Veterans research in the news this past month
The Madison NBC15 channel and the Wisconsin State Journal recently featured CIHM's ongoing research efforts with returning Wisconsin veterans, a project led by CIHM's postdoctoral research associate Emma Seppala, PhD. These stories, in conjunction with many others honoring veterans and their service this past November, spotlighted the recent wave of soldiers returning home. For CIHM, it critically underscores the need to explore how alternative options - like yoga, breathing and mindfulness - might improve veterans' emotional well-being and physical and mental health.
Click here to watch the NBC video.
Click here to read the State Journal article.
A special thanks to Wisconsin veterans Rich Low and Travis Leanna for contributing to these CIHM stories.

Upcoming Events Around the Country
Our collaborative partners and affiliated organizations have some exciting events coming up! As part of the Center's mission, we aim to inform our growing community about opportunities to engage and attend. We encourage you to learn more about these great events!

Being Human 2012: Science, Philosophy and Your Life
March 24, 2012 - San Francisco
Being Human 2012 is the first annual Symposium where leading scientists and philosophers,

including Founder Davidson, will present scientific and philosophical insights that are reshaping our understanding of human nature and our experience of life.

International Symposia for Contemplative Studies
April 26-29, 2012 - Denver, CO
A timely idea conceived by leading directors from centers and labs throughout the country, the International Symposia for Contemplative Studies aims to harness the ideas, research and advances in the growing field of contemplative studies.

The scientific conference features keynote addresses, lectures, networking, workshops, panel presentations and contemplative practice opportunities.

How Your Gift to CIHM Makes a Difference Today
When you make a gift to CIHM, you offer our team the opportunity to continue providing the evidence necessary to change our world for the better, at a time when we have never needed it more. Your support of CIHM's vision today is deeply appreciated. To make your tax-deductible gift, click the Give Now button below for a direct link to the University of Wisconsin Foundation's online giving page or click here for an easy 'click and print' CIHM pledge card that you can mail in. Thank you for your kind consideration of this special support!

Tis the Season for Sharing!
During this busy season of doing and buying, what is a simple pleasure that you make time for? Click here to offer your response or share it on our CIHM Facebook page!

Thank you to our
University partners:

Thank you to our
creative partners:

Introducing The Emotional Life of Your Brain

Click here to pre-order

We're excited to announce that Founder Davidson's first popular press book, The Emotional Life of Your Brain: How Its Unique Patterns Affect the Way You Think, Feel, and Live - and How You Can Change Them, will be released this upcoming March 1, 2012!

In the book, which is co-authored with well-known science writer and editor
Sharon Begley, Richie introduces a new model for our emotions. He outlines six basic emotional styles, each based upon neuroscientific evidence, that define our personality - resilience, outlook, social intuition, self-awareness, sensitivity to context and attention. In his book, Richie describes the interplay between these styles,

"Everyone has elements of each style. Think of the six dimensions as ingredients in the recipe for your emotional make-up. You might have a big dollop of Focused Attentional style, a pinch of being Tuned in to the social behavior of others, and not quite as much Self-Awareness as you'd like. Your Positive Outlook may overshadow everything else about you, although your lack of Resilience and puzzlement in certain contexts often come through. Who you are emotionally is the product of different amounts of each of these six components. Because there are so many ways to combine the six dimensions, there are countless Emotional Styles. Everyone is unique."

He then illuminates our brain's ability to change and how simple strategies can help people shift along the continuum of each style. And with each dimension rooted in years of Davidson's neuroscientific research, he hopes readers' come away understanding that they are the true architects of their emotional style.

Want to learn more about the book and how can you participate in its upcoming release?

Visit Richie's new website www.richardjdavidson.com - a site dedicated to the book, event appearances, news stories and his latest research.
Sign-up to receive email updates as we confirm speaking engagements and book tour details

Giving Kids a Head Start with Kindness and Language in the Classroom

What would happen if 4-year old children spent their summer immersed in cultivating kindness? This is what CIHM sought to find out, so this past summer as part of its ongoing research investigating the benefits of mindfulness practices in the classroom, CIHM's Lisa Flook, PhD, and senior outreach specialist Laura Pinger, MS, joined with Dr. Jan Edwards and clinic director Peggy Rosin, MS, from the UW-Madison Communicative Disorders Department to conduct a pilot project in local preschool Head Start Programs. Students in one Head Start classroom participated in a six-week CIHM Kindness Curriculum that involved a focus on breathing and movement practices to develop awareness, reading selected books related to kindness and caring, and engaging in acts of kindness. Students in the other classroom participated in a seven-week TALK (Talk and Learn for Kindergarten) Curriculum aimed at increasing knowledge of code-switching (differences between 'school' and 'home' talk) and phonological awareness with activities that incorporated rhyming games, music and challenges such as "can you read your teacher's mind?"

"These are the types of programs we need more of," says Marcia Huemoeller, executive director of the Dane County Parent Council, the agency that provides programming and assistance to local Head Start organizations. "We were thrilled with the opportunity to be involved in this research, and the initial outcomes and results we've seen are far better than what we could've imagined."

Huemoeller hopes programs like CIHM's pilot study can be replicated and made available to more educators to better prepare children with the skills required to promote attention and pro-social skills. "The impact would be tremendous," she says.

MSI: Support through Creative Service
Dave Weiner's way of supporting CIHM has proven invaluable. His Chicago-based marketing firm Marketing Support Incorporated (MSI)

Dave Weiner

has been a behind-the-scenes creative partner of the Center for over the past two years. Dedicating his team's whip smart talent, strategic thinking and never-ending supply of ideas, Dave hopes it's a way to connect CIHM's research and mission to the world.

"You have something with profound impact here," says Dave of CIHM's research. "It's on the cutting-edge and it can really offer help to people. If our MSI team can be a part of the greater effort to build awareness, that's right where we need to be."

For over the past two years, Dave and his 100 plus team at MSI have been donating their time, talent and resources to CIHM. However to understand Dave's interest in CIHM, you have to know a little bit more about him. Aside from spending the last 50 years building MSI into one of the country's consistently top-ranked marketing and advertising firms, Dave's also spent years studying and learning about human behavior and psychology, including writing four books on the topic.

"I remember meeting with Richie many years ago while writing my first book," recalls Dave. "He's always been willing to help out and answer questions. From there, I became involved with him, Ned Kalin and the UW-Madison's HealthEmotions Research Institute. And when I received a note from Richie that he had established the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds, I realized that now I could perhaps help him."

"We've been so grateful for Dave's generosity," says Richie. "We simply could not do the things we're doing right now if it were not for his support. He gives our team the resources and opportunity to think big."

Communications director Mel Charbonneau has worked with MSI on nearly a daily basis for the past two years. "They have become like colleagues," she says "It's amazing how we can bring them an idea and they can help us make it reality. And, they are just great people who truly understand the importance of our work - they keep that in the forefront of all the projects we work on together."

It also seems that CIHM isn't the only beneficiary in the partnership. Dave has recognized how working on CIHM projects has also impacted his team. "Everyone who's been touched by CIHM has changed a little bit. Something just happens. Perhaps its just knowing they are contributing to something bigger than themselves."

To learn more about Dave and Marketing Support Incorporated, visit www.msinet.com

A recently published paper from CIHM asks the question, How much does mindfulness matter?

Donal MacCoon, PhD

Research examining the benefits of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) is still in its early stages. "We know MBSR improves different aspects of people's health, but up until now we haven't had the ability to test what makes it work," says Donal MacCoon, PhD, CIHM scientist and the paper's lead author. "Up until now we have assumed that mindfulness is the critical ingredient. At CIHM, we've been able to develop an active control condition that can test this assumption for the first time."

This active control intervention is called the Health Enhancement Program (HEP). In research using this active comparison intervention, participants were randomly placed in either an MBSR course or a HEP course. "The key to HEP was creating a program that genuinely promotes health and well-being, being delivered by experts in their field, who believe in what they are teaching. The goal was to create MBSR minus the mindfulness. HEP is about as close as we can get."

For instance, HEP offered participants functional movement instead of yoga, physical activity instead of walking meditation and music-based imagery instead of body scans. And the benefits of HEP, researchers found, are quite similar to that of MBSR on questionnaire measures.

"We found that for most of our self-report measures, it didn't matter whether a participant was in the MBSR course or the HEP course. This suggests that while MBSR offers ways to decrease stress and enhance well-being, it's not the only way. HEP provides similar benefits."

With other measures, researchers did find some key differences. For instance, MBSR participants reported less reactivity to pain than those in HEP. There were also differences in immune response to stressful events, a finding to be reported in another upcoming publication from CIHM scientist Melissa Rosenkranz, PhD.

So, what does this mean for mindfulness? "If we look at self-report measures frequently used in past research, the conclusion is clear," says MacCoon. "Mindfulness is not better than ingredients that may be present in HEP. But the immune results suggest that we may need measures more sensitive and specific to uncover benefits specific to mindfulness itself."

MacCoon highlights two advantages of research now possible with HEP. First, HEP represents a severe test for MBSR: "Any differences we find between MBSR and HEP have gone through the scientific ringer and come out the other side of a very strong test," says MacCoon. "The results that survive should be very interesting for the mindfulness community."

When talking about the second advantage, MacCoon concludes, "MBSR is certainly a beneficial tool, but we're also learning more about how other programs like HEP can bring about the same benefits for people. This is actually good news. It means there are multiple ways to live a healthy life and we've essentially identified one more alternative or approach. At the same time, we've also created a research tool that more accurately pinpoints when mindfulness is making the difference."

Developing this active control was an important foundation for CIHM's larger study that is supported by the The National Institutes of Health, National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). Click here to learn more about the NCCAM study. To learn more about MacCoon's study, click here and to learn more about HEP guidelines, click here.
This paper will appear in the Behaviour Research & Therapy Journal.
Title: The validation of an active control intervention for Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)

Other CIHM Research Heading to Publication
Daniel Levinson, CIHM graduate student

Mind wandering is easy to come by, but is it free? This study finds that mind wandering may actually use up our attention, and if you have good working memory (keeping multiple things in mind while simultaneously performing complex tasks), you're probably going to wander more when performing simple tasks. Contrary to the notion that a wandering mind may be a free mind, this research suggests it's actually quite tied up. While thinking about tomorrow's plans and future goals, you're less able to pay attention to the experience at hand - a game with your child or a run in the park, for example. So, Levinson suggests it may boil down to how you balance the use of your mental resources. Mind wandering can provide the opportunity to envision your future, which could perhaps lead to clarity and perspective. And yet a healthy reprieve from over-thinking can free your mind to enjoy the life right in front of you.
This paper will appear in Psychological Science.
Title: The Persistence of Thought: Evidence for a Role of Working Memory in the Maintenance of Task-Unrelated Thinking

A UW-Madison Collaborative Workshop: Living Fully

What if you found out you only had one year left to live? How would your perspective change? And what would you begin to value? Perhaps you'd look for ways to laugh more, have fun and just be present in the moment. And yet, for most of us, our daily reality is focused on working harder and balancing more, constantly challenging our ability to pause and enjoy life. Our minds are becoming accustomed to thinking ahead and losing track of the moment. By participating in the Living Fully workshop, you can

Understand what it means to be present for yourself and for others
Transform the relationship you have with stress
Collectively provide ideas for how online applications might enhance your ability to enjoy the present moment.

You take away:

A clearer understanding of how the mind works
Techniques to better recognize, relate to and work through your stress
Effective practices to help you balance thinking ahead with appreciating the moment
A reflective and nurturing opportunity for yourself

This workshop is being offered by the UW Psychology Research and Training Clinic in collaboration with the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds. To learn more about participating in this workshop, click here.

www.investigatinghealthyminds.org
Forward this email to a Friend
Waisman Center | 1500 Highland Avenue | Madison, Wisconsin | 608.890.3074