From the heart and desk of the Publisher
Mindfulness & Fibromyalgia
Suvey Results from the
by Kim Jones, PhD, FNP & Marie Casselberry, DNP, FNP
Oregon Health and Sciences University and National Fibromyalgia & Chronic Pain Association
R
ecently, emerging evidence suggests that exercise with mind body exercise therapies such as
tai chi, yoga with mindfulness and chi gong may
be more effective than placebo or aerobic exercise
for improving pain, quality of sleep and global
improvement (Hadhazy, 2000, Langhorst, 2012, &
Hauser, 2010). Yet there is minimal understanding
regarding how the mindfulness part of these exercise therapies promote analgesic and sleep benefits
in fibromyalgia. Mindfulness is now being studied
as a possible mechanism of action that may be responsible for these improvements.
M
indfulness is one aspect of the meditation
experience that reflects the basic and fundamental human capacity to attend to relevant aspects
of experience in a nonjudgmental and non-reactive
way, which in turn cultivates clear thinking, equanimity, and compassion (Fortney et al., 2010). Some
conceptualize mindfulness as a set of skills that can
be learned and practiced in order to reduce psychological symp¬toms and increase health and well-being (Baer, 2006). Emerging evidence suggests that
mindfulness may alter one’s processing of emotional
information. Compared to control conditions, a
course of mindfulness training has shown to both
increase the efficiency of positive memory recall in
healthy students (Roberts-Wolfe et al., 2012) and
strengthen positive associations among those suffering from recurring depression (van Vugt et al., 2012).
I
n the last 20 years, mindfulness has become the
focus of considerable attention for a large community of clinicians and, to a lesser extent, empirical
psychology (Bishop et al., 2004). Mindfulness has
been described as a process of bringing a certain
quality of attention to moment-by-moment experience (Kabat-Zinn, 1990). Mindfulness in Buddhist
traditions occupies a central role in a system that
was developed as a path leading to the cessation
of personal suffering (Silananda, 1990). In more
contemporary understanding, mindfulness has been
adopted as an approach for increasing awareness
and responding skillfully to mental processes that
contribute to emotional distress and maladaptive
behavior (Bishop et al., 2004).
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Fibromyalgia & Chronic Pain
Life 5