Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) have garnished the attention of researchers as effective treatments for stress, chronic pain, anxiety, and recurrent depression in both clinical and nonclinical populations. Within the workplace, MBIs have also been shown to enhance overall well-being.
Kundalini yoga has been used to decrease perceived stress, depression symptoms and salivary cortisol levels, treat generalized anxiety and improve participants’ quality of life.
Both mindfulness and yoga influence individual brain networks, integrated brain states, and brain-body interactions. Furthermore, both time-honored practices place particular emphasis on posture, breath, the autonomous nervous system, and the major neural networks involved in the regulation of cognition and emotion.
Healthcare workers (HCWs) face daily stressors while working in hospital settings leading to consequences on their quality of life and mental and physical health, which inturn, impacts the entire healthcare system at large. This single-arm clinical trial (CT) assesses the effectiveness of a YoMin intervention (yoga and mindfulness; specifically MBSR) in improving mental well-being in HCWs. Here, researchers analyzed participants’ quality of life, work-related stress, positive and negative affect, and state and trait anxiety.
Torre and colleagues recruited 70 HCWs from two hospitals in Rome, Italy for a 4-week course in yoga and mindfulness. Each week, participants attended one 2-hour section of yoga and one 2-hour section of mindfulness on the same day. Each yoga class emphasized elements of kundalini yoga and invited participants to pay specific attention to posture and breathing as a valuable method to manage their mind. Each mindfulness class included a body scan, focused attention exercises, a walking meditation, an open monitoring meditation, a period of inquiry about the practice with feedback from the mindfulness teachers, and instructions about homework at the end.
Participants were instructed to complete surveys at baseline, before starting each 4-hour session, at the end of each 4-hour session and 21 days after course completion. Of the 70 HCWs that initially enrolled, 40 were included in the final analysis with 34 females and 6 males, 13 physicians, 15 nurses, and 12 other HCWs.
Study results revealed that participants reported an immediate reduction in anxiety after a one day 4-hour YoMin session. Moreover, participants reported sustained decreased trait anxiety 3-4 weeks after the end of the course. It is interesting to note that while there was no significant difference in pre- and post-intervention scores with regards to positive affect, negative affect had an improvement. This means that while aspects such as energy, enthusiasm, and self-confidence were not affected, aspects such as fear, weakness, and anger were effectively diminished. Furthermore, while no significant results were found regarding physical health, the HCWs mental well-being significantly improved.
“This study highlights the ever increasing need for healthcare systems to implement in-house interventions that will improve HCWs mental well-being and reduce burnout.”
While a notable advantage of this study is the combination of yoga and mindfulness practices into one 4-week YoMin intervention, this study has substantial limitations. This study aimed to specifically help HCWs in the hospital environment; however, results from the only work-related questionnaire were not significant. Participants reported no change in perceived decision latitude, job demand, nor job strain. Also, results only included a 21-day follow up and future studies should look to incorporate 6-month to 1-year follow-ups to examine lasting effects. Future studies should also seek to incorporate physical and biochemical parameters.
In a time when HCWs are on the frontlines of a global pandemic, the findings from this study are especially pertinent. This study highlights the ever increasing need for healthcare systems to implement in-house interventions that will improve HCWs mental well-being and reduce burnout. Brief 4-week interventions such as yoga and MBIs can be used to reduce stress and anxiety in HCWs and their respective communities.
Emily is a certified yoga teacher with specializations in children, adolescent, prenatal, and postpartum yoga.
“Even if they felt excluded, those who had greater levels of self-compassion exhibited less depression because they tended to use positive coping mechanisms. “
The study also highlighted how emotional well-being and self-compassion act as mediators, bridging the gap between mental toughness and aggression to strengthen the protective impact of mental toughness against aggression.
The research highlights the importance to encourage self-compassion and forgiveness to improve older people’s mental health
Recent studies investigating the relationship between loneliness and poor sleep quality in teenagers discovered a significant correlation between higher loneliness and poorer sleep quality.
By providing an immersive, engrossing, and controlled visual and auditory experience in which participants can practice mindfulness techniques, Virtual Reality (VR) systems can create immersive, ecologically valid, first-person experiences that can even tap into physiological reactions that align with real-world experiences.
The researchers were interested in understanding if forgiveness acts as a mechanism by which mindfulness relates to relationship satisfaction. They speculated that being mindful would allow individuals to be aware of their own and their partners’ emotions in a non-judgmental and non-reactive way. The increased awareness would make people more forgiving of partner transgressions, thereby enhancing relationship satisfaction.
Emerging studies are highlighting the effectiveness of mindfulness, gratitude and hopefulness as positive psychological tools in helping people cope with anxiety and stress. These practices have also been considered beneficial in enhancing psychological health and well-being.
Despite growing knowledge that mindfulness meditation can enhance emotional wellbeing, very little is known about how it all works. How exactly does the act of meditation help us deal with the emotional rollercoaster of everyday life? Is mindfulness training actually “transferrable” to real world situations? What’s going on in the brain? Can we even measure it?
How does self-compassion protect depressed adolescents? Quieting the self may be the key.
A study led by Alexandra Martelli investigated whether more mindful individuals (based on self-report measure scores) would respond to social rejection with less distress and if certain neurological mechanisms in the brain’s prefrontal cortex can potentially explain the role of mindfulness in reduced social distress.
A research team from Valencia, Spain recently investigated the effects of a brief mindfulness-based intervention on both mood and biological markers on a sample of health professional students.
A new study by Kim and colleagues explored how compassion-based training can affect two self-regulatory styles and its relationship to neural, physiological, and behavioral responses.
A team of researchers based in the perceived epicenter of the virus, Wuhan, China, recently tested whether a brief mindfulness intervention delivered through an app could be effective for reducing anxiety and protecting nightly sleep during the unfolding pandemic.
Mindfulness practices can enhance a therapist’s ability to intentionally and flexibly regulate attention as well as emotional reactivity which has been demonstrated to influence burnout.
A new study investigated whether a brief mindfulness training designed to reduce physician burnout could be delivered through a smartphone app.
The current study reviewed the wider scientific literature for the role of yoga and mindfulness interventions in the treatment of severe mental illness.
The amount of research involving mindfulness interventions has grown exponentially; however, only in the last decade has mindfulness research involving adolescents rapidly increased.
Mindfulness and self-compassion are theorized to disrupt the maladaptive repetition of negative thoughts and emotions for patients with chronic or mental illnesses, who are particularly susceptible to psychosocial distress.
There is promising evidence that 70% of smokers would like to quit but less than 5% of unassisted attempts at quitting are actually successful.
In a recent pilot study by Suzette Glasner, Ph.D. and her team at the Integrated Substance Abuse Programs at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, they evaluated the effects of Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention (MBRP) on reducing relapse susceptibility among stimulant-dependent adults receiving a contingency management (CM) intervention.
A major implication of the study suggests the distal effects of intensive retreat practice on respiration rates, a benefit not necessarily conferred by a brief, but full-day meditation session.
Researchers are exploring mindfulness-based interventions as a long-term treatment options to address the multitude of symptoms after cancer has been treated.
While the scientific study of mindfulness has exponentially increased over the past few decades, only recently has the scientific community focused on the effects of meditation training on biological aging.
Tell us about your idea. Nearly any subject related to the science of mindfulness is fair game.