Studies purporting to show changes in brain structure following the popular, 8-week mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) course are widely referenced despite major methodological limitations.
Mindfulness
Richard J Davidson, PhD – Slide of the Week
Teachers vary in their ability to enact effective teaching practices. We randomly assigned 88 early education preservice teachers to standard teacher education or teacher education plus a 9-week mindfulness-based intervention. Using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) as our primary outcome, we assessed effective teaching practices at baseline and at a 6-month follow-up that occurred during full-time student teaching.
Kindness in the classroom
What if teaching young children compassion and kindness made them better students as well as better people? Researchers with the UW’s Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the Waisman Center recently tested that hypothesis with preschool students in the Madison Metropolitan School District, after years of work developing a curriculum designed to help children develop both kindness and self-regulation skills.
Davidson’s study reveals gene expression changes with meditation
With evidence growing that meditation can have beneficial health effects, scientists have sought to understand how these practices physically affect the body.
Meditation produces positive changes in the brain
In a small but highly provocative study, a UW-Madison research team has found, for the first time, that a short program in “mindfulness meditation” produced lasting positive changes in both the brain and the function of the immune system.