"Mindfulness exercises improve working memory capacity and decrease mind wandering"

Tuesday March 22 Mindfulness Book Club Meeting Topic: 

Mindfulness Training Improves Working Memory Capacity and GRE Performance While Reducing Mind Wandering 

A University of California, Santa Barbara study by Michael D. Mrazek, Michael S. Franklin, Dawa Tarchin Philips, Benjamin Baird, and Jonathan W. Schooler.

At tonight's meeting we discussed the above named article which can be provided via email if anyone else is interested in reading it. 

Highlights from the study: 

• During a 2 week study 26 randomly selected students were entered into a 45 minute mindfulness class four times a week, taught by professionals with extensive experience in the field of mindfulness training.   

• The mindfulness classes taught the specific type of meditation called focused attention meditation: 
• sit in an upright posture
• cognitively make the distinction between natrually arizing thoughts and elaborate thinking 
• re-frame past and future concerns as the mental projections occurring in the present moment which they are in order to decrease their ability to distract from your practice 
• maintain a steady attention to your breath, anchor yourself for the duration of your meditation practice by continuously returning focus to the breath 
• count 21 out breaths and repeat for the duration of the meditation session 
• avoid the tendency to attempt to suppress thoughts, Instead allow your mind to rest in its natural state

• Study results indicated that the effects of mindfulness practice include:

1. Prevention of deterioration of working memory during times of high stress 
2.  Increased / enhanced attention 
3. Improved efficiency in visuospatial processing 
4. Increases backward digit memory span   
5. Treats a variety of medical conditions 
6. Improved performance on GRE (reading comprehension) test by an average of 16 percentile points 
7. Decreased mind wandering among those prone to it, proven by improved performance in variable tasks
8. Reduced activation of brain region default network which is associated with mind wandering and often most active during times of rest 

For next week's meeting Tuesday, March 29 at 9:00 we will be discussing:

Why is it so hard to pay attention, or is it? Mindfulness, the factors of awakening and reward-based learning  
by Judson A. Brewer, Jake H. Davis, and Joseph Goldstein 


If you  are unable to locate this item, please contact me and I will provide it for you.  

We are also working on our second book choice for the group which was Sam Harris' Waking UP 

If you are interested but unable to attend meetings I would like to encourage you to participate via this blog or the Facebook group.  

Tell me what you think! use the resources provided on this blog to aid in your practice, and try to remind yourself throughout your week that at any particular moment ...

"This is it" -Tara Brach-