Stress: Mindfulness, Stress Reduction Pathways, and Health

J. David Creswell, PhD
Associate Professor, Psychology and the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition
Carnegie Mellon University

This event is presented by the Philadelphia Behavior Therapy Association and Drexel University Department of Psychology

The Philadelphia Behavior Therapy Association is proud to co-sponsor 2-hour colloquium with Dr. J. David Creswell of Carnegie Mellon University. The colloquium, which will be held at Drexel University, provides 2 CE credit hours.

Mindfulness meditation has long been described as a practice that is beneficial for both mental and physical health. One potential explanation for these beneficial effects is the activation of stress reduction pathways. In this engaging talk, Dr. Creswell will describe his program of research to explore the physiological basis of stress reduction that occurs through mindfulness practice. Laboratory and intervention studies will be presented showing that mindfulness is associated with: (1) changes in stress processing networks in the brain; (2) reduced biological stress reactivity to acute stress challenge; (3) reduced pro-inflammatory gene expression in immune cells; and (4) improved health outcomes in stressed patient populations. In addition, he will also explore challenges facing researchers and clinicians when offering mindfulness interventions, as well as recent research findings regarding delivery of mindfulness training to hard-to-reach populations. His discussion will focus on the clinical implications of his research findings and ways that clinicians can bring these findings to bear in their work.

After completion of this workshop, participants will be able to:

• Define mindfulness and describe a variety of mindfulness meditation practices
• Describe the neural basis of mindfulness and stress resilience
• Describe how mindfulness alters peripheral physiological stress responding
• Describe challenges facing researchers and clinicians when offering mindfulness training to patient populations
• Discuss research findings regarding ways that mindfulness training, as part of the health enhancement through mindfulness (HEM) program, may change the brain and health in ways that improve resilience under stress