The current study evaluated the impact of a 20-week mindfulness training program on executive function, internalizing and externalizing behaviour, and social skills in a clinical sample of adolescent boys with learning disabilities (LD). Mindfulness Martial Arts (MMA) is a manualized group treatment program incorporating elements of mindfulness meditation, cognitive behavioural therapy, and mixed martial arts. Sixty-five boys (ages 12 – 18) with LD were assigned to the MMA or waitlist control group (WL). Adolescents and their parents completed standardized questionnaires before and after training. Analysis of adolescents with distinct clinical profiles showed promising effects. Compared to the WL group, MMA participants with co-occurring ADHD improved on parent-rated externalizing behaviour, oppositional defiant problems, and conduct problems. Boys with elevated hyperactive/impulsive symptomotology improved on parent-rated social problems and monitoring skills. Boys with elevated anxiety reported decreased anxiety. MMA shows promise as an alternative treatment option for youth with LD and co-occurring difficulties.

Mindfulness is an element of consciousness which has historically been associated with well-being. Mindfulness-based clinical interventions intend on reducing cognitive vulnerability to emotional distress and have produced promising results. Such endeavors however rest upon the dissent that remains among researchers on how to operationally define the construct. Measuring mindfulness in a valid and reliable manner is an essential part of scientific inquiry and facilitates the effort to define the construct. This study examines three newer self-report mindfulness instruments; Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ), the Toronto Mindfulness Scale (TMS) and the Experiences Questionnaire (EQ). A sample of non-meditators (Texas A&M University students; n =141) and meditators (non-clinical population from Bay Area, California; n =157) with a wide range of meditation experience completed the instruments. Multiple correlations allowed for an in-depth examination of the measures at full-scale and sub-scale level and all yielded significant and positive relations. Regression analyses established that meditation does increase mindfulness scores as measured by the FFMQ, TMS and EQ. Sub-scales FFMQ Observe, FFMQ Non React and TMS Decenter increased most of the combined eight facets; while FFMQ Describe and FFMQ Aware increased least. Lastly, the study examined how various aspects of meditation practice affect total mindfulness. Aspects of practice included: Number of sittings per week (sit/wk); time spent per meditation sitting (time/med); how long the participant has engaged in formal meditation (how long) and style of meditation (style). Meditation styles were grouped into the following categories; 1) Mindfulness, Vipassana, Zen and Shambhala; 2) Concentration and Transcendental; 3) Blend and 4) “I don’t know”. “Sit/wk”, “how long” and “style” were predictive of total mindfulness, with “how long” being the strongest predictor. All the mindfulness facets were predicted by meditation style except for FFMQ Observe, FFMQ Describe and TMS Curiosity. Meditation styles mindfulness, Vipassana, Zen and Shambhala were associated with the highest mindfulness scores.

Managers and organizational stakeholders are confronted by a range of stimuli, emotions, events, data, paradoxes and ambiguities in endeavouring to understand and make sense of change and the performance of their organizations. However, there is virtually no literature available on sensemaking within organizational performance. Historically sensemaking literature has focused on unusual events, disasters and high reliability settings but there is now a sizeable body addressing sensemaking in strategic organizational change. This literature has been systematically reviewed because of its proximity to organizational performance and in order to assess how sensemaking in organizational performance could be in investigated. Sensemaking in individuals is triggered by the unusual and confounding and is concerned with how people construct meaning from this. While sensegiving is about the role played by leaders, or stakeholders, in generating, articulating and “selling” a construction or interpretation of events emerging from their own sensemaking process. “Mindfulness” can be thought of as how sensemaking is realised and is about responding rather than reacting while using information, attentiveness and clues to make sense of what is happening. The sensemaking studies reviewed are dominated by work with middle managers who are seen by the authors as key organizational change agents. Organizational actors come to sensemaking through mental maps, or schemata that can be re-configured through the sensemaking process often as a way of addressing paradox or equivocation. The view of sensemaking as inter-subjective, discursive and narrative dominates giving scope to managers to facilitate the process. Sensegiving and sensemaking intertwine dialectically in a process which sees sensemaking informing sensegiving and vice versa. There is insufficient information on mindfulness and change to be able to assess it. In conclusion there are sufficient similarities between the processes of organizational change and organizational performance management to warrant its investigation from an inter-subjective, discursive and narrative sensemaking perspective.

Perceived stress and stress-related illness as symptoms of burnout have increased in adolescents. The aim of the present study was to investigate if mindfulness, global- and competence-based self-esteem are potential predictors for perceived stress and symptoms of burnout in adolescents. 143 upper secondary students participated in the study. The results of hierarchical regression analyses showed that higher levels of mindfulness and global-self-esteem were associated with decreased levels of perceived stress and symptoms of burnout. Competence-based self-esteem was only trend-significant associated with symptoms of burnout. Mediation analysis revealed that global self-esteem was a fully mediator for the relationship between competence-based self-esteem and perceived stress. The results were discussed in terms of the importance of individual factors, such as, mindfulness and self-esteem to predict perceived stress and symptoms of burnout.

Attention Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is one of the most prevalent childhood disorders in the United States. Although many children with an ADHD diagnosis are prescribed medication to control symptoms, behavioral concerns are still regularly noted in the classroom, home, and other settings. Therefore, school psychologists are often called upon to assist teachers and families with developing intervention procedures. The purpose of this research was to investigate the relationship between mindfulness training, the cognitive processes of attention regulation, and behavior of children who have been diagnosed with ADHD. This study utilized a multiple baseline across participant’s design where each student was tracked over time following a baseline (pre-intervention) condition. Four 8-year-old male participants with a primary diagnosis of ADHD and a significant number of off-task classroom behaviors were included in this study. Teacher and parent ratings of the Behavior Assessment System for Children, Second Edition (BASC-2) and Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF) were completed pre- and posttest for each participant. The Reliable Change Index (RCI) was calculated to determine if the pre- to posttest change scores on the BASC-2 and BRIEF exceeded what could be accounted for by measurement error alone. Results of the analyses revealed that mindfulness training was effective in increasing the number of on-task behaviors for participants. Parent and teacher ratings on the BRIEF suggest that mindfulness training impacted ratings on the Inhibit, Initiate, and Monitor scales. Parent and teacher ratings on the BASC-2 were analyzed and scores from the Attention Problems scale did not demonstrate significant change across raters and across participants. Significant change occurred on the Hyperactivity scale. Findings are discussed in relationship to the literature on mindfulness training for students with a diagnosis of ADHD. Implications for future research and practice are also suggested.

Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka om individer som deltagit i en stresshanteringskurs baserad på mindfulness upplevde att kunskapen i mindfulness hade förändrat deras sätt att hantera och bemöta tillvaron. Syftet var även att fånga kursledarnas syn på vad mindfulness var och hur de praktiskt använde sig av den. Råmaterialet till studien samlades in via tre stycken intervjuer med deltagare som under 2009 deltog i en stresshanteringskurs baserad på mindfulness, samt två stycken intervjuer med de kursledare som under denna period ledde kursen. Resultatet i studien visar på att mindfulness för samtliga deltagare kunde sammanfattas med att kunna vara här och nu. Kunskaperna i mindfulness var någonting som fick individerna att stanna upp i sina liv och reflektera. Detta medför att en livskunskap fick möjlighet att utvecklas. Alla deltagarna bar på olika erfarenheter i sina ryggsäckar, men kunskaperna från kursen och i mindfulness gav dem ett ramverk för att kunna förhålla sig på ett annorlunda vis i sin tillvaro. Samtliga menar att kunskaperna i mindfulness har bidragit till att de har fått verktyg för att bättre bemöta vardagens påfrestningar. Hos kursledarna, som hade betydligt längre erfarenhet av mindfulness, kunde en tydlig skillnad gentemot deltagarna ses. Detta blev tydligt i form av att kursledarna såg på mindfulness som ett förhållningssätt, som blev till en del av livet. Medan deltagarna såg det som ett verktyg att ta till när stressfyllda situationer uppstod.

Relationen mellan sexualitet och andlighet har länge varit ett tabubelagt ämne inom såväl psykologin som i samhället i stort. Enligt aktuell forskning finns det dock anledning att trotsa denna motvilja. Syftet med studien var att undersöka om oandliga och andliga individer samt män och kvinnor skiljer sig åt vad gäller sexuell tillfredsställelse och sexuella behov samt effekten av mindfulness. Studien utfördes genom en delvis egenkonstruerad webbenkät för att mäta sexuell tillfredsställelse, andlighet och sexuella behov. Studien omfattade 213 deltagare varav 105 andliga, 76 män och 117 utövare av mindfulnessbaserade aktiviteter. Resultatet visade att andliga skattade högre på andlig sexuell tillfredsställelse samt andliga sexuella behov. Vidare värderade kvinnor generellt kvantitativa aspekter såsom tidpunkt för samlag och orgasmfrekvens samt fysisk tillfredsställelse högre än män. Deltagare som utövade mindfulness skattade högre på andlig sexuell tillfredsställelse samt upplevde mer närvarande sex. Deltagarnas kommentarer belyser en ännu sparsamt vetenskapligt utforskad dimension av sex vilket diskuteras.

Mindfulness researchers have predominantly used quantitative methods. Post positivist researchers have developed operational definitions and measures of mindfulness to understand and capture what mindfulness is. However, the act of operationalizing and measuring mindfulness ignores the works of some teachers/students of mindfulness that describe mindfulness as the immeasurable or indefinable. This is not to say that we cannot use descriptions to spark learning into mindfulness, only to understand that the description is not the described when discussing mindfulness, as Krishnamurti has highlighted. The common tools utilized by mindfulness teachers to help spark students learning into mindfulness are such things as yoga, questions, stories, and breath awareness. <p>Post positivist researchers, and mindfulness teachers and their students, are exploring the question: What is mindfulness? with different methods. To be able to utilize story to spark learning into mindfulness/represent the results of this study, I have completed a qualitative study exploring the question: How do the participants in this studys mindfulness program inquire? <p>Eight middle-aged women Hatha yoga students consented to participate in this studys six-and-half week mindfulness program. The program had experiential, discussion/story, and movement based learning. As the mindfulness teacher, I continuously posed questions to and discussed questions with the students, to help spark learning into mindfulness. The women, myself, and the works of mindfulness authors highlighted that mindful inquiry was about the oneness of learning, listening, and compassion; as well as, the importance of stories, friendship, and trust. These themes were communicated through the fictional story.

<p>The effect of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) training on experimental measures of attention and emotion regulation was assessed. Two laboratory based measures of attention and emotion regulation were employed. Amongst a number of hypotheses, the effect of MBSR on return to emotional baseline was assessed. Analyses indicated that MBSR training had no effect on physiological indices of emotion regulation. Self-report measures indicated that MBSR training led to faster return to baseline negative emotional experience following a stressor. Implications and future directions are discussed.</p> / Dissertation

<p>Attention is considered a fundamental component of mindfulness and current theory suggests that it is a primary mechanism of change that contributes to the substantive improvements in physical and psychological functioning attributed to mindfulness-based interventions including Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). Using the Attention Network Test (ANT) and an Inattentional Blindness (IB) task, the current study assessed differences in subsystems of attention in a group of experienced MBSR practitioners and a group of meditation naïve controls. MBSR practitioners demonstrated superior conflict monitoring performance relative to the control participants; however, groups did not differ with regards to their performance on the alerting and orienting components of the ANT. Additionally, although the MBSR practitioners were nearly half as likely as their control counterparts to evidence IB, this difference was not significant. Finally, self-reported mindfulness was higher in meditators relative to meditation naïve control participants, though scores did not correlate with performance on the attention tasks. The implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.</p> / Dissertation