Previous research has reported positive associations between anger, perceived stress and blood pressure. These associations have largely been based on cross-sectional data and a small number of longitudinal works. Using a prospective longitudinal cohort design, this study more directly tested the relationships between anger, perceived stress and blood pressure by using a psychological therapeutic intervention (mindfulness-based stress reduction) to manipulate anger and perceived stress. Anger and perceived stress were in turn evaluated for association with blood pressure. Despite improvements in psychosocial functioning and reductions in blood pressure, findings from this study failed to demonstrate an association between change in anger or perceived stress with change in daytime or 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure. A model where these variables interact indirectly via stress coping mechanisms or health behaviours may be the linking mechanism in this study. Results from this thesis have contributed evidence to a divided field dominated by cross-sectional research.

Use and effectiveness of the quiet eye (QE) technique has been a topic of interest in sport, exercise, and performance psychology. The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of QE self-training on college students' internal processes associated with performing a novel task. Specifically, college students' internal processes were examined to understand how QE self-training influenced performance on a novel aiming task. College students (N = 106; M = 21.84 ± 1.79) voluntarily participated in QE self-training intervention. Participants' self-efficacy, self-regulation, and mindfulness was examined before and after QE self-training intervention over a 7-week period, with performance being measured weekly. Following intervention, interviews and follow-up survey were used to gather information about perceptions of using QE self-training instruction. Results indicated outcome performance improved from pre- to post-intervention. Additionally, participants mindfulness acting with awareness and non-judging of inner experiences was influenced by QET self-training. Findings from this study may help sport coaches and performance psychology professionals provide attentional focus training instruction to individuals with diverse levels of skills while also providing future directions for applied practice and research.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2005. / Supervisors: Kristin D. Neff and Stephanie S. Rude. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Orientador: Agnaldo Lopes da Silva Filho / Resumo: Introdução: Anualmente milhões de mulheres em todo o mundo são rastreadas para câncer de mama, sendo que algumas delas serão submetidas a procedimentos adicionais, entre eles a biópsia mamária. A biópsia de fragmento (core biopsy) guiada por ultrassonografia é um método minimamente invasivo para o diagnóstico de lesões mamárias suspeitas, e possui inúmeras vantagens quando comparada às biópsias cirúrgicas. A core biopsy é um procedimento ambulatorial no qual raramente é necessário o uso de medicações analgésicas após o procedimento. No entanto, qualquer procedimento invasivo, por menor que seja, vem acompanhado de experiências de ansiedade, dor e medo do desconhecido. A Medicina Anti-Estresse entende que os pensamentos, sentimentos, níveis de ansiedade e capacidade de lidar com eventos estressores podem afetar a saúde e a percepção de saúde. Programas de Medicina Anti Estresse reduzem o estresse e auxiliam os praticantes a terem atitudes positivas em seu cotidiano. O objetivo deste estudo controlado e randomizado foi avaliar o impacto das intervenções baseadas em Mindfulness (MBIs) em parâmetros quantitativos e qualitativos de estresse em pacientes submetidas a biópsias de mama guiadas por imagem. Métodos: Após assinarem o consentimento informado, 82 mulheres com indicação de biópsia de mama guiada por imagem foram randomizadas em dois grupos: grupo MBI ou grupo controle de cuidados padrão. Na semana anterior à biópsia, minutos antes na sala de espera e durante o procedimento... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: Introduction: Each year worldwide millions of women are screened for breast cancer and some of them will undergo additional investigations, including breast biopsy. Ultrasound guided core needle biopsy is a minimally invasive method for the diagnosis of suspected mammary lesions and has many advantages when compared to surgical biopsies. Core biopsy is an outpatient procedure and analgesic medication is rarely necessary after tissue removal. Nevertheless, any invasive procedure, however small it may be, is accompanied by experiences of anxiety, pain and fear of the unknown. Anti Stress Medicine recognizes that thoughts, feelings, levels of anxiety, and ability to cope with stressful events can affect health and health perception. Anti-Stress Medicine programs reduce stress and help practitioners to have positive attitudes in their daily lives. The purpose of this randomized controlled trial was to evaluate the impact of Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) on quantitative and qualitative stress parameters on patients undergoing imaging-guided breast biopsies. Methods: After giving informed consent, 82 women that needed percutaneous imaging-guided breast biopsy were randomized into two groups: MBI group or standard care control group. One week before the biopsy procedure, minutes prior to the biopsy procedure on the waiting room and during the biopsy procedure, the MBI group was exposed to audio guided meditations and relaxing music and the standard care control group receiv... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Doutor

Background: Mindfulness based interventions are becoming increasingly popular for use with children and adolescents, particularly within the school context. Objectives: The aim of the systematic review was to examine the effectiveness of school-based mindfulness interventions with particular reference to mental health and wellbeing. The main study aimed to determine if beliefs about emotions and mindfulness moderated the relationship between stressors and somatic symptoms in an adolescent population. Method: The literature was systematically searched for mindfulness interventions carried out with children and adolescents within the school context. A cross-sectional survey was carried out in a rural sample of 489 high school students to examine specific a priori anticipated relationships amongst beliefs about emotions, mindfulness, stressors, and somatic symptoms. Results: Six studies met the criteria for inclusion. The study demonstrated that school-based mindfulness interventions produce some evidence of effective outcomes for mental health and wellbeing in children and adolescents. Factors associated with improvements included that the intervention was delivered by an experienced mindfulness trainer, and that home practice formed part of the intervention. Somatic symptoms were significantly correlated with beliefs about emotions and were significantly inversely correlated with dispositional mindfulness. Lower levels of mindfulness were associated with stronger beliefs about the unacceptability of expressing or experiencing negative emotions. Beliefs about emotions and mindfulness did not significantly moderate the relationship between somatic symptoms and stressors within an adolescent population. Conclusion: Further research is necessary to determine if mindfulness as a construct or an intervention is effective in enhancing adolescents’ resilience to stressors by improving mental health and wellbeing.

The aim of the study was to investigate the reduction of counterproductive work behavior (CWB) through two interventions. The sample consisted of 22 nursing assistants working in an elderly nursing home, who were divided into two treatment groups, where one received a mindfulness intervention and one received a feedback intervention. The main hypothesis was that both interventions would be effective in reducing CWB by increasing self-efficacy through positive feedback and increasing emotional regulation through mindfulness practice, respectively. A pre-post quasi-experimental design was used, where the participants engaged in the interventions two times per week for four consecutive weeks. The results did not support the main hypothesis, as the interventions did not significantly reduce CWB. The lack of support for the main hypothesis is most likely due to low self-reported engagement in CWB at baseline. However, the interventions did significantly affect both self-efficacy and emotional regulation, but not in line with the hypotheses’ expectations. The feedback intervention significantly increased both emotional regulation dimensions but not self-efficacy, while the mindfulness intervention increased emotional self-efficacy and showed strong tendencies towards increasing social self-efficacy, but did not increase any of the emotional regulation dimensions as hypothesized. A conclusion from the results is that more research is needed to further investigate the effectiveness of the two interventions.

In autumn of 2010 the phenomenon of ‘Greek crisis’ was aggressively developed to a new experience of Greece. As a theatre practitioner from Athens, the specific historical time pushed me to question big-scale narratives of identity, home and belonging-ness. I relocated my training outdoors. My aim was to create a site-specific performance process that investigates place as a psychophysical experience and the ways through which it integrates with the cultural practices embedded in situ. The thesis builds around a Geographical/Buddhist framework where a cultural landscape epistemology outlined by Mitch Rose and John Wylie (2006) is realised through the practice of samatha vipashyana. The accounts of Rose and Wylie organise the examination of space as a body-landscape interrelationship. The Buddhist notion of mindfulness (sati) structures the investigation of the experience in space through theatre and dance disciplines in situ. The Buddhist concept of selflessness (anatta) permeates the performance practice in situ as a discipline of presence. Designated as Geopoetics, the practice of thesis applies meditation practices of breathing and walking to explore site through movement, feeling and activity. It further extends such a process via the disciplines of Somatics, Grotowski-based actor training and Dilley’s ‘dance.art.lab’. It employs the notions of ‘story’ from the Six Viewpoints system and ‘living myth’ of Anna Halprin to formulate a devising process of site-specific performance as an enactment of interrelationship between subject(s) and space. Geopoetics creates experiential containers within which the participant/ watcher is enabled to contemplate and re-examine her political, perceptual and emotional present. Based on its methodology of mindfulness (sati) notions of ‘identity’, ‘home’ and ‘sense of belonging’ are seen as individual or collective modes of attachment which altogether co-formulate the event of landscape. The practice of Geopoetics suggests an inquiry of place through the body for site-specific devisers and performers. It also relates to the discipline of architects, geographers and planners as a practice which investigates space’s contextual paradoxes and dynamics through the body.

Background: With advances in medical treatments, the numbers of cancer survivors have grown considerably over recent years. Following completion of cancer treatment, patients can experience a range of physical and psychological difficulties, particularly around critical transition phases such as adjustment to survivorship. One of the most common difficulties cited by cancer survivors is that of fear of cancer recurrence (FOR). Existing treatments for improving psychological wellbeing in this population appear to offer limited efficacy, and there are very few interventions directly targeting FOR. Acceptance-based approaches, with an underlying aim of improving psychological flexibility, offer one novel alternative approach to addressing these difficulties. Methods: This thesis presents a systematic review and meta-analysis of the literature in relation to the effectiveness of acceptance-based interventions for post treatment cancer survivors, with a particular focus on Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBI). A cross sectional questionnaire study is then reported which explores the potential role of psychological flexibility in mediating the relationship between FOR and distress and quality of life (QoL)outcomes. Results: The findings of the review offer tentative support for the effectiveness of MBI in reducing stress and depressive symptoms, while less convincing results emerged for anxiety. Results from the empirical study suggest that while psychological flexibility does not appear to significantly mediate the impact of FOR on distress and QoL, value based living and cognitive fusion did emerge as significant mediating variables within these relationships. Conclusions: Findings suggest that acceptance-based approaches, may be of benefit in reducing the burden of distress and improving the lives of cancer survivors. Supporting cancer survivors to become less entangled with their thoughts and live in accordance with their values may be particularly beneficial. Further studies using larger samples and longitudinal designs are warranted.

Embodiment is the experience of one's own body. It is often studied using the Rubber Hand Illusion (RHI). This illusion varies the consistency between visual, tactile and proprioceptive signals to elicit a change to embodiment. Changes to embodiment are typically measured using a single sensory outcome measure of proprioceptive drift, which is interpreted as a proxy measure of embodiment. This approach obscures the unique contribution of other modalities such as vision and touch. The work presented in this thesis uses a mixed method approach to investigate the unique contribution of visual, tactile and proprioceptive modalities within the multisensory process of embodiment. In study one, a qualitative analysis showed that when visual-tactile discrepancies were present in the RHI, participants described both body ownership and body extension type changes to embodiment, and changes to tactile perception. In study two, psychophysical measurements of the RHI showed changes to visual, tactile and proprioceptive aspects of embodiment, suggesting that embodiment in the RHI could be measured using multiple sensory outcomes. Studies three and four assessed the utility of measuring multiple sensory outcomes of the RHI, by exploring changes to embodiment following internal and external forms of body perception training. Study three showed that brief body scan meditation, as a form of internal body perception training, reduced the longevity of the visual sensory outcome of the RHI and that this reduction was negatively correlated with improvements in interoceptive sensitivity. Study four showed that learning about the body through anatomical dissection training, as a form of external body perception training, reduced the longevity of the visual sensory outcome measure and decreased interoceptive sensitivity, but only in medical students who were high in trait personal distress. Collectively, these findings suggest that aspects of the multisensory processes of embodiment can become specialised and identify some unique contributions of individual sensory modalities to embodiment. The proprioceptive sensory outcome appears to be stable over time but the visual sensory outcome is a longer-term change to embodiment, which is susceptible to interference from body perception training. In study five, confirmatory factor analysis was used to assess the psychometric properties of an embodiment change questionnaire measuring body ownership, body extension and perceived causality in the RHI. Factor scores from the questionnaire were correlated with visual and proprioceptive outcome measures of the RHI and measures of trait empathy. The results suggested factor scores had better convergent validity than the standard illusion score used in previous research. This work has improved subjective and perceptual measures of the RHI and specified ways that individual sensory modalities provide a unique contribution to embodiment. The methods developed have further applications for studying the multisensory process of embodiment and investigating embodiment in a number of clinical groups.

abstract: The population of older adults and the percentage of people living in urban areas are both increasing in the U.S. Finding ways to enhance city-dwelling, older adults' social integration, cognitive vitality, and connectedness to nature were conceptualized as critical pathways to maximizing their subjective well-being (SWB) and overall health. Past research has found that gardening is associated with increased social contact and reduced risk of dementia, and that higher levels of social support, cognitive functioning, mindfulness, and connectedness to nature are positively related to various aspects of SWB. The present study was a pilot study to examine the feasibility of conducting a randomized, controlled trial of community gardening and to provide an initial assessment of a new intervention--"Mindful Community Gardening," or mindfulness training in the context of gardening. In addition, this study examined whether community gardening, with or without mindfulness training, enhanced SWB among older adults and increased social support, attention and mindfulness, and connectedness to nature. Fifty community-dwelling adults between the ages of 55 and 79 were randomly assigned to one of three groups: Traditional Community Gardening (TCG), Mindful Community Gardening (MCG), or Wait-List Control. The TCG and MCG arms each consisted of two groups of 7 to 10 participants meeting weekly for nine weeks. TCG involved typical gardening activities undertaken collaboratively. MCG involved the same, but with the addition of guided development of non-judgmental, present-focused awareness. There was a statistically significant increase in different aspects of mindfulness for the TCG and the MCG arms. The interventions did not measurably impact social support, attention, or connectedness to nature in this small, high functioning, pilot sample. Qualitative analysis of interview data from 12 participants in the TCG and MCG groups revealed that both groups helped some participants to better cope with adversity. It was concluded that it is feasible to conduct randomized, controlled trials of community gardening with urban older adults, and considerations for implementing such interventions are delineated. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Psychology 2011