Some Research On the Benefits of Mindfulness Meditation

I am soon to give a speech on mindfulness in group work at the Institute of Group Leaders Conference in Sydney, so I thought I should pull together some of the recent research on the effects of mindfulness meditation. Here is what I came up with:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/720772266xj33972/ - The effect of mindfulness meditation  on stress reduction and rumination

http://www.springerlink.com/content/n26838t52m727u13/ - The effects of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) on health and well being

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/curious/201001/what-maids-teach-us-about-physical-health-and-life-longevity-lesson-in-mindfulne - The benefits of mindfully doing housework

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1752-0606.2007.00032.x/full - Mindful relating in intimate relationships

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/springer/jcogp/2006/00000020/00000002/art00003 - Mindfulness and Positive Emotion

http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/ccp/68/4/615/  - Mindfulness based CBT

http://adviceonlifeandlove.blogspot.com/2010/09/mindfulness-and-acceptance-are.html - Mindfulness, acceptance and exercise maintenance

http://adviceonlifeandlove.blogspot.com/2010/12/everyday-mindfulness-v-mindfulness.html - The benefits of every day mindfulness

http://www.webmd.com/ibs/news/20110510/mindfulness-meditation-may-cut-ibs-symptoms - Mindfulness meditation and irritable bowel syndrome

http://www.webmd.com/multiple-sclerosis/news/20100927/mindfulness-meditation-vs-multiple-sclerosis - The effects of mindfulness meditation on well-being in people living with Multiple Sclerosis

http://women.webmd.com/news/20110603/stress-reduction-technique-may-ease-hot-flashes

http://chp.sagepub.com/content/13/1/34.short - Mindfulness for adolescents with learning difficulties

http://www.jimhopper.com/pdfs/Baer2003.pdf - Excellent review of mindfulness training as a clinical intervention by Ruth Baer

Expect Trouble as an Inevitable Part of Life...

'Expect trouble as an inevitable part of life, and when it comes, hold your head high, look it squarely in the eye and say, 'I will be bigger than you. You cannot defeat me.' Then repeat to yourself the most comforting words of all, 'This too will pass'.'
Ann Landers

Trying to Avoid Stress is Counter Productive

A paper by H. Harrington Cleveland and Kitty S. Harris exploring  the processes that trigger cravings and prevent some addicts from building a sustained recovery. They found that recovering addicts who deal with stressful social experiences (such as ' hostility, insensitivity, interference, and ridicule' from others) by trying to avoid those experiences, have 'twice the number of cravings in a stressful day compared to persons who use problem solving strategies to understand and deal with the stress.' 


 'According to Cleveland, the findings suggest the impulse to avoid stress is never going to help recovering addicts because stressful experiences cannot be avoided.  "If your basic life strategy is to avoid stress, then your problems will probably end up multiplying and causing you more problems."