Researchers at the University of California-Los Angeles compared the brain activity of volunteers who had finished eight weeks of mindfulness-based stress reduction training with that of volunteers who did not do such training.
A few years ago, a computer scientist and a neuroscientist at the University of Arizona enrolled 45 human resources managers in a trial: a third took eight weeks of mindfulness-based meditation training, a third took eight weeks of body relaxation training and the rest had no training at all.
In one study, two weeks of mindfulness training produced a 60percentt reduction in smoking, compared with no reduction in a control group that focused on relaxation.
One study published in Psychological Science found the effect of improved focus in as little as two weeks of mindfulness practice.
Prakash found that four weeks of mindfulness training could reduce "emotional dysregulation" among multiple sclerosis sufferers an important finding, considering 50% of chronic disease patients experience some form of depression.
The seven weeks of mindfulness practice may have helped male students to become more aware of their distress, but may have assisted female students with handling their distress better.
For example, after eight weeks of a mindfulness-based stress reduction class, participants exhibited increased gray matter in four regions of the brain: the left-hippocampus, the posterior cingulate cortex, the left temporoparietal junction, and the cerebellum (Figure 1).
