Creating a Contemplative Community (2024-2025)
Background
Student mental health is worsening. Across 373 campuses, more than 60% of college students meet the criteria for at least one mental health issue and almost three quarters of students reported moderate or severe psychological distress. At Duke, rates of mental health problems are also concerningly high. Nationwide, counselors are overburdened and underfunded, causing universities to seek out additional avenues to support students.
One reason for this trend is that students are increasingly lonely despite the presence of student groups on campus, in-person classes and residential living. Students are reporting finding it difficult to engage in meaningful activities. How institutions support students matters; students’ perception of institutional support for “meaning-searching” significantly predicts the presence of meaning in their daily lives.
Contemplative and mindfulness-based programs (CMBPs) provide one avenue for improving mental health, reducing loneliness and increasing meaning in students’ lives. These include clinically validated mindfulness-based interventions, preventative programs in first-year year dormitories and yoga and meditation programming through student wellness. Additional research is needed to fully uncover the impacts of mindfulness-based interventions and the consequences of longer, more involved meditation groups.
Project Description
Building on the work of the 2023-2024 team, this project team will develop and evaluate mindfulness-based programming at Duke to discover the impact of CMBPs on cognitive functioning and mental health. In particular, team members will examine:
- Longitudinal outcomes of Koru mindfulness, a four-week mindfulness-based intervention developed at Duke, including changes in adaptive and maladaptive mind-wandering, mindfulness and distress.
- Changes in brain networks related to the effects of the Koru intervention, including changes in electrophysiological indices of mindfulness and mind-wandering.
- What it means to be a contemplative community as a team collaborating together on a clinical intervention research project.
The outcomes of the Koru Mindfulness program will be compared with those of a stress reduction and health promotion group that does not have a mindfulness component. Team members will aim to clarify mechanisms of mind-wandering and perverse negative thinking (i.e., rumination or worry) in the role of distress reduction.
Concurrently, the team members themselves will form a year-long contemplative group in which they can experience a range of mindfulness-based practices. While all team members will participate in these practices, one subteam will specifically explore contemplative studies, an interdisciplinary field that includes the natural sciences (e.g., psychology, biology, cognitive neuroscience), philosophy, religious studies and the arts to investigate the underlying philosophy, psychology and phenomenology of contemplation.
By the end of the year, the team will aim to produce a series of recommendations (on practices, books, materials and logistical issues) to create and sustain other student-driven contemplative communities across the country.
Anticipated Outputs
Manuscripts for publication; conference presentations and posters; recommendations for development of other undergraduate-based contemplative groups in the U.S.; qualitative and quantitative mental health data; EEG brain-based data
Student Opportunities
Ideally, this team will include 2 graduate and 10 undergraduate students from a variety of disciplines, including psychology, cognitive neuroscience, philosophy, anthropology and religious studies. All applicants should have a general curiosity about contemplative practice and ethical inquiry.
All team members will have the opportunity to research and experience contemplative practices derived from a wide variety of philosophical and religious traditions, including Buddhism, Stoicism, American nature writing, artistic practices, mind-body practices and more. Students also will be exposed to techniques across multiple modes of analysis, including cross-sectional and longitudinal survey data, as well as brain-based data.
This team will be broken into two subteams: a contemplative studies team and an EEG team. All students will also have the opportunity to conduct data analyses and contribute to research posters. Some students may contribute to academic manuscripts. Graduate students will gain mentorship experience with a dedicated group of undergraduates.
Joseph Diehl will serve as project manager.
Timing
Fall 2024 – Spring 2025
- Fall 2024: Read literature on contemplative practices; hold contemplative group meetings; collect and process data from Koru mindfulness participants
- Spring 2025: Continue contemplative group participation, data collection and analysis; develop student posters and manuscripts; submit posters to conferences
Crediting
Academic credit available for fall and spring semesters
See earlier related team, Creating a Contemplative Community: The Impact of Mindfulness on Student Well-Being (2023-2024).
Image: Weekly open mindfulness meditation at the Duke Wellness Center is open to the Duke community, by Jared Lazarus/Duke University