Mindfulness Essay

Research Topic The term mindfulness refers to the ability to monitor the current moment with an open and nonjudgmental state of mind (Raffone, 2010). As taught in eastern spiritual traditions, mindfulness can be obtained through the practice of meditation, the mental and emotional training of regulating attention (Helber, 2012). It is suggested that those who practice meditation can learn to direct their consciousness in a way that improves their cognitive functions. Although research directly linking meditation to the improvement of metacognitive ability, which refers to the ability to be aware of one’s own knowledge, is still emerging it is clear that these introspective functions can be improved upon through training.

Research Questions

Relevance to Psychology Meditation is the practice of being present and open in the current moment while continually bringing attention back to a fixed point, essentially cultivating mindfulness. Such a state of trained mindful awareness benefits the executive functions that help one operate effectively. Those who practice meditation see general improvements in a variety of areas. For example, studies have shown that those who had gone through meditation training completed a test of cognitive skills with less inhibition than those who had not, not only did their scores improve but they did so with more confidence and less distraction. Although the exact causation has yet to be identified, there does seem to be a correlation between meditation and higher cognitive functions. Meditation teaches how to direct consciousness, when focus is uninhibited perception becomes more clear. Specifically, mindfulness can lead to a pure perception of self. When distractions can be accepted without judgement it is possible to redirect focus to the matter at hand, whether that be a mantra or a problem in daily life.

Annotations

Helber, C., Zook, N., & Immergut, M. (2012). Meditation in Higher Education: Does

They sought to address the question of “whether it is indeed possible to enhance introspective ability or whether an individual’s introspective capacity is relatively invariant” (CITATION). Evidence suggests that the prefrontal cortex is critically important to metacognitive functions. Based on connections made from multiple studies, they argue that there is evidence to support a link in structural changes in the frontopolar cortices in practiced meditators which supports the theory that meditation helps improve metacognitive functions. The authors of this study used similar methods to Helber, Zook, and Immergut (2012), randomly assigning fifty undergraduate students to either a meditation or nutrition class and then using test results to evaluate the effects of the meditation program on the accuracy of metacognitive functions. Unlike in previous studies, students in the meditation group were required to spend the same consistent amount of time meditating outside of class. The testing administered included perceptual and memory tasks, participants were also asked to rate their confidence in their answer. They found that meditation training did not have an impact on perception, but that it did tend to improve memory and one’s metacognitive