9. Mindfulness mechanisms

Question 1

Attention

Answer 1

• First level of interaction
• Selectively focus attention and inhibit distractions
• Improvements in sustained attention and accuracy in response inhibition
• During practice: we distract and engage continuously

Question 2

Body awareness

Answer 2

• Dynamic and interactive process. Both proprioceptive and interoceptive processes can be perceived
• During practice: body is always present and in a neutral observation place

Question 3

Emotion Regulation

Answer 3

• Process by which individuals influence which emotions they have, when they have them and how they experience and express them
• Adaptative: stressful events are reconstructed as beneficial, meaningful or benign
• Non-judgemental perspective
• During practice: approaching ongoing emotional reactions in a different way

Question 4

Exposure, extinction and reconsolidation

Answer 4

• Enhance inhibitory learning, so that a previously feared stimulus becomes associated with absence of threat
• During practice: exposing oneself to whatever is in field of awareness; letting oneself be affected by it, refraining from internal reactivity

Question 5

Changes in the self

Answer 5

• Meditators report they can observe mental processes with increasing clarity and temporal resolution
• Meta-awareness
• Relative absence of fixation on ideas, images or sensory objects and absence of internal pressure to get, hold, avoid or change circumstances or experiences