Mindfulness in the workplace – evidence

Mindfulness in The Workplace

Mindfulness is useful in leadership – the literature is extensive in ACT but evidence is now growing that mindfulness alone can improve leadership. (Source: Ashridge).

Mindfulness and Absenteeism

Mindfulness helps prevent depression relapse (source: Teasdale, Segal, Williams, Ridgeway, Soulsby (2000). “Prevention of relapse/recurrence in major depression by mindfulness-based cognitive therapy”.

Mindfulness has been shown to be effective in stress reduction.  (reference: Shapiro, Schwartz, Bonner (1998). “Effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction on medical and premedical students” .  There is a nice meta analysis here by Grossmana, Niemannb, Schmidtc, Walach (2003)

Mindfulness in Sport

Mindfulness is also used in sport.  For those interested  I recommend The Psychology of Enhancing Human performance.

Mindfulness underpins general psychological health.  Trait mindfulness and meditation practice correlate with psychological well-being.

Finally, mindfulness is central to creativity.  it is the ability to be with the present moment as it is, that enables problems to be addressed in an unvarnished way, and the ability to be with our fears of looking stupid if we fail that is critical to the problem solving process.  (See Bond and Bunce 2001)

Mindfulness in Clinical Practice

Teasdale, J.D., Segal, Z.V., Williams, J.M.G., Ridgeway, V., Soulsby, J., & Lau, M. (2000). Prevention of relapse/recurrence in major depression by mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 68, 615-623.

Teasdale, J.D., Moore, R.G., Hayhurst, H., Pope, M., Williams, S. & Segal, Z.V. (2002). Metacognitive awareness and prevention of relapse in depression: Empirical evidence. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 70, 278-287.

Ma, S.H., & Teasdale, J.D. (2004). Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depression: Replication and exploration of differential relapse prevention effects. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 72, 31-40.

Goldapple, K., Segal, Z., Garson, C., Beiling, P., Lau, M., Kennedy, S. & Mayberg, H. (2004 ). Modulation of cortical-limbic pathways in major depression: Treatment specific effects of cognitive behavior therapy compared to Paroxetine. Archives of General Psychiatry, 61, 34-41.

Lau, M, Bishop, S., Segal, Z.V., Buis, T., Anderson, N. & Carlson, L. Shapiro, S., Carmody, J., Abbey, S. & Devins, J. (2006). The Toronto Mindfulness Scale: Development and validation. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 62, 1445-1467.

Segal, Z.V., Kennedy, S., Gemar, M., Hood, K., Pedersen, R., & Buis, T. (2006). Cognitive reactivity to sad mood provocation and the prediction of depressive relapse. Archives of General Psychiatry, 63, 750-755.

Kuyken W, Byford S, Taylor RS, Watkins E, Holden E, White K, Barrett B, Byng R, Evans A, Mullan E, Teasdale JD. (2008). Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy to prevent relapse in recurrent depression. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 76, 966-78.

Farb, N., Segal, Z., Mayberg, H., Bean, J., McKeon, D. & Anderson, A. (2007). Mindfulness training reveals dissociable neural modes of self-reference. Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 2, 313-322.

Miklowitz, D. Alatiq, Y., Goodwin, G., Geddes, J., Dimidjian, S., Hauser, M., & Williams, M (2009). A pilot study of Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for bipolar disorder. Internation Journal of Cognitive Therapy, 4, 373-382.

Bondolfi, G., Jermann, F., Van der Linden, M., Gex_Fabry, M., Bizzini, L., Weber Rouget, B., Myers-Arrazola, L., Gonzalez, C., Segal, Z., Aubry, J.M. & Bertschy, G. (in press). Depression relapse prophylaxis with Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy: Replication and extension in a French speaking sample. Journal of Affective Disorders.

Farb, N. Anderson, A., Mayberg, H., Bean, J., McKeon, D. & Segal, Z.V. (in press). Mindfulness training alters neural response to sad mood provocation in a mixed clinical sample. Emotion.

Fresco, D., Moore, M. van Dulmen, M., Segal, Z., Ma, H., Teasdale, J. & Williams, M. (2007). Initial psychometric properties of the Wider Experiences Questionnaire. Behavior Therapy, 38, 234-46.