Meditation News and Research

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The term meditation refers to a variety of techniques or practices intended to focus or control attention. Most of them are rooted in Eastern religious or spiritual traditions. These techniques have been used by many different cultures throughout the world for thousands of years.

Today, many people use meditation outside of its traditional religious or cultural settings as a form of mind-body medicine. Many claims have been made about its value in promoting or improving health and wellness.

Scientists discover ways to increase efficiency in neurofeedback training paradigm

Researchers from the HSE Centre for Cognition & Decision Making and the Control of Complex Systems Laboratory (Institute of Problems of Mechanical Engineering, Russian Academy of Sciences) have conducted a series of experiments to uncover what a person actually controls when they are tasked with independently affecting the activity of their own brain.

29 Jul 2017

Mothers treated for opioid use disorder show improvement in parenting skills with mindfulness-based program

Researchers at Jefferson's Maternal Addiction Treatment Education & Research (MATER) program found significant improvement in the quality of parenting among mothers who participated in a trauma-informed, mindfulness-based parenting intervention while also in medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder.

27 Jul 2017

Yoga benefits veterans with chronic low back pain, study shows

In a study including 150 military veterans with chronic low back pain, researcher Dr. Erik J. Groessl and his team from the VA San Diego Healthcare System found that veterans who completed a 12-week yoga program had better scores on a disability questionnaire, improved pain intensity scores, and a decline in opioid use.

25 Jul 2017

Depression among heart attack survivors can be deadly, yet is often ignored

Clyde Boyce has been hospitalized 14 times in the past four years. Boyce, 61, survived two strokes and five operations to unblock arteries around his heart, including three procedures in which doctors propped open his blood vessels with stents. He takes 18 pills a day and gets injections every two weeks with a powerful drug to lower cholesterol.

20 Jul 2017

Scientists find greater cortical thickness in the brains of elderly female yoga practitioners

Scientists in Brazil have imaged elderly female yoga practitioners' brains and found they have greater cortical thickness in the left prefrontal cortex, in brain areas associated with cognitive functions like attention and memory.

13 Jul 2017

Psychological tools help high-risk chronic pain patients to taper opioid use

Psychological support and new coping skills are helping patients at high risk of developing chronic pain and long-term, high-dose opioid use taper their opioids and rebuild their lives with activities that are meaningful and joyful to them.

29 Jun 2017

Patients with mental disorders get half of all opioid prescriptions

Adults with a mental illness receive more than 50 percent of the 115 million opioid prescriptions in the United States annually, according to a study released Monday.

27 Jun 2017

Summer can be perfect time for college students to fix bad health habits

For college students, summer can be the time for a new lesson: how to take charge of their health.

23 Jun 2017

Yoga may be helpful in treating chronic low back pain

Physical therapy has been recommended as part of treatment for low back pain for a very long time. Low back pain affects millions worldwide and may be short lasting or chronic or longer in duration for some individuals. Long term or intermittently occurring low back pain is referred as chronic low back pain.

19 Jun 2017

Researchers exploring impact of emotional spillover in the brain

Life is full of emotional highs and lows, ranging from enjoying an activity with a loved one and savoring a delicious meal to feeling hurt by a negative interaction with a co-worker or that recent scuffle with a family member.

16 Jun 2017

Bouldering may be used to effectively treat symptoms of depression, study suggests

A growing body of research suggests that bouldering, a form of rock climbing, can help build muscle and endurance while reducing stress -- and a new study co-led by a University of Arizona doctoral student of psychology suggests that the activity also may be used to effectively treat symptoms of depression.

26 May 2017

Mindfulness training during childbirth can help cope with labor pain, reduce depression symptoms

Mindfulness may be good for new moms. A study this month from researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of California, San Francisco shows mindfulness training that addresses fear and pain during childbirth can improve women's childbirth experiences and reduce their depression symptoms during pregnancy and the early postpartum period.

24 May 2017

New findings support use of integrative therapies for treating breast cancer patients

In newly updated clinical guidelines from the Society for Integrative Oncology, researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center with an interdisciplinary team of colleagues at MD Anderson Cancer Center, University of Michigan, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and other institutions in the U.S. and Canada, analyzed which integrative treatments are most effective and safe for patients with breast cancer.

24 Apr 2017

Pregnant women’s financial strain linked to low-birth-weight infants

A financially strapped pregnant woman's worries about the arrival and care of her little one could contribute to birth of a smaller, medically vulnerable infant, a new study suggests.

24 Apr 2017

Mindfulness class provides clear benefit for women, study finds

In a new study of a Brown University scholarly course on mindfulness that also included meditation labs, researchers found that the practice on average significantly helped women overcome "negative affect" -- a downcast mood -- but did not help men.

20 Apr 2017

Stress affects more than 70% of Americans, study finds

In recognition of April's National Stress Awareness Month, Youfit Health Clubs conducted a survey to reveal America's stress levels and stress-related habits. The study found that more than 70% of Americans suffer from stress, and of those, more than half deal with stress on a daily or weekly basis.

4 Apr 2017

Study: Group practice of Transcendental Meditation reduces drug-related fatalities in general population

The rate of US drug-related fatalities fell 30.4% nationwide from 2007 to 2010 due to the reductions in societal stress and increased alertness in the individuals in society created by a large group practicing the Transcendental Meditation technique and its advanced program, the TM-Sidhi program, a new study shows.

14 Mar 2017

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