Turns out my post from yesterday is based on outdated information. Here's a more recent teaser on forthcoming results:
The study’s results have not yet been published—but Saron’s summary indicates that they will be striking: Early results from the Shamatha Project indicate that intensive meditation training affects both ...
attention and emotional functioning in positive ways. Performance on laboratory tasks showed training-related enhancements in perceptual sensitivity and the ability to sustain at- tentional focus and withhold habitual responses when instructed to do so. Analyses of facial expressions in response to film clips revealed increased emotional resonance with human suffering and reductions in emotions that distance people from others. Also, overall psychological functioning improved across the duration of the retreat, and these psychological benefits corresponded to improvements in performance on some cognitive tasks and biological indicators of physical health related to cellular aging. In short, repeated practice in focusing the mind and opening the heart appears to stabilize attention, promote health and well-being and lead to more compassionate emotional responses. These results and others are being submitted for publication; they were also presented this summer at the meeting of the International Society for Psychoneuroimmunology and will be presented at the upcoming meeting of the Society for Neuroscience this fall.
You can download the full article here.
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