Mindfulness Making a Difference

People With Rheumatoid Arthritis

Practicing mindfulness meditation exercises could help people with the painful condition to decrease their stress and fatigue levels, according to a study from Oslo's Diakonhjemmet Hospital.

Doctors

Mindfulness meditation could help doctors provide better care to their patients, University of Rochester Medical Center researchers found.

When doctors underwent mindfulness meditation training, they listened better and were less judgmental at home and at work, according to the Academic Medicine study. 

Teachers

Meditation could be the key to minimizing stress for busy teachers, according to a study from researchers at the University of California, San Francisco.

The findings, published in the journal Emotion, showed that undergoing eight weeks of meditation helped to lower anxiety and depression, also, in the teachers, Everyday Health reported.


In that study, published in the journal Annals of Rheumatic Diseases, the goal of the mindfulness meditation exercises was to help people concentrate on their own thoughts, experiences and pain in the moment, without actively trying to avoid them or judge them. The researchers found.

The Elderly

Practicing mindfulness meditation could help decrease feelings of loneliness in the elderly. The small study, published in the journal Brain, Behavior & Immunity, showed that undergoing an eight-week mindfulness meditation training program, as well as doing meditation exercises at home, was linked with lower feelings of loneliness and a reduction in the expression of genes known to be linked with inflammation.

Caregivers   

It's not just people with an ailment who can benefit from yoga -- people caring for the sick can be helped, too. A study in the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry found that caregivers who participate in meditation have decreased symptoms of depression and even a decrease in cellular aging from stress.

Inmates

The Washoe County Sheriff's Office in Reno, Nevada, is offering yoga to female prisoners to help them with anger and stress issues, Fox Reno reported.

The twice-a-month classes are taught by volunteers, and are part of the Alternatives to Incarceration Unit's Women's Empowerment Program, according to Fox Reno.

Stroke Survivors

Practicing yoga for eight weeks helped stroke survivors to improve their balance in a study published in the journal Stroke.

Improving balance among stroke patients is important for reducing the risk of falls. People who had balance problems, or feelings of dizziness and/or spinning, were five times more likely to fall than those without balance issues, according to an earlier 2003 study in Stroke.