Research on meditation and other mindfulness techniques has exploded in recent decades, giving light on how mindfulness impacts the brain as well as its physical and mental health benefits.
New insights into how mindfulness influences human motivation and behaviour, as well as health and wellbeing, are being forged by personality scientists. At the Society for Personality and Social Psychology’s annual conference in Long Beach last week, some of the world’s finest mindfulness researchers presented fresh findings highlighting the benefits of meditation at a symposium on mindfulness.
Here are things you never realised mindfulness might accomplish for you, based on these recent results in social and personality psychology
Make you a kinder person:
Paul Condon and colleagues at Northeastern University conducted a series of research that show that practising mindfulness can boost empathy and cause people to act more altruistically.
A set of study participants were invited to wait in a waiting area as the researchers prepared their session, and they were faced by a person on crutches who was plainly in pain (an actor hired for the purpose of the study). The person took a seat in one of three chairs, which were all taken. The occupants of the other two chairs (also actors) did not volunteer their seats for the person in pain, creating a “bystander effect” that would urge the participant not to help because the others weren’t.
The researchers discovered that participants in a group that had been practising meditation for eight weeks (under the impression that the study was about the cognitive effects of mindfulness) were significantly more likely than the non-meditating control group to volunteer the seat for the person in pain.
During the panel, one of the study’s lead authors, Dr. Paul Condon, said, “These findings are the first to show the capacity of meditation to boost one’s compassionate reaction to those who are in suffering.”
This research found that meditation learned in person with a mindfulness teacher had a significant impact on altruistic behaviour. The researchers next sought to see if learning meditation online would have the same impact. In a follow-up trial, they discovered that those who completed a two-week, ten-minute-per-day meditation course using the smartphone app Headspace were also more inclined to act altruistically, assisting the actor who pretended to be in agony, though the effect was not as strong.
“These findings… hint to the capacity to disseminate these practises via mobile technology, lowering the barrier to entry for meditation,” the researchers write.
Learn to forgive:
We already know that mindfulness has numerous personal benefits for people who practise it, but these advantages may also apply to interpersonal relationships. Mindfulness, according to the famous Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Naht Hahn, may considerably improve relationships, and some research suggests that this is true, particularly when it comes to forgiveness, which is a proven contributor to relationship happiness and closeness. can i switch from ivermectin to immiticide heartworm treatment
Three studies presented by psychologist Dr. Johan Karremans of Radboud University in the Netherlands revealed that persons with more thoughtful dispositions, as well as those who practise meditation, are more willing to forgive others for perceived wrongdoings. how long before ivermectin kills scabies According to one study, thoughtful people are more willing to forgive their partners for previous wrongdoings and are more accepting of their partners in general.
Calm your neuroses:
Do you have a tendency to be neurotic? You might want to try mindfulness. The technique has been shown to help you silence your inner “obnoxious roommate.”
Negative affect, ruminating on the past and worrying about the future, moodiness, and loneliness are all characteristics of neuroticism, one of the “Big Five” personality traits. Mindfulness may be a strong approach for people to detach from common neurotic features including compulsive negative thoughts and fears, as well as difficulties regulating emotions and behaviour.
“[Neurotic people] may be doing the wrong things for the wrong reasons,” said Dr. Michael Robinson of North Dakota State University, who has studied mindfulness, neuroticism, and self-regulation. “That’s called dysregulation,” says the narrator. ivermectina 6 mg para que es bueno
According to Robinson’s research, mindfulness can help persons with neuroticism feel less angry and depressed. Other research by Robinson and colleagues indicated that, while negative moods impair awareness and hence lower self-control, training mindfulness can actually boost self-control.
Unravel unconscious racial biases:
While most people are not outwardly racist, research reveals that virtually all of us have unconscious racial prejudices that influence how we think and act. According to some research, meditation functions as an antidote to mental automaticity, which causes these biases by causing us to think about, judge, and react to things quickly and mostly subconsciously.
Mindfulness, according to recent study presented at the conference, may help to overcome implicit racial prejudices by dislodging the brain’s natural reactions. The Implicit Association Test (IAT) requires participants to swiftly connect images of black and white faces with negatively or favourably associated words in a small research. The researchers discovered that participants who listened to a 10-minute mindfulness recording before completing the test had lower implicit race biases (i.e. associating the white face with positive terms more frequently) than those who listened to a history tape.
During the conference, Dr. Brian Ostafin, a psychologist and mindfulness researcher, stated, “Mindfulness may limit or even block automatic responses.”
Restore your sense of wonder:
In the presence of something considerably larger than ourselves, powerful encounters of nature, art, and spirituality can fill us with feelings of awe and wonder, a sense of amazement, and joy.
Mindfulness practise may really prepare the mind for such encounters. A new study from the University of Groningen found that respondents who completed a brief mindfulness exercise had more positive reactions to awe-inspiring visuals than those who did not.
Dr. Brian Ostafin, the study’s primary author, recently told the Huffington Post, “Awe means… giving up your cognitive processes in order to adapt [the experience].” “Mindfulness is a little bit about that as well, because you’re paying attention and exercising non-conceptual awareness, so you should be more open to the vastness that exists.”
