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A mind you can count on: validating breath counting as a behavioral measure of mindfulness

Mindfulness practice of present moment awareness promises many benefits, but has eluded rigorous behavioral measurement. To date, research has relied on self-reported mindfulness or heterogeneous mindfulness trainings to infer skillful mindfulness practice and its effects. In four independent studie...

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Autores principales: Levinson, Daniel B., Stoll, Eli L., Kindy, Sonam D., Merry, Hillary L., Davidson, Richard J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4208398/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25386148
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01202
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author Levinson, Daniel B.
Stoll, Eli L.
Kindy, Sonam D.
Merry, Hillary L.
Davidson, Richard J.
author_facet Levinson, Daniel B.
Stoll, Eli L.
Kindy, Sonam D.
Merry, Hillary L.
Davidson, Richard J.
author_sort Levinson, Daniel B.
collection PubMed
description Mindfulness practice of present moment awareness promises many benefits, but has eluded rigorous behavioral measurement. To date, research has relied on self-reported mindfulness or heterogeneous mindfulness trainings to infer skillful mindfulness practice and its effects. In four independent studies with over 400 total participants, we present the first construct validation of a behavioral measure of mindfulness, breath counting. We found it was reliable, correlated with self-reported mindfulness, differentiated long-term meditators from age-matched controls, and was distinct from sustained attention and working memory measures. In addition, we employed breath counting to test the nomological network of mindfulness. As theorized, we found skill in breath counting associated with more meta-awareness, less mind wandering, better mood, and greater non-attachment (i.e., less attentional capture by distractors formerly paired with reward). We also found in a randomized online training study that 4 weeks of breath counting training improved mindfulness and decreased mind wandering relative to working memory training and no training controls. Together, these findings provide the first evidence for breath counting as a behavioral measure of mindfulness.
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spelling pubmed-42083982014-11-10 A mind you can count on: validating breath counting as a behavioral measure of mindfulness Levinson, Daniel B. Stoll, Eli L. Kindy, Sonam D. Merry, Hillary L. Davidson, Richard J. Front Psychol Psychology Mindfulness practice of present moment awareness promises many benefits, but has eluded rigorous behavioral measurement. To date, research has relied on self-reported mindfulness or heterogeneous mindfulness trainings to infer skillful mindfulness practice and its effects. In four independent studies with over 400 total participants, we present the first construct validation of a behavioral measure of mindfulness, breath counting. We found it was reliable, correlated with self-reported mindfulness, differentiated long-term meditators from age-matched controls, and was distinct from sustained attention and working memory measures. In addition, we employed breath counting to test the nomological network of mindfulness. As theorized, we found skill in breath counting associated with more meta-awareness, less mind wandering, better mood, and greater non-attachment (i.e., less attentional capture by distractors formerly paired with reward). We also found in a randomized online training study that 4 weeks of breath counting training improved mindfulness and decreased mind wandering relative to working memory training and no training controls. Together, these findings provide the first evidence for breath counting as a behavioral measure of mindfulness. Frontiers Media S.A. 2014-10-24 /pmc/articles/PMC4208398/ /pubmed/25386148 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01202 Text en Copyright © 2014 Levinson, Stoll, Kindy, Merry and Davidson. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Levinson, Daniel B.
Stoll, Eli L.
Kindy, Sonam D.
Merry, Hillary L.
Davidson, Richard J.
A mind you can count on: validating breath counting as a behavioral measure of mindfulness
title A mind you can count on: validating breath counting as a behavioral measure of mindfulness
title_full A mind you can count on: validating breath counting as a behavioral measure of mindfulness
title_fullStr A mind you can count on: validating breath counting as a behavioral measure of mindfulness
title_full_unstemmed A mind you can count on: validating breath counting as a behavioral measure of mindfulness
title_short A mind you can count on: validating breath counting as a behavioral measure of mindfulness
title_sort mind you can count on: validating breath counting as a behavioral measure of mindfulness
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4208398/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25386148
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01202
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