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mbsr

8‑week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course found to be as effective as Lexapro (escitalopram) to treat adults with anxiety disorders, and with far fewer side effects

April 19, 2023 by Greater Good Science Center

Cred­it: Brain­Post, with data from Hoge et al (2022)

Anx­i­ety is the most com­mon psy­chi­atric dis­or­der, with over 301 mil­lion ?peo­ple affect­ed around the world. Whether extreme anx­i­ety aris­es in social sit­u­a­tions, is trig­gered by a par­tic­u­lar pho­bia, or man­i­fests as a gen­er­al unease in the world, it can severe­ly affect people’s every­day func­tion­ing and lead to high lev­els of distress.

Luck­i­ly, there are good treat­ments for anx­i­ety, includ­ing Cog­ni­tive Behav­ioral Ther­a­py (or CBT) and var­i­ous phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal drugs. Still, CBT takes a high­ly-trained ther­a­pist to admin­is­ter and can be lengthy and expen­sive, mak­ing it inac­ces­si­ble to many peo­ple who need it. And, while drug ther­a­pies can work well and are often cov­ered by insur­ers, they may not be accept­able for peo­ple who wor­ry about the poten­tial side effects of putting a drug in their body. [Read more…] about 8‑week Mind­ful­ness-Based Stress Reduc­tion (MBSR) course found to be as effec­tive as Lexapro (esc­i­talo­pram) to treat adults with anx­i­ety dis­or­ders, and with far few­er side effects

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: anxiety, anxiety disorder, body scans, cognitive-behavioral-therapy, Lexapro, mbsr, medication, meditation, mindful breathing, Mindfulness-Based-Stress-Reduction, psychiatric disorder, psychiatrist, psychologist, Psychotherapy, SSRI antidepressants, walking meditation

On Stress, Yoga Meditation, and The Evolution Revolution

August 14, 2020 by Dr. Dharma Singh Khalsa @ Alzheimer's Research & Prevention Foundation

In the Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dick­ens wrote:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the age of wis­dom, it was the age of fool­ish­ness…. It was the sea­son of light, it was the sea­son of dark­ness. It was the spring of hope, it was the win­ter of despair”

Yes, the peri­od of which Dick­ens wrote is a lot like the present day.

We are liv­ing through extra­or­di­nary times in a com­pli­cat­ed world. [Read more…] about On Stress, Yoga Med­i­ta­tion, and The Evo­lu­tion Revolution

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health Tagged With: anxiety, chronic-stress, cognitive, depression, immune system, insomnia, Kirtan-Kriya, lower cognitive ability, mbsr, meditation, mental health, Mindfulness-Based-Stress-Reduction, Stress, telomere, Transcendental Meditation, yoga, yoga meditation

Study finds a key ingredient in mindfulness training: Acceptance (not acquiescence)

November 6, 2019 by Greater Good Science Center

Life can be stress­ful. Whether it’s the stress that comes with hav­ing too much work to do in too lit­tle time, ful­fill­ing care­giv­ing oblig­a­tions, or deal­ing with a major ill­ness or set­back, some­times it can be hard to cope.

In response to stress, many peo­ple today are turn­ing to med­i­ta­tion or mind­ful­ness apps (myself includ­ed). But not all mind­ful­ness prac­tice is equal­ly effec­tive for com­bat­ing stress [Read more…] about Study finds a key ingre­di­ent in mind­ful­ness train­ing: Accep­tance (not acquiescence)

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Peak Performance Tagged With: acceptance, breath, Cortisol, mbsr, meditation, mindfulness, mindfulness apps, Mindfulness-Based-Stress-Reduction, Mindfulness-Training, Stress, stressful

Study: Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) beat usual care for chronic back pain

April 7, 2016 by SharpBrains

behavioral healthStudy finds mind­ful­ness med­i­ta­tion offers relief for low-back pain (NIH release):

“Mind­ful­ness based stress reduc­tion (MBSR) and cog­ni­tive-behav­ioral ther­a­py (CBT) may prove more effec­tive than usu­al treat­ment in alle­vi­at­ing chron­ic low-back pain, accord­ing to [Read more…] about Study: Mind­ful­ness-based Stress Reduc­tion (MBSR) and Cog­ni­tive Behav­ioral Ther­a­py (CBT) beat usu­al care for chron­ic back pain

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health Tagged With: back pain, CBT, chronic low-back pain, cognitive-behavioral-therapy, mbsr, Mindfulness-Based-Stress-Reduction, non-pharmacological

Does mindfulness meditation work? (Hint: First, define “work”)

June 6, 2014 by SharpBrains

meditationscienceHow con­vinc­ing is the sci­ence dri­ving the pop­u­lar­i­ty of mind­ful­ness med­i­ta­tion? Brown Uni­ver­si­ty researcher has some sur­pris­ing answers (tri­cy­cle):

“Giv­en the wide­spread belief that med­i­ta­tion prac­tice is sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly cer­ti­fied to be good for just about every­thing, the results of a recent major analy­sis of the research might come as some surprise…

(Ques­tion) As a sci­en­tist and as a Bud­dhist, what do you make of the AHRQ report? (Answer) The report sounds pret­ty fair. This review—and pret­ty much every one before it—has found that [Read more…] about Does mind­ful­ness med­i­ta­tion work? (Hint: First, define “work”)

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health Tagged With: AHRQ, anxiety, depression, mbsr, meditation, mindfulness, mindfulness-meditation, psychiatric, psychological stress

Meditation can Change the Structure of the Brain

March 8, 2011 by Greater Good Science Center

(Editor’s Note: We are pleased to bring you this arti­cle by Jason Marsh, thanks to our col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Greater Good Mag­a­zine.)

.

I con­sid­er myself some­thing of a prospec­tive meditator—meaning that a seri­ous med­i­ta­tion prac­tice is always some­thing I’m about to start… next week. So for years, I’ve been mak­ing a men­tal note of new stud­ies show­ing that med­i­ta­tion can lit­er­al­ly change our brain struc­ture in ways that might boost con­cen­tra­tion, mem­o­ry, and pos­i­tive emotions.

The results seem entic­ing enough to make any­one drop into the full lotus position—until you read the fine print: Much of this research involves peo­ple who have med­i­tat­ed for thou­sands of hours over many years; some of it zeroes in on Olympic-lev­el med­i­ta­tors who have clocked 10,000 hours or more. Pret­ty daunting.

Well, a new study offers some hope—and makes the ben­e­fits of med­i­ta­tion seem with­in reach even for a novice like me. The study, pub­lished in Jan­u­ary in the jour­nal Psy­chi­a­try Research: Neu­roimag­ing, sug­gests that med­i­tat­ing for just 30 min­utes a day for eight weeks can increase the den­si­ty of gray mat­ter in brain regions asso­ci­at­ed with mem­o­ry, stress, and empa­thy. [Read more…] about Med­i­ta­tion can Change the Struc­ture of the Brain

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: hippocampus, increased-gray-matter, larger-hippocampus, mbsr, meditation, Meditation-and-The-Brain, Mindfulness-Based-Stress-Reduction

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