MENTAL BALANCE AND WELL-BEING: THE ROLE OF MEDITATION AND MINDFULNESS

Meditation practice and the development of mindfulness have become an intensively researched area and first theoretical appraisals linking western psychological theories and ancient buddhist perspectives on mental balance and well-being have been proposed. These accounts suggest that a harmonic and balanced interplay of intention/motivation, attention, cognition and affect promotes well-being. Our own research focuses on investigating how meditation and mindfulness practice influence these aforementioned four components and thus contributes to psychological (and also physiological) well-being. In a series of studies we (and others) have so far provided evidence for a relation between meditation/mindfulness practice and (a) several attentional functions, (b) perceived stress and (c) well-being. This poster will present evidence from several cross-sectional, correlational studies confirming moderately strong correlations between several of these variables and supporting the assumption that attentional and emotional factors are linked to mindfulness and well-being. The results from our studies as well as several others in this field generally are in line with the assumption that meditation practice and the improvement of mindfulness skills are conducive to mental balance and well-being. However, there is still a long way to go until principles and underlying mechanisms are clearly identified and confirmed