Lovingkindness

BACKGROUND: Ethical dilemmas and ethical problems are very common in intensive care units. Nurses need moral courage to deal with these problems. Nurses' high empathy, humility, lovingkindness, and compassion support them to act with moral courage. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to determine the moral courage, lovingkindness, and compassion levels of critical care nurses and to reveal whether there is a relationship between them. METHODS: One hundred sixty-eight nurses working in the intensive care unit of a university hospital in Turkey were included in this correlational descriptive cross-sectional study...

In two studies using samples representative of the US adult population with regard to age, sex and ethnicity, we investigated relationships between loving-kindness and compassion-based practices with speciesism, animal solidarity and desire to help animals. In a cross-sectional study (Study 1, N = 2,822), results showed that past 30 days practice and estimated lifetime number of hours of lovingkindness or compassion meditation were associated with more animal solidarity and greater desire to help animals. Past 30 days practice was also associated with less speciesism, but only when adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics...

Objectives: Meta-analyses of meditation studies have revealed mixed modest evidence of benefits across a range of outcomes. However, because this evidence-base is predominantly from brief interventions, it is unclear whether it accurately reflects how contemporary meditators practice or the dose-response relationship between amount of practice and outcome. This study sought to characterize how contemporary meditators practice, examine any possible dose-response relationships between historical practice and measures of psychological wellbeing, and explore which characteristics of practice most strongly predict favorable psychological outcomes...

This paper explores and discusses the Jewish view on brotherhood in humanity and its bond with global mental health. Human brotherhood is one of the foundations of the Jewish religion and is widely found in the ethics of the Jewish prophets and in the tradition of Israel. The halakhic sources oblige a person to do good to others by every possible means - his money, body, soul and mind. The concept of brotherhood in its deepest meaning contains a social responsibility that requires more than transferring a financial contribution to a particular account...

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically affected mental health, creating an urgent need for convenient and safe interventions to improve well-being. Online mindfulness interventions show promise for improving depression, anxiety, and general well-being. Objective: To assess: 1) the impact of online mindfulness on psychological distress, 2) altruistic efforts, and 3) the quantity, quality, and availability of online mindfulness resources during the COVID-19 pandemic...

Objectives: Psychological and neural evidence suggests that negative attitudes toward stigmatized individuals arise in part from failures to perceive them as social targets. Here, we tested whether experimentally up-regulating neural regions involved in social cognition would predict subsequent decreases in bias toward stigmatized individuals (i.e., people who use substances). Methods: Participants underwent fMRI while completing either a lovingkindness intervention task or a control task, and each task was reinforced via daily text messages for a month following the one-time fMRI scan...

Objectives: Self-critical behavior is especially relevant for university students who face academic and non-academic stressors, leading to negative outcomes such as mental distress and psychopathologies. To address this behavior, mindfulness and compassion are important factors to decrease self-criticism and ensure positive outcomes. This study examined the psychological and physiological effects of an intervention, the Mindful Lovingkindness Compassion Program (MLCP), on highly self-critical university students in South Korea...

The Meditation on Twin Hearts (MTH) is a core meditation in both Pranic Healing and modern Arhatic Yoga practices. This guided meditation includes components of lovingkindness, open awareness, and self-healing imagery. The changes in peak latency and peak amplitude of P300 auditory event-related potentials were studied before and after listening to the MTH. Subjects were 12 nonmeditators compared with 12 meditators with at least 1000 h of experience with MTH. Between- and within-group comparisons were examined from electrode sites FZ, CZ, and PZ...

PURPOSE: Despite more women undergoing treatment for breast cancer and increased survival rates, many women suffer from anxiety and physical symptoms (e.g., pain, fatigue) surrounding diagnosis and surgery. Research investigating the efficacy of psychosocial interventions for breast cancer patients during this period is limited. This randomized controlled pilot study examined the effect of a brief lovingkindness meditation intervention on these key outcomes. METHODS: Participants were 60 women who underwent core needle breast biopsy, received an abnormal biopsy result, and underwent breast surgery (White = 73...

BACKGROUND: Students in higher education are experiencing stress and anxiety, such that it impedes their academic success and personal wellbeing. Brief mindfulness meditation and lovingkindness meditation are two aspects of mindfulness practice that have the potential to decrease students' feelings of anxiety and stress, and increase their sense of wellbeing and capacity for compassion for self and for others. PURPOSE: To explore how undergraduate and graduate students experience brief instructor-guided mindfulness practice; specifically, on their feelings of stress and anxiety, and their sense of wellbeing...

Trauma and stressor-related disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and related comorbid disorders such as anxiety, depression, and dissociative disorders, are difficult to treat. Mindfulness-based clinical interventions have proven efficacy for mental health treatment in face-to-face individual and group modalities, although the feasibility and efficacy of delivering these interventions via the internet has not been evaluated. The present research developed mindfulness and metta-based trauma therapy (MMTT) as an internet resource to support the practice of mindfulness and metta (lovingkindness) meditations for self-regulation and healing from trauma and stressor-related disorders...

The relationship between mindfulness and self-compassion is explored in the health care literature, with a corollary emphasis on reducing stress in health care workers and providing compassionate patient care. Health care professionals are particularly vulnerable to stress overload and compassion fatigue due to an emotionally exhausting environment. Compassion fatigue among caregivers in turn has been associated with less effective delivery of care. Having compassion for others entails self-compassion. In Kristin Neff's research, self-compassion includes self-kindness, a sense of common humanity, and mindfulness...

Although meditation is increasingly accepted as having personal benefits, less is known about the broader impact of meditation on social and intergroup relations. We tested the effect of lovingkindness meditation training on improving implicit attitudes toward members of 2 stigmatized social outgroups: Blacks and homeless people. Healthy non-Black, nonhomeless adults (N = 101) were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 conditions: 6-week lovingkindness practice, 6-week lovingkindness discussion (a closely matched active control), or waitlist control...