barnen. Dialoger med pedagoger och anhöriga till barnen har även dokumenterats skriftligen. Mitt resultat av denna studie blev att barnen i den undersökta barngruppen förmedlade en positiv utveckling genom mindfulness och ansåg att det var glädjande att utöva mindfulness. Pedagogerna fick upp ögonen för vad mindfulness verkligen var, och utvecklade tanken om att mindfulness inte ”bara” är att utöva övningar i stilla rum, utan att de är så mycket mer.

Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder have less successful school experiences, as well as lives as adults, related to their challenges with self-regulation (Brook, Zhang, Brook, & Leukefeld, 2015). Children spend most of their school career in classrooms; however, teachers may not provide teaching or classroom environments that are conducive for learning for children with ADHD (Straker, Harris, Joosten, & Howie, 2018). These factors contribute to barriers to their success in school occupations, as well as their self-efficacy and participation (Major, Martinussen, & Wiener, 2013). However, evidence suggests that providing self-regulation strategies in classrooms improves success in school occupations. This doctoral project proposes a face-to-face continuing education course educating kindergarten through third grade teachers on strategies with a Classroom Self-regulation Toolbox facilitated by an occupational therapist. Self-regulation strategies of mindfulness, cognitive-behavioral, sensory, seating arrangements and ergonomics are included in the Toolbox. This continuing education course fosters collaboration between elementary teachers as well as elementary teachers and occupational therapists. This project will contribute to school-based occupational therapy by providing more evidence-based classroom interventions (The American Occupational Therapy Association, 2014) and improving collaboration between elementary school professionals.

Depression has increased among adolescents and adults over the last decade. Effective treatments and techniques to improve personal well being and disorders like depression are much needed. Mindfulness is a psychological technique that involves actively paying attention to one's awareness of the present moment with nonjudgmental acceptance (Kabat-Zinn, 1990). While the effectiveness of mindfulness interventions has been widely studied, relatively little research has been done on the effects of mindfulness interventions on depression using neuroimaging techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) or electroencephalography (EEG). This systematic review includes four studies that investigates the effectiveness of mindfulness interventions on depression measured by fMRI or EEG and different rating scales measuring depression. The results from this systematic review shows that mindfulness interventions may have an effect on depression. Two of the studies (Ferri et al., (2017); Yang et al., (2016), found significant differences in the rating scales for depression. The studies also suggest that mindfulness interventions can impact the brain regions involved in negative emotional processing in individuals with depression, such as the default mode network (DMN) and the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC).

This study examined meditative practices among group participants and therapists, participating in the Domestic Violence Focused Couples Treatment (DVFCT) group using the phenomenology and systems frameworks. Specifically, this inquiry explored whether or not group participants and therapists experienced intrapersonal effects as well as relational effects from meditating, both within and outside of session. Little research examines the relational impact of meditating, or the use of meditation as a strategy for helping couples who experienced intimate partner violence. Systems theory and existing research regarding mindfulness meditation contributed to the development of interview questions. Five group participants and four therapists who facilitated the Domestic Violence Focused Couples Treatment group within the last two years were interviewed. The main theme that had emerged from the study were the differences between meditating during session versus out of session for all study participants. In the study, it was noticed that group participants also experienced more relational effects then were noticed by the therapists. While the experience for the therapists and group participants varied, some similarities were found consistently through their interviews. Also included are a discussion of the connections between these themes and the existing literature, the strengths and limitations of this study, and the implications for future research. / Master of Science

Bakgrund: Stress är vanligt förekommande bland studenter och kan ge upphov till såvälpsykiska som fysiska besvär. Meditation som behandling skulle kunna vara ett alternativ förfysioterapeuter att motverka detta. Syfte: Att genom en systematisk litteraturstudie undersöka det vetenskapliga underlaget förmeditation som behandling och dess effekt hos studenter med stress. Metod: En systematisk litteratursökning efter randomiserade kontrollerade studier genomfördesi databasen PubMed. De utvalda studiernas kvalitet granskades enligt PEDro-skalan ochtillförlitligheten av resultatet bedömdes utifrån GRADEstud. Resultat: Åtta studier inkluderades i litteraturstudien. Sju av åtta studier visade en signifikantminskning i upplevd stress hos interventionsgrupperna jämfört med kontrollgrupperna.Kvalitetsgranskningen enligt PEDro resulterade i fyra studier med medel kvalitet respektive fyrastudier med hög kvalitet. De fyra studier med hög kvalitet som sammanvägdes visade alla enstatistisk signifikant förbättring, men tillförlitligheten av det sammanvägda resultatet bedömdesenligt GRADEstud vara låg. Konklusion: Meditation som behandling kan ha en positiv effekt på stress hos studenter. Merforskning krävs då tillförlitligheten till det sammanvägda resultatet bedöms vara låg. / Objective: Stress is widely occurring among students and can give rise to psychological as wellas physical problems. Meditation could be used as an alternative for physiotherapists to preventthese issues. Aim: The aim of this systematic literature study is to examine the scientific evidence formeditation as treatment and its effect in students with stress. Method: A systematic literature search for randomized controlled trials was conducted inPubMed. The quality of the included studies was examined using the PEDro scale and thereliability of the result was assessed using GRADEstud. Results: Eight studies were included in the literature study. Seven out of eight studies found asignificant reduction in perceived stress among the intervention groups compared to the controlgroups. The quality assessment according to PEDro resulted in four studies with moderatequality and four studies with high quality. The four studies with high quality all showed astatistically significant improvement, however the reliability assessed with GRADEstud wasconsidered low. Conclusion: Meditation as treatment may have a positive effect on perceived stress in students.However, more research is needed to determine the reliability of the effect.

Due to relatively recent strides made in the field of virtual reality, the technology's potential use in a clinical setting has been the focus of a growing body of research. Multiple studies focus on benefits of its combination with meditation interventions; however, few explore its impact following a short-term period of utilizing both. This investigation aims to explore that gap in the literature by determining whether an improvement on mindfulness and working memory test scores would be seen following a single session of virtual reality meditation. That was done by randomly assigning participants to one of two conditions. One group underwent a guided meditation while immersed in a virtual environment, while the other listened to the same audio within a blank environment. Each participant's working memory was assessed with an N-back task before and after meditation. Additionally, participants were given the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory (Walach et al. 2006) to determine if there were any changes in mindfulness. There were no significant differences in mindfulness scores across conditions, conversely, pre and post working memory scores were significantly different in the virtual reality condition. Results suggest that a single session provides tangible benefits to working memory, opening the door for more in-depth investigations.

Bakgrund:  En av de vanligaste orsakerna till att patienter söker sjukvård är depression. Medicinisk behandling har varit en av de mest använda metoderna för att behandla depression. Det har blivit allt vanligare att undersöka alternativa metoder som ett komplement. Mindfulness-baserad kognitiv terapi är en behandlingsmetod som utförs både i grupp och som egenvård. Det är viktigt för sjuksköterskor att hålla sig uppdaterad om både nya och beprövade behandlingsmetoder för att patienter ska få bästa möjliga vård. Syfte: Syftet var att undersöka patienters upplevelser av mindfulness-baserad kognitiv terapi vid depression inom primärvården. Metod: En allmän litteraturöversikt enligt Friberg (2012) har använts med induktiv ansats baserad på kvalitativa data. Resultat: I resultatet presenterades tre huvudkategorier med sex underkategorier baserade på patienters upplevelser. Huvudkategorierna är Personlig påverkan, Interaktion och Utmaningar. Underkategorierna är att Bättre kunna hantera sina tankar och känslor, Få en känsla av välbefinnande, Lättare att fokusera och vara uppmärksam, Känna ökad egenförmåga, Känslan av brist på tid eller plats att praktisera mindfulness och Bättre kunna hantera utmaningar.  Slutsats: Mindfulness-baserad kognitiv terapi upplevs på olika sätt för patienter med depression. Sjuksköterskor kan hjälpa patienter som lider av depression i primärvården genom att ge råd om egenvård och presentera olika behandlingsalternativ. Sjuksköterskor ska samarbeta med andra vårdgivare och patienter för att kunna erbjuda bra och säker vård. Patienterna upplevde MBKT som ett bra verktyg för att hantera depressiva symtom.

Abstract: Den föreliggande studien hade som syfte att undersöka hur psykoterapeuter i Sverigeupplevde medveten närvaro - sk. mindfulness - som en effektiv behandlingsmetod inomKBT, samt hur dessa upplevelser sammanföll med tidigare empiri om metodenseffektivitet i kliniska sammanhang. En kvalitativ forskningsdesign valdes där sjulegitimerade psykoterapeuter intervjuades och datan analyserades med en induktivtematisk analys. Fem teman identifierades: lämplighet, anpassning till patienten, KBTutan mindfulness, samt positiva respektive negativa aspekter, med en till två kategoriervardera. Resultaten pekade på att mindfulness kunde vara ett effektivtbehandlingskomplement inom traditionell KBT då metoden hade större fokus ochkunde sedermera tillämpas inom så gott som alla psykiska diagnoser. Terapeuternaupplevde att medveten närvaro var ett hjälpsamt verktyg för samtliga besvär med tankaroch känslor, oavsett om det fanns en psykisk diagnos eller inte. Detta skulle såledeskunna göra mindfulness till en effektiv behandlingsmetod både inom kliniska ochvardagliga miljöer för att motverka utbredningen av psykisk ohälsa i världen.