Mindfulness as a Long-Game Strategy
Just a few weeks ago, Becoming Jackson Whole’s chief science advisor, Dr. Amishi Jha, and several colleagues released a breakthrough meta-analysis of mindfulness research, analyzing the long-term impact of mindfulness practice on mind-wandering, or experiencing frequent, off-task thoughts.
“Does practicing mindfulness actually change how much our minds wander?” they asked. “And, do the benefits stick?”
The answer, friends, is, “Yes.”
By comparing and carefully combining the findings of five real-world research projects, Dr. Jha (a neuroscientist at the University of Miami) and others report strong results indicating that people who learn and practice attention-based mindfulness training see two long-term benefits.
They report less mind-wandering and more accuracy in focused tasks as a direct result of mindfulness training, when compared to participants without mindfulness training.
And, people who learn mindfulness maintain this reduced mind-wandering and more accurate task response months after their initial training.
Mind-wandering is a marker for depressive thinking, rumination, worsened mood, and stress—all predictors of the onset of psychological distress, according to broader research. If mindfulness training can protect against increases in mind wandering, Dr. Jha and others conclude, it may also protect against psychological health challenges.
Wow, and wow.
But here at Becoming Jackson Whole we’re most proud of the fact that our very own, first-of-kind community research, conducted by Dr. Jha just after the pandemic, was one of the real-world studies that contributed to this finding! (If you’re a numbers nerd, we are “Study 4” in the analysis.)
Our study—involving businesspeople, first responders, and organization leaders (you know who you are—thank you!)—drew praise in this combined analysis for testing mindfulness practice outside the lab, incorporating the everyday challenges of real people, trying to show up as their best selves in their real jobs.
And this is only the beginning. These findings support bigger, broader studies of mindfulness as a community resource.
THIS is why Becoming Jackson Whole is here: Together, we’re building mindful awareness and abilities, and together, we’re contributing to the neuroscience that is moving mindfulness “off the cushion” and into our everyday work and well-being.
THANK YOU. Really. We’re doing it.
MORE FROM DR. AMISHI JHA AT HEALTHY MINDS INNOVATIONS
Try a variety of new (FREE!) micro-lessons and guided meditations on awareness, designed by Dr. Jha for Healthy Minds, a research collaboration and app at the University of Wisconsin.
MBAT’s Impressive Results for Local Leaders
Chief science advisor to Becoming Jackson Whole and cognitive neuroscientist at University of Miami, Dr Amishi Jha recently reported “significant benefits in the areas of cognitive, emotional, and social functioning” resulting from an eight-hour Mindfulness-Based Attention Training (MBAT) course followed by four weeks of mindfulness practice among participants.
“Even before the pandemic, we knew our community needed relief from a wide range of daily stressors. Today, the demand for mental wellness tools is even more apparent,” says Sara Flitner, founder and president of BJW. “Dr. Jha’s results are promising – people retained information, learned more, and experienced overall improvements to their mood and their ability to relate to their coworkers and family members. Even more exciting to us is that the people who benefitted from this training live and work in our community, doing important work in education, healthcare, nonprofits. And now they have some tools to withstand the onslaught of stress.”
The two trainings were delivered by Becoming Jackson Whole, Dr. Jha, and master teacher Scott Rogers to nonprofit, business, healthcare, education, law enforcement, conservation, and small business leaders. Two cohorts took the MBAT course, developed by Dr. Jha and Rogers. Before and after the program, participants completed online assessments to track any changes in their attention and sense of well-being. Another group of local leaders served as a control group, completing the same assessments but without MBAT training.
“This was truly a first-of-a-kind study,” Jha says. As a researcher, she appreciated the unique opportunity to partner with an organization reaching an entire community, with leaders from multiple sectors, and evaluate the effectiveness of mindfulness training. The study results show statistically significant improvement for MBAT participants on a host of measures, including mind-wandering, attentional performance, mood, anxiety, and work enjoyment.
Jha describes attention as a cognitive fuel. “We know that attention has a contagion effect. When you see a score improve on an attention measure, it actually impacts so much more than that specific task.” She emphasizes the importance of attention in leadership, noting that most people recognize the difference when they engage with an attentive leader versus an inattentive one.
Dr. Jha’s Teton County study provides evidence that we have the ability to train our minds to function differently by default. Participants were on autopilot less often, more aware of where their minds were moment-by-moment, meaning they had access to higher levels of focus and productivity. “They had fewer lapses of attention in everyday activities, like walking into a room and forgetting why,” she said. They also scored better than the control group, across the board, on mood. Compared to those who didn’t receive training, they felt less hostile, upset, and irritable. They reported feeling less gripped by strong negative emotions that would have distracted and preoccupied them before. In short, they had the capacity to impact the others around them positively, because of their own improved moods.
"What compels our mission is the improvement in how people felt in their daily lives. Our research group – people who live around us, teach our kids, provide our medical care, answer 911 calls – reported feeling more on top of things, less distracted. Pay dirt: their stress levels were lower,” Flitner says.
A volunteer group of MBAT recipients from key local institutions are in the final stage of Jha’s rigorous Train-the-Trainer program. Soon they will be certified to teach MBAT to their colleagues in law enforcement, healthcare, education, social services, and hospitality. Additional training sessions will be offered to the community-at-large.