Benefits Of Mindfulness

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Mindfulness meditation practices(MMPs) has received much attention in the past decades, both in the media and in the psychology and neuropsychology literature. Advocates of mindfulness would have us believe a plethora of benefits from being more mindful, and concurring scientific evidence has begun to authenticate this view. Among its theorized benefits are focused attention, improved working memory and performance, emotional well-being, heightened awareness, enhanced flexibility, composure, mental clarity, emotional intelligence, interrelatedness, and enhanced demonstration of kindness, acceptance and compassion towards oneself and others. But is there adequate empirical evidence to support the claims that mindfulness enhances cognitive functions …show more content…
(Davis &Hayes, 2012)
Interestingly, while some research points to the conclusion that mindfulness meditation offers numerous advantages, others show methodological limitations and negative results, conceivably reflecting variances in study design, study duration and patient versus non patient participating populations.
More specifically, research on mindfulness has identified the following
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In one study, for example, Mrazek et al. (2012) asked 48 undergraduate students who were randomly assigned to either participate in a 2-week mindfulness-training course or a nutrition class taught by professionals. After the course, the meditation group had significantly higher working memory capacity and a superior reading comprehension on the GRE compared with the control group. Additionally, both long-term mediators and individuals who completed the two weeks of mindfulness training experienced a reduction in mind wandering and a reduced activation of the default network, a collection of brain regions that characteristically indicate greater activation at rest than during externally directed cognitive tasks. In addition, the meditators had significantly better working memory capacity and were better able to sustain attention during a performance task compared with the control