This seminal study explored the effectiveness of a stress reduction program based on mindfulness meditation for 28 participants with anxiety disorders (anxiety disorder and panic disorder). Repeated measures documented significant reductions in anxiety and depression scores after treatment for 20 of the subjects. Changes were maintained at a 3-month follow-up.
The authors studied the impact of a brief meditation induction for new meditators on their responses to a series of emotionally arousing images. Participants in the meditation group reported less overall reactivity and negative affect, and were more likely to tolerate the full collection of negative images.
This study demonstrated, through neuroimaging, a decrease in negative emotion experience, a reduced amygdala activity, and an increased activity in brain regions implicated in attentional deployment in participants with Social Anxiety Disorder.
Mindfulness training produced produced improvements in visual discrimination, increases in perceptual sensitivity and improved vigilance a sample of 60 participants.
MBSR interventions increase gray matter density in brain regions associated with learning and memory processes, emotion regulation, self-referential processing, and perspective thinking.
The authors found support for a positive relationship between workplace mindfulness and job performance. They also found support for a negative relationship between workplace mindfulness and turnover intention.
The study investigates the effects on meditation on creativity in 19 healthy adults. It was found that meditation supports a style of thinking that allows new ideas to be generated.
This study explores the link between mindfulness and ability to problem solve based on insight. A total of 157 participants in both studies completed a measure of trait mindfulness and a series of insight and noninsight problems. Mindfulness was found to support the ability of reducing the influence of habitual verbal-conceptual processes on the interpretation of ongoing experience, which in turn supports insight problem solving.
The authors looked found that a direct evidence for the role of meditation in producing insight (problem-solving). This was particularly linked to maintaining a mindful and alert state during meditation.
A total of 150 participants with mild to moderate depressive symptoms were randomly assigned to a mindfulness-based intervention or to a waiting list control group. Significant reductions in depression, anxiety, and experiential avoidance, and improvements in mindfulness and emotional- and psychological mental health occurred for the group that received the mindfulness-based intervention.
This study randomly assigned 84 patients in remission from major depression to one of three groups: Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), standard care (continuation of their medication for 18 months), and placebo. Results showed that MBCT offers protection against relapse/recurrence on a par with that of maintenance antidepressant pharmacotherapy.
The study showed improvements in depression, anxiety, ‘purpose in life’, and ‘self-growth’ in a group of older people with recurrent and/or chronic depression after attending a mindfulness course.