Research on Meditation

We can all agree that pain is an unpleasant feeling. Because of this, researchers are on a constant search for pharmaceuticals or psychological behavioural intervention to help with the symptoms of pain.  Meditation is one such psychological intervention, and meditation teachers have long time argued that meditation might help with the symptoms of pain by

In the first and second article of this three-part series, we looked at what might be the cognitive processes at work in attentional and constructive meditation practices.  We saw that attentional meditation practices help us cultivate a degree of emotional regulation.  With constructive meditation practices using the cultivated emotional regulation to build onto and change

The nurturing of virtuous qualities has been a common endeavour of various philosophical and contemplative traditions (Eifring, 2015; Gethin, 1998).  Constructive meditation practices were one of the methods developed and used by these traditions to foster the cultivation of a virtuous ethic.  As with attentional meditation practices, constructive practices, need meta-awareness but they also serve

Meditation and mindfulness practices have been a subject of research for both cognitive and neuroscientists.  In recent years research in such area has gained traction towards trying to understand the possible cognitive processes involved in meditation practices.  This to attempt to classify them into a basic taxonomy according to the cognitive processes in common between

Why is “The Middle Way” important in meditation?  In a recent blog post, we looked at the possibility that mindfulness practice follows an inverted U-shaped curve.  This means that there could be an “optimal” point of meditation practice after which, the resulting mindfulness-related processes can turn “sour”.  This could actually be seen as a reflection

Can mindfulness be too much of a good thing?  As in recent years, we have seen a proliferation of mindfulness products and teachers, in what was called “the mindful movement”.  In this blog post we explore the question, can mindfulness be too much of a good thing?  The too-much-of-a-good-thing effect is when the practice of

Most of the research conducted on contemplative practices to date focuses on its beneficial aspects and rarely on unpleasant meditation related experiences (Goyal, et al., 2014; Sparby, 2017).  In fact, an analysis of the literature reveals that only a few studies have ever explored if meditation practitioners ever have unpleasant experiences during their meditation practice