Effects of Mindful Practices on Terror of Mortality: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

Objectives: Early Buddhist thought clearly recognizes the need for learning how to face one's own mortality, for which purpose mindfulness practice has a central role to play. Fear of death has also been studied in cognitive psychology, leading to what is known as the terror management theory. Actual research evidence in psychology has already shown that mindfulness practice may reduce fear and anxiety in general. However, there is a lack of research examining the specific effects of brief mindfulness practices on the fear of death and dying. In this study we tested the hypothesis that brief mindfulness practices used daily over a period of 6 weeks will result in a reduction of the fear of death and dying when compared to brief contemplative practices used as an active control condition. Methods: Participants (n = 89) were randomly assigned to the mindfulness (n = 44) and the contemplation (n = 45) conditions and completed validated scales measuring four distinct fears related to either the process of dying or the final event of death (dying of oneself, death of oneself, dying of others, and death of others), mindfulness, and self-compassion at baseline, post-intervention (at 6 weeks) and follow up (1‒3 weeks after the end of the 6-week intervention). ANOVA was used to investigate the effects of both interventions on outcome variables over time and between groups. Results: Both mindfulness and contemplative practices were equally effective in reducing fear related to dying of oneself and death of others while increasing fear of dying of others, mindfulness, and self-compassion. No significant intervention effects were found for fear related to death of oneself only. Conclusions: These results suggest that fears related to dying of oneself and death of others can be reduced using both mindfulness and contemplative practices that may simultaneously increase mindfulness and self-compassion. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12671-022-01967-8.

Decentering, Acceptance, and Non-Attachment: Challenging the Question "Is It Me?"

Among mindfulness measures the three constructs acceptance, decentering, and non-attachment are psychometrically closely related, despite their apparent semantic differences. These three facets present robust psychometric features and can be considered core themes in most "third wave" clinical models. The aim of the present study was to explore the apparently different content domains (acceptance, decentering, and non-attachment) by administering various psychometric scales in a large sample of 608 volunteers. Resilience and depression were also assessed. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses performed in two randomly selected subsamples showed a bifactor approximation. The explained common variance suggested a unidimensional nature for the general factor, with good psychometric properties, which we named "Delusion of Me" (DoM). This construct is also strongly correlated with resilience and depression, and appears to be a solid latent general construct closely related to the concept of "ego." DoM emerges as a potentially transdiagnostic construct with influence on well-being and clinical indexes such as resilience and depression. Further studies should analyze the potential utility of this new construct at a therapeutic level.

Somatics of Early Buddhist Mindfulness and How to Face Anxiety.

The body is a central object of the cultivation of mindfulness, in the way this has been described in relevant Pali discourses and their parallels. At the background of such cultivation stands the absence of positing a mind-body duality and a lack of concern with a particular physical location of the mind in early Buddhist thought. Moreover, the various exercises that involve directing mindfulness to the body need to be considered in conjunction in order to arrive at a balanced understanding of their overarching purpose. Out of the different possible modalities of cultivating mindfulness in this way, the discourses present awareness directed to one's own bodily postures as a practice already undertaken by the Buddha-to-be when he was still in quest of awakening. In this particular setting, such mindfulness of postures served as a way of facing fear. The potential of this exercise to provide a grounding in embodied mindfulness, being fully in the here and now, is of particular relevance to the challenges posed by the current pandemic.

Effects of Mindfulness-Based Positive Behavior Support (MBPBS) Training Are Equally Beneficial for Mothers and Their Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder or With Intellectual Disabilities.

Parenting a child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or intellectual disabilities (IDs) can be stressful for many parents. Mindfulness-Based Positive Behavior Support (MBPBS) is a customized mindfulness program that enables parents and other caregivers to reduce their perceived psychological stress to normative levels through mindfulness procedures and to support children with ASD or ID to self-manage their challenging behaviors through positive behavior support (PBS). In this study, we evaluated whether MBPBS would have differential effects on the stress levels of mothers of adolescents with ASD (n = 47) or with ID (n = 45) and the effects of the program on the aggressive, disruptive, and compliance behaviors of their children. Both groups of mothers participated in the 40-week study (10 weeks control and 30 weeks MBPBS program), rated their own stress levels, and collected daily observational data on the adolescents' behavior. Results showed significant reductions in the level of stress in both groups of mothers, but no differential effects on mothers of children with ASD or with ID. In addition, significant reductions in aggression and disruptive behavior and increases in compliance behaviors were observed in the adolescents in both groups. The results suggest that MBPBS is equally beneficial for mothers of adolescents with ASD or ID. In the present study, although the mothers of children with ID had slightly higher levels of stress at baseline and mothers of children with ASD had lower levels of stress following the MBPBS program, the program can be considered equally effective in reducing the stress levels of both groups of mothers. This suggests that the program may be effective regardless of baseline levels of mothers' stress.

Adding historical depth to definitions of mindfulness.

Research on Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBI) is hampered by semantic ambiguity surrounding the term 'mindfulness'. Understanding the core quality involved in such research could be improved by adding historical depth to definitions of mindfulness, based on more detailed information on mindfulness from text-historical and doctrinal sources in the Buddhist traditions. Particular applications of mindfulness in current clinical usage could be compared to related approaches or doctrinal teachings in Buddhist traditions as part of an ongoing cross-disciplinary dialogue between academics in Buddhist studies and in psychology under the shared aim of deepening our understanding of what mindfulness involves and how it operates.

Correction: Mindfulness Enhances Episodic Memory Performance: Evidence from a Multimethod Investigation.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0153309.].

Mindfulness Enhances Episodic Memory Performance: Evidence from a Multimethod Investigation.

Training in mindfulness, classically described as a receptive attentiveness to present events and experiences, has been shown to improve attention and working memory. Both are key to long-term memory formation, and the present three-study series used multiple methods to examine whether mindfulness would enhance episodic memory, a key form of long-term memory. In Study 1 (N = 143), a self-reported state of mindful attention predicted better recognition performance in the Remember-Know (R-K) paradigm. In Study 2 (N = 93), very brief training in a focused attention form of mindfulness also produced better recognition memory performance on the R-K task relative to a randomized, well-matched active control condition. Study 3 (N = 57) extended these findings by showing that relative to randomized active and inactive control conditions the effect of very brief mindfulness training generalized to free-recall memory performance. This study also found evidence for mediation of the mindfulness training-episodic memory relation by intrinsic motivation. These findings indicate that mindful attention can beneficially impact motivation and episodic memory, with potential implications for educational and occupational performance.