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Mindfulness and Cognitive Control

An important ability in life is the ability to act automatically. Once we have learned how to ride a bycicle it will work without much – if any – conscious effort or control being required. This is certainly a good …

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Published today: regular brief meditation changes brain activity

Today a first article from our research project into the effects of mindfulness meditation practice on attentional functions was published in the open access journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. Here the link to the article: Regular, brief mindfulness meditation practice improves …

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The power of the mind: A wandering mind is an unhappy mind

This study is not quite new anymore (well, from 2010), but it is so instructive that when looking at it again today I thought it would be good to share this. Apologies if you know this one inside out already. …

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in Liverpool: The Science of Buddhist Meditation

Are you living in or close to Liverpool? … then this talk might be of interest: On Saturday 04 February at 3pm, I will be talking about the Science of Buddhist Meditation. In this talk I will present scientific and …

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Happy New Year 2012!

Happy New Year and thank you for your shared interest in meditation research. I think it will become an interesting year. For the first few days I will just share with you a quote that inspires me a lot: Observing …

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Meditation Research Bibliography

Finally! I talked a lot about it, but now it really starts happening.   The meditation research bibliography, which until now was hosted at www.pmalinowski.de, is moving to its new home. From now on the searchable, categorised bibliography of research …

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Mindfulness and obesity

Almost three weeks since the last post. NO! – meditation and mindfulness research did not come to a sudden standstill. I was abroad, presenting our work at the Research Seminar in Experimental and Neuro-Cognitive Psychology at the Ludwig-Maximilians University in …

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Neither vibrating nor not vibrating!

One way of expressing the aim of buddhist meditation practice may be to say that is is about overcoming the extremes of clinging to existence or to non-existence: “Form is emptiness – emptiness is form – form and emptiness are …

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Sustaining Happiness: The Science of Buddhist Meditation

Does meditation make you happy?  A few years back I organised a symposium at the 2008 BA Festival of Science in Liverpool (now British Science Festival) to discuss the link between meditation practice, happiness and well-being.  At that time I …

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Meditation practice is associated with reduced mind-wandering

A forthcoming publication in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports a brain imaging study that shows reduced brain activity during meditation in those brain areas that are typically quite active during day-dreaming or mind-wandering. A research group led …

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