Contemplative neuroscience refers to the study of the underlying neurobiology, psychology, and phenomenology of human contemplative experience.
Mindfulness is a state, trait, and process.
Which of the following are used to measure mindfulness?
Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory
Cognitive, Affective Mindfulness Scale
Five-facet Mindfulness Questionnaire
Mindful Attention Awareness Scale
When used as an intervention, which mindfulness technique is recommended?
8 weekly group classes (26 hours total) and 1 all day intensive class
45 minutes/day, 6 days/week over 8 weeks (36 hours total)
Light Hatha yoga throughout 8 weeks
Trying really hard to think about nothing for at least 5 minutes/day
Which of the following are appropriate mindfulness practices for in-home use?
Focused Attention (Breath)
Open Monitoring (Body-scan, Insight)
Ethical Enhancement (loving kindness, forgiveness)
Tai Chi (movement)
What is the purpose of Mindfulness Medication (or Open Monitoring Meditation)
Diffuse attention towards any mental objects that naturally arise
Sitting in silence and seeing what happens
Just sit cross-legged on the floor and close your eyes. Something good will happen.
When considering mindfulness as a method, the three areas to put into practice are self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-transcendence
Focused Attention medication includes
Breath and Body focus
Focus on an image
Focus on a sound
Another way of thinking about Open Monitoring meditation is as mental noting and labeling
Ethical Enhancement meditation includes
loving kindness, metta, forgiveness, and compassion
loving kindness, goodness, forgiveness, and active listening
patience, metta, forgiveness, and deep breathing
Meditation practices included movement-based practices such as yoga, tai chi, and qigong
The costs and benefits of self-generated thought are context dependent
Self generated thought under conditions that demand continuous attention is productive because it is associtated with capacities such as creativity, patience, and better cognitive control.
Mindfulness leads to self awareness, self regulation and self-transcendence by which neurocognitive mechanisms?
Intention and Motivation
Attention Regulation
Emotion Regulation
Extinction and Reconsolidation
Prosociality
Sensory Clarity
Neuroimaging research has shown that mindfulness can lead to decreased activity in brain areas that are responsible for mind-wandering
Mindfulness can lead to increased activity and size in brain areas responsible for higher order attentional networks, body awareness, and skill learning
The rostral PFC supports mechanisms that enable us to attend either to environmental stimuli or self-generated "thoughts in our head."
