well-being
Research Papers
Showing 6 of 7Attentional and affective consequences of technology supported mindfulness training: a randomised, active control, efficacy trial
Background: Mindfulness training (MT) programs represent an approach to attention training with well-validated mental health benefits. However, research supporting MT efficacy is based predominantly on weekly-meeting, facilitator-led, group-intervention formats. It is unknown whether participants might benefit from neurofeedback-assisted, technology-supported MT (N-tsMT), in which meditation is delivered individually, without the need for a facilitator, travel to a training site, or the presence of a supportive group environment. Mirroring the validation of group MT interventions, the first step in addressing this question requires identifying whether N-tsMT promotes measurable benefits. Here, we report on an initial investigation of a commercial N-tsMT system. Methods: In a randomized, active control trial, community-dwelling healthy adult participants carried out 6weeks of daily practice, receiving either N-tsMT (n=13), or a control condition of daily online math training (n=13). Training effects were assessed on target measures of attention and well-being. Participants also completed daily post-training surveys assessing effects on mood, body awareness, calm, effort, and stress. Results: Analysis revealed training effects specific to N-tsMT, with attentional improvements in overall reaction time on a Stroop task, and well-being improvements via reduced somatic symptoms on the Brief Symptom Inventory. Attention and well-being improvements were correlated, and effects were greatest for the most neurotic participants. However, secondary, exploratory measures of attention and well-being did not show training-specific effects. N-tsMT was associated with greater body awareness and calm, and initially greater effort that later converged with effort in the control condition. Conclusions: Preliminary findings indicate that N-tsMT promotes modest benefits for attention and subjective well-being in a healthy community sample relative to an active control condition. However, the findings would benefit from replication in a larger sample, and more intensive practice or more comprehensive MT instruction might be required to promote the broader benefits typically reported in group format, facilitated MT.
View Full Paper →Contemplating Mindfulness at Work: An Integrative Review
Mindfulness research activity is surging within organizational science. Emerging evidence across multiple fields suggests that mindfulness is fundamentally connected to many aspects of workplace functioning, but this knowledge base has not been systematically integrated to date. This review coalesces the burgeoning body of mindfulness scholarship into a framework to guide mainstream management research investigating a broad range of constructs. The framework identifies how mindfulness influences attention, with downstream effects on functional domains of cognition, emotion, behavior, and physiology. Ultimately, these domains impact key workplace outcomes, including performance, relationships, and well-being. Consideration of the evidence on mindfulness at work stimulates important questions and challenges key assumptions within management science, generating an agenda for future research.
View Full Paper →Beneficial outcome from EEG-neurofeedback on creative music performance, attention and well-being in school children
We earlier reported benefits for creativity in rehearsed music performance from alpha/theta (A/T) neurofeedback in conservatoire studies (Egner & Gruzelier, 2003) which were not found with SMR, Beta1, mental skills, aerobics or Alexander training, or in standby controls. Here the focus was the impact on novice music performance. A/T and SMR training were compared in 11-year old school children along with non-intervention controls with outcome measures not only of rehearsed music performance but also of creative improvisation, as well as sustained attention and phenomenology. Evidence of effective learning in the school setting was obtained for A/T and SMR/beta2 ratios. Preferential benefits from A/T for rehearsed music performance were replicated in children for technique and communication ratings. Benefits extended to creativity and communication ratings for creative improvisation which were shared with SMR training, disclosing an influence of SMR on unrehearsed music performance at a novice level with its greater cognitive demands. In a first application of A/T for improving sustained attention (TOVA), it was found to be more successful than SMR training, with a notable reduction in commission errors in the children, 15/33 of whom had attention indices in the ADHD range. Phenomenological reports were in favour of neurofeedback and well-being benefits. Implementing neurofeedback in the daily school setting proved feasible and holds pedagogic promise.
View Full Paper →Change in Brainstem Gray Matter Concentration Following a Mindfulness-Based Intervention is Correlated with Improvement in Psychological Well-Being
Individuals can improve their levels of psychological well-being (PWB) through utilization of psychological interventions, including the practice of mindfulness meditation, which is defined as the non-judgmental awareness of experiences in the present moment. We recently reported that an 8-week-mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) course lead to increases in gray matter concentration in several brain areas, as detected with voxel-based morphometry of magnetization prepared rapid acquisition gradient echo MRI scans, including the pons/raphe/locus coeruleus area of the brainstem. Given the role of the pons and raphe in mood and arousal, we hypothesized that changes in this region might underlie changes in well-being. A subset of 14 healthy individuals from a previously published data set completed anatomical MRI and filled out the PWB scale before and after MBSR participation. PWB change was used as the predictive regressor for changes in gray matter density within those brain regions that had previously shown pre- to post-MBSR changes. Results showed that scores on five PWB subscales as well as the PWB total score increased significantly over the MBSR course. The change was positively correlated with gray matter concentration increases in two symmetrically bilateral clusters in the brainstem. Those clusters appeared to contain the area of the pontine tegmentum, locus coeruleus, nucleus raphe pontis, and the sensory trigeminal nucleus. No clusters were negatively correlated with the change in PWB. This preliminary study suggests a neural correlate of enhanced PWB. The identified brain areas include the sites of synthesis and release of the neurotransmitters, norepinephrine and serotonin, which are involved in the modulation of arousal and mood, and have been related to a variety of affective functions as well as associated clinical dysfunctions.
View Full Paper →EEG-neurofeedback for optimising performance. I: A review of cognitive and affective outcome in healthy participants
A re-emergence of research on EEG-neurofeedback followed controlled evidence of clinical benefits and validation of cognitive/affective gains in healthy participants including correlations in support of feedback learning mediating outcome. Controlled studies with healthy and elderly participants, which have increased exponentially, are reviewed including protocols from the clinic: sensory-motor rhythm, beta1 and alpha/theta ratios, down-training theta maxima, and from neuroscience: upper-alpha, theta, gamma, alpha desynchronisation. Outcome gains include sustained attention, orienting and executive attention, the P300b, memory, spatial rotation, RT, complex psychomotor skills, implicit procedural memory, recognition memory, perceptual binding, intelligence, mood and well-being. Twenty-three of the controlled studies report neurofeedback learning indices along with beneficial outcomes, of which eight report correlations in support of a meditation link, results which will be supplemented by further creativity and the performing arts evidence in Part II. Validity evidence from optimal performance studies represents an advance for the neurofeedback field demonstrating that cross fertilisation between clinical and optimal performance domains will be fruitful. Theoretical and methodological issues are outlined further in Part III.
View Full Paper →The effects of alpha/theta neurofeedback on personality and mood
Alpha/theta neurofeedback has been shown to be successful both in treating addictions and in enhancing artistry in music students. How its effects are mediated are not yet clear. The present study aimed to test the hypothesis that alpha/theta neurofeedback works inter alia by normalising extreme personality and raising feelings of well being. 12 participants with high scores for Withdrawal (as measured by the PSQ) were given either alpha/theta neurofeedback or mock feedback and their personality and mood were assessed. Withdrawal scores on the PSQ-80 were not found to change in either group but significant effects were found for the Profile Of Mood States (POMS), with real feedback producing higher overall scores than mock feedback (P = 0.056). Real feedback caused participants to feel significantly more energetic (P < 0.01) than did mock feedback. Sessions of real feedback made participants feel more composed (P < 0.01), agreeable (P < 0.01), elevated (P < 0.01) and confident (P < 0.05), whilst sessions of mock feedback made participants feel more tired (P < 0.05), yet composed (P < 0.01). These findings suggest that, whilst 9 sessions of alpha/theta neurofeedback was insufficient to change personality, improvements in mood may provide a partial explanation for the efficacy of alpha/theta neurofeedback.
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