A new study from the University of Utah shows that individuals who describe themselves as being more mindful have more stable emotions and perceive themselves to have better control over their mood and behavior throughout the day. Higher mindful people also describe less cognitive and physiological activation before bedtime, suggesting that greater emotional stability during the day might even translate into better sleep. The study results will be presented later this month at the annual meeting of the American Psychosomatic Society.

Prior studies of mindfulness—paying attention in a particular way, on purpose in the present moment and non-judgmentally—have typically been conducted with participants trained in mindfulness, for example meditation or other interventions. In contrast, this study examines naturally-occurring traits of mindfulness. Using a novel method for data collection, the participants wore a monitor that measured cardiac functioning and were prompted periodically throughout the day to rate their emotional state and mental functioning. Examining these processes during normal daily living builds on prior mindfulness research conducted in laboratory-controlled settings.

“This study gives us a better understanding of how mindfulness affects stress responses throughout the day,” says Holly Rau, a graduate student involved with this research. “People who reported higher levels of mindfulness described better control over their emotions and behaviors during the day. In addition, higher mindfulness was associated with lower activation at bedtime, which could have benefits for sleep quality and future ability to manage stress.”

How the study was conducted

A total of 38 subjects, recruited from the community and University of Utah undergraduate psychology courses, participated in the study. They ranged in age from 20 to 45, and one-third were male. On the first day of the study, each participant completed a baseline assessment that included standard questionnaires, resting physiological assessment, and cognitive testing before beginning two days of experience sampling.

In the daily life portion of the study, participants wore a cardiac impedance monitor and responded to questions about their emotional state several times a day for two days. At the end of each day, participants also completed questionnaires about their ability to regulate their emotions and behaviors and were asked to rate their level of cognitive and physical arousal before falling asleep.

Researchers found that greater emotional stability, better self-rated control of emotions and behaviors and lower pre-sleep arousal (a measurement of cognitive and physical symptoms of anxiety) were all significantly associated with higher trait mindfulness. Results suggest that mindfulness may be linked to self-regulation throughout the day, and that this may be an important way that mindfulness contributes to better emotional and physical well-being.

Future research will examine the link between moment-to-moment mindfulness, physiological markers of stress throughout the day and sleep quality. Examination of similar measures of mood, self-regulation and sleep quality in everyday life in the context of mindfulness intervention is another important direction for research.

ᔥUniversity of Utah

This broadcast is available only until March 12th 2013

It is a common held belief that men can’t multi-task and women can.

In fact Professor Nick Chater shows in the first of a weekly six-part series called The Human Zoo on BBC Radio Four that neither sex are very good at doing more than one thing at a time.

The Warwick Business School professor reveals that when doing something routine and well-practised humans can do two things at once, like driving and talking.

But when anything non-routine is introduced then multi-tasking is just not possible for the human mind.

Professor Chater said: “Most of the things that we find that are reasonably challenging we can only do one at a time. We think we are multi-tasking but in fact we are interleaving from one task to the next quite rapidly, something we don’t have to do if we practice. If we practice we get very fluent at something and it requires almost no mental effort, like driving and listening to the radio.”

When something difficult is added then any semblance of doing two things at once is ended as Professor Chater showed with a simple experiment, like asking what is the capital of Tanzania? That question forced presenter Michael Blastland to stop walking to consider the answer.

“When you are trying to strain your memory or when we have to do something remotely difficult we have to stop doing something else,” said Professor Chater, who is a Professor of Behavioural Science at Warwick Business School. “Mental and physical energy is more connected than you imagine.

“We can’t keep mental processes entirely separate from each other. If we are doing routine things that is fine, but if we do something non-routine suddenly other parts of the brain start to engage and interfere with routine things like walking.”

Professor Chater, who is head of the Behavioural Science group at Warwick Business School, reveals how this link between mental and physical energy has real implications. A study of a parole board in Israel showed how their decisions were affected by taking a break and having some food.

Even recognising several people or objects at once seems to be beyond the capability of the human mind.

Professor Chater said: “There are some very interesting demonstrations that suggest that we can’t do that. Some of my colleagues at Warwick Business School have set up some demos on ‘change blindness’ – a phenomenon that suggests we are very limited in our ability to recognise people or objects more than one at a time.”

Listeners can take part in the online ‘change blindness’ experiment by going to http://www.weblab.wbs.ac.uk/experiment/1.

Source: Warwick Business School

 
Canadians are under pressure on the job – especially those with higher status, challenging work or in positions of authority.
 
And having more control in the workplace can have negative consequences for individuals but it depends on the form of job control, say researchers from the University of Toronto.

Sociologist Scott Schieman measured a range of work conditions using data from a national survey of 6,004 Canadian workers. To measure levels of job pressure, he asked study participants questions such as: “How often do you feel overwhelmed by how much you had to do at work?” “How often do you have to work on too many tasks at the same time?” and “How often do the demands of your job exceed the time you have to do the work?”

He found that roughly one-third of Canadian workers report that they “often” or “very often” feel overwhelmed by work or that the demands of their job exceed the time to do the work. Four out of 10 workers report having to work on too many tasks at the same time “often” or “very often.”

“Excessive job demands have detrimental effects,” says Schieman. “We know that workers who report higher scores on these indicators of job pressure also tend to experience more problems navigating work and family roles, more symptoms of physical and mental health problems and they tend to be less satisfied with their work.”

The study found that having control over one’s work schedule and job autonomy are associated with lower levels of job pressure. However, challenging work in which one is required to keep learning new things, engage in creative activities, use skills and abilities and handle a variety of tasks, is associated with higher levels of job pressure as is being in a position of authority where one is supervising or managing others.

Three key indicators of higher socioeconomic status (SES) – education, higher status occupations (executives or professionals) and income – were each independently associated with greater job pressure. “However, those with high SES face greater pressure mostly because of their more challenging work and greater levels of authority,” says Schieman.

“These findings speak directly to the idea of the stress of higher status,” said Schieman. “People talk these days about being ‘crazy busy’ and not having enough time to do all the things at work that need to get done. But being ‘crazy busy’ isn’t randomly distributed in the population. This study demonstrates an unexpected price for higher SES and more control at work –and that price is excessive pressure in the workplace.”

Job-Related Resources and the Pressures of Working Life, is published in the journal Social Science Research.

ᔥ University of Toronto