Mindfulness Training Improve Performance

These effects of mind wandering has been shown to be inefficient towards learning and this is due to the fact that while we are engaged in mind wandering our attention is on our internal thoughts and feelings therefore mind wandering impairs the ability to integrate any new information from the external environment (Smallwood et al., 2007). Relating this principle to myself it was clearly evident to me that meditation serves as an antidote for a wandering mind it is beneficial in gaining wisdom about oneself, experiencing positive emotions and improving day to day learning (Moneyham and Schooler, 2013).

Current evidence supports the efficacy of mindfulness-based interventions for improving mental health symptoms and psychological stress that can interfere with efforts to lose weight. Patients with obesity and other CVD risk factors may benefit from mindfulness interventions to address psychosocial stress, depression, and anxiety (Boudreau et al., 2013). Traditional behavioral interventions for weight loss typically focus on diet and exercise habits and often give little attention to the role of stress and emotions in the origin of unhealthy behaviors. Mindfulness-based interventions were developed to promote self-efficacy in coping with negative emotions resulting in lasting changes in long-standing cognitive and emotional habits (Fulwiler,

To fully comprehend the extent of the effect mind wandering can have on an individual and their education we must understand how learning in a classroom-based environment tends to work. Many educational tools that are used involve discourse comprehension. Discourse comprehension is explained as an ongoing process where the individual receives stimuli from an external environment, which is then encoded and translated into terms that can be understood and consistent with their internal depictions (Smallwood, Fisherman & Schooler, 2007). The most obvious explanation for mind wanderings negative impact on learning is that it represents a block or breakdown of the normal coupling or comprehension process between the external stimuli to the internal representations (Smallwood & Schooler, 2006). Discourse comprehension, or processing, is

Mindfulness meditation consists of skills and methods to unplug from the busy world around you and from the busy 'monkey brain ' so often experienced in today 's life and particularly in ADHD, anxiety and depression. According to Jon Kabat-Zinn, mindfulness meditation trains and reinforces the ability to pay attention to the present moment, on purpose which helps to increase concentration, decrease anxiety, improve sleep, improve mood, decrease the stress response, and improve physical and emotional health. The studies are compelling about the health benefits of mindfulness meditation. In fact, studies show that mindfulness meditation actually changes the brain in positive ways. The cortex of the brain is thicker in certain areas of the brain in those who practice mindfulness meditation. And brainwave patterns are changed in healthy ways as well.

Meditation means to concentrate and connect with ones’ own mind, to explore identity and emotions in order to be aware of conscious, sub-conscious and unconscious thoughts. Meditation originates and has been has been practiced in Asia for thousands of years for different reasons such as increasing concentration abilities, religious purposes and also to train the mind. This essay will focus on how meditation affects brain plasticity (ability to change), emotionally and intellectually, leading to better performance and coping abilities in stressful situations. Things like attention span, memory functions and complexity of emotions will be further explored and may interest the reader since meditation can answer many questions on improving mental health that affects almost everyone. I will make the claim that meditation practice needs to be introduced early into educational institutions such as schools. Because evidence suggests that that meditation increases the volume of the cortex in the brain, leading to a higher and more powerful emotional intellect and cognition that improves things like memory, attention and emotional control. It is logical to assume that in order to alter thickness of cortex, mental thought functions and emotional strength, meditation should be introduced to children early in school for greater performance.

There has been debate as to whether or not the everyday occurrence of mind wandering affects the learning of those in higher education. Research has found a connection between mind wandering and poor meta-cognitive skills therefore leading to a loss of attention in the classroom. Throughout the course of this essay it will be discussed whether or not mind wandering does in fact have an impact on learning at a higher education level and if so how it affects it. Other components of the topic that will be considered are whether there are people that are more susceptible to mind wandering in an educational setting than others and also the measures used by researchers to find the connection between student and the amount their minds wander. The costs and benefits of mind wandering within higher education will be debated and critically evaluated illustrating both sides of the argument. The essay will be in favour of the opinion that the cost of mind wandering in the classroom outweighs the benefits and in turn has an overall negative effect on the learning of those in higher education.

The program is commonly used for addressing a variety of health problems (Grossman et al., 2004). For test anxiety specifically, the course has been carried out with the aim of assisting academic evaluation anxiety (Hjeltnes et al., 2015; Barbosa et al., 2013). The notable limitations are that the program requires considerable expense, a trained facilitator and usually takes eight weeks to complete. Additionally, it is not only long-term meditation or lengthy training which has shown to enhance psychological wellbeing. Researchers have found that those who carry out short-term mindfulness meditation can also experience anxiety-relieving and various other benefits (Tang et al., 2007; Menezez and Bizarro, 2015; Lancaster, Klein and Knightly, 2016; Zeidan et al., 2010a; Zeidan et al., 2010b; Zeidan et al., 2010c). Furthermore, the beneficial effects of short-term meditation are not only limited to self-reports. Shearer et al. (2015) incorporated physiological measures into short-term meditation and found improvements in heart rate variability, indicating a more ‘adaptive response to stress’. In terms of test anxiety specifically, research conducted by Paterniti (2008) found that mindfulness meditation groups significantly decreased their overall test anxiety, worry and emotionality. Due to the strong literature backing, and similar ease and accessibility, a mindfulness meditation activity will also be utilized as one of the brief interventions for the present

There were some findings of cognition changes in long-term meditation. Some of the changes were improved function attentiveness and flexibility in cognition. While comparing non-meditators and meditators, it was found meditators increase of attaining attention and out formed all measures of speed process of visual information bestowed by Newburg. There occurred some cases of enhanced working memory, while a decrease in fatigue and anger. In all, during several cognition tests, it was founded that meditators tend to do have positive results than

I would say out of all our discussions, the one on the Third Mindfulness Training: Sexual Responsibility by far was my favorite. I am a shy person when it comes to talking in class and would classify myself as a strong introvert. Our discussion on the Third Mindfulness though spark something in me and I participated in the discussion in class, which was a very big step out of the box for me. I would say I connect with this Mindfulness Training because I am a very open-hearted person and would say I wear my heart on my sleeve. I personally struggle to let people in even though I care more about the person than they know because I have been let down often in my life. This Mindful training opened my mind and made me think a different way and that is why I enjoyed this class discussion and am glad to write on it more in

Mind-wandering is the situation in which a person’s attention and thoughts wander from a current task to some other inappropriate line of thought (Radvansky, Ashcraft 2014). This is a very common experience, and for most it is also an issue at times. Everyone wants to be able to concentrate and not have other thoughts in their mind when needed such as in school, work etc… Daydreaming, thinking about what you will eat, about your family, or when you read something and have no idea what you just read, are all examples of mind wandering (Radvansky, Ashcraft 2014). There have been claims stating that mind wandering is lower for low working memory capacity (WMC) subjects (Radvansky, Ashcraft 2014). Researchers have examined this and many other factors contributing to the mind wandering phenomenon. Many conclusions have been made upon different components of mind-wandering, thus we will explore various research studies that provide recent discoveries in mind wandering.

Mindfulness, in particular, is associated with perspective taking and empathetic responding, relatedness and interpersonal closeness, and emotional communication, and anger management. Therefore, mindfulness may help a teacher be more responsive to individual students. Teaching is an extremely emotionally-demanding profession. Fortunately, studies show that mindfulness-based interventions may promote resilience and reduce the emotional exhaustion that precedes burnout. This can help teachers promote their own sense of well being and self care, in turn maintaining their care and compassion for their students.

Substantial research has been done on the positive effects of long-term meditation practices on the promotion of cognitive functions. However, the effects of brief meditation practices have not been as thoroughly researched. Accordingly, this study will further investigate the effects of short-term mindfulness-based training (MT) on the multiple traits of attentional processing. I hypothesize that brief MT can have similar results to that of long-term practices, indicating that meta-cognition can be improved in a short period of time. This experimental study will compare a MT group, a relaxation group, and a control group—all made up of inexperienced participants—on their performance of higher-order processing of attentional tasks. We predict that the MT group will do better than the other groups on all tests administered, and that they will improve significantly compared to their previous performance.

Before considering how mindfulness relates to task performance in organizational and occupational settings, it is worth observing that previous research points to a variety of non– task performance outcomes of mindfulness. For example, evidence indicates that mindfulness enables individuals to effectively cope with a range of experiences, including those associated with strong emotions or physical pain Mindfulness has also been shown to reduce depression and anxiety and enhance vitality .Although issues involving the physical and mental health of organizational members are important, from a managerial perspective they are perhaps not as foremost a concern as performance-related outcomes. Yet, as noted, there has been little scholarly investigation

This study explores the relationship between mindfulness and experiential learning to develop a concept termed mindful experiential learning. Although significant research on mindfulness and experiential learning has been conducted, no efforts have been made to study how the two concepts relate to one another. The authors, Bauback Yeganeh and David Kolb feature two types of mindfulness research streams that include the Mindfulness Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) and the Langer Mindfulness Scale (LMS) that measure the two approaches respectively as they relate to experiential learning measured by Kolb’s Learning Style Inventory (LSI) and compliance of learning style as measured by Adaptive Styles Inventory (ASI). A combination of the two mindfulness

A large proportion of the research on mind wandering has focused on the costs and benefits of mind wandering and how its effects relate to an educational environment. Mind wandering may be defined as the removal of attention from external stimuli or an immediate task towards unrelated concerns such as internal thoughts or imagined scenarios (Burton, Westen, & Kowalski, 2015). While mind wandering has been found to offer both positive and negative impacts, the common interpretation of recent research suggests that the costs of mind wandering significantly outweighs the benefits, particularly in higher education. Mind wandering has been found to have a negative impact on mood and cognitive abilities, including sustained attention, working memory and general intelligence (Mooneyham & Schooler, 2013). In an attempt to review the implications that mind wandering has on learning in higher education, this essay will briefly examine the costs and benefits of mind wandering.