News

Physician Compassion & Surgery Outcomes -- NEW GRANT!

September, 2020: We are delighted to learn that funding for Rowan University's Camden Health Research Initiative has been unfrozen, so we're excited to work with Drs. Lou Mitrev, Steve Trzeciak and others at Cooper University Hospital to conduct a new study on physician compassion and surgery outcomes. Specifically, this project brings together a multidisciplinary team spanning medicine, surgery, psychology, and biostatistics to test whether patients' ratings of anesthesiologist compassion during the pre-surgery consultation are associated with peri-operative anxiety levels and/or post-surgical pain or opioid use. We hope findings from this study will further inform the link between physician compassion and patient health outcomes, and could reinforce the notion of "Mindful Practice" and "Attending" in healthcare. By way of background, check out Dr. Trzeciak's TED Talk on healthcare's compassion crisis, and the science of Compassionomics!

Back to School... Join Mindfulness Journal Club!

September, 2020: Now that we’re “Back to School”, Mindfulness Journal Club is resuming. Led by 3rd-year PhD student, Emma McBride, journal club is a forum to learn about the science & practice of mindfulness. Journal club involves reading one key journal article per week, and discussing it as a group. It is ideal for students who seek to learn more about the scientific evidence for mindfulness, including how mindfulness-based interventions are being integrated into psychology, medicine, and health care. Spots are limited to 4 new undergraduate students, in addition to current students affiliated with the Mindfulness Lab. Please contact Dr. Greeson (greeson@rowan.edu) if you are interested in participating or learning more! Begins 9/24, meets online Thursdays 4-5pm.

Daulerious Podcast: Be Mindful!

August, 2020: Dr. Greeson joined host and former Swarthmore basketball teammate Kirk Daulerio for a rollicking discussion on how to "be mindful" in the world of COVID and other stresses in life.

Mindfulness app -- NEW PAPER published in Contemporary Clinical Trials

August, 2020: Our multisite team, led by Dr. Chris Cox at Duke University Medical Center, just published a new paper that describes the design, rationale, and study elements of our ongoing Multiphase Optimization Strategy (MOST) trial for a new mindfulness app to help ICU survivors relieve psychological distress. Funded by the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH).

Mindfulness Lab End-of-Year Celebration

July, 2020: Dr. Greeson and his wife Dr. Johanna Greeson welcomed Mindfulness Lab students and significant others to East Falls, Philadelphia, for an end-of-year picnic celebration...socially distanced (besides this quick pic) and masked, of course! Special congratulations to our graduating seniors, Amanda Colangelo and Victoria Kloster! We will miss you, and we're excited for your new career paths.

Megan Brown -- NEW PAPER published in Journal of Health Psychology

June, 2020: We’re excited to share that Megan Brown -- a Rowan alum (Class of ‘18) and incoming Rowan Clinical Psychology PhD student -- published this first-author paper in the Journal of Health Psychology! Using archival data from Dr. Greeson’s NIH K99/R00 “Pathway to Independence (PI)” award, Megan, along with her CHASE Lab mentor Dr. Dani Arigo, and Dr. Greeson, collaborated as a team to choose a research question, select the variables, run and interpret the analyses, and write up the manuscript for publication. Megan reflected on the process, and what the findings mean for the field, in a great blog post (6/18/20) that also includes a cool infographic! Thanks, too, for ongoing support from longtime mentors and collaborators, Drs. Ruth Wolever (Vanderbilt), Moria Smoski (Duke), Tica Hall (Pitt), and Jeff Brantley (Duke).

CONGRATULATIONS to the Class of 2020!

May, 2020: BIG CONGRATS to all our graduating seniors!!! What a year it’s been...go out and do GOOD! #RowanRising

Coping with COVID -- Top 10 TIPS!

April, 2020: Dr. Greeson shares his Top 10 tips for coping with COVID-19 on Rowan Today here.

Emma McBride, M.A. -- Successful Master's Thesis Defense!

April, 2020: CONGRATULATIONS to Rowan Clinical Psychology doctoral student, Emma McBride, for successfully defending her Master’s thesis...virtually!!! Way to go, Emma, strong work examining equanimity in the context of mindfulness training and regulating stress! Many thanks to committee members Dani Arigo and Dustin Fife for their intellectual rigor, support, and co-mentorship, as well!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

December, 2019: The Mindfulness Lab celebrated the end of the Fall 2019 semester with some fine dining at our favorite Downtown Glassboro establishment...Thai Thai! :) #mindfuleating #savoreachbite #mindfulmoments #happyholidays

Mindfulness and Healthy Aging for Older Adults with MCI

December, 2019: Dr. Greeson, Rowan Clinical Psychology doctoral student Emma McBride, and Rowan School of Osteopathic Medicine (RowanSOM) student Andrea Radossi, finished teaching the second 6-week course “Mindfulness for Healthy Aging” (MaHA) at the New Jersey Institute for Successful Aging (NJISA) in Stratford, NJ. This project, funded by a research grant from the New Jersey Health Foundation, investigates the feasibility, acceptability, and potential effectiveness of a group-based mindfulness training program for older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and their spouses/partners/caregivers. The study team, including Sean McBride, MD, PhD, Lisa Bodenheimer, LCSW, and Nicole Sestito, PhD, brings together psychology, medicine, and social work expertise to help these patients and their caregivers manage stress and anxiety, cope with changes in cognitive functioning, maximize quality of life, and live mindfully in the moment, no matter what the future may bring.

ABCT 2019

November, 2019: Dr. Greeson and Rowan graduate students Emma McBride and Hana Lee attended the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT) Annual Meeting in Atlanta, GA. Dr. Greeson presented his collaborative work on the LIFT app as part of a symposium on tech-delivered mindfulness & acceptance interventions. Dr. Greeson, Emma and Hana all presented recent work at the opening night Special Interest Group (SIG) poster expo, featuring data from the RU Mindful study at Rowan, an online survey involving over 500 undergraduate students. Posters were accepted for both the Behavioral Medicine and Integrative Primary Care SIG and the Mindfulness and Acceptance SIG. In between attending scientific sessions and networking, we also ventured out in downtown Atlanta -- where Dr. Greeson was born! -- to see historic sights and partake in some mindful eating. LOVE Bojangles!

Terror Behind the Walls -- Eastern State Penitentiary

October, 2019: Together, the Mindfulness Lab braved #TBTW at Eastern State Penitentiary! BOO!

Mindfulness and Physical Disease -- NEW PAPER published in Special Issue

August, 2019: Dr. Greeson and second-year doctoral student Gabrielle (Abby) Chin published an invited review paper on mindfulness and physical disease in a Special Issue of the journal Current Opinion in Psychology. See link to paper and link to the Special Issue on Mindfulness here. Many thanks to Drs. David Vago, Amit Bernstein, and Thorsten Barnhofer for organizing and editing this landmark Special Issue. Highly recommended reading for everyone who is new and well-established in the field!

Mindfulomics 2.0 -- TIIH Scholars Meeting in Baltimore

August, 2019: Dr. Greeson gave an invited presentation to the Scholars, Fellows, and staff of The Institute for Integrative Health (TIIH) in Baltimore. The talk, which reviewed new findings from Dr. Greeson’s fellowship project, was titled “Mindfulomics: Mindfulness Practice, Gene Expression, and Inflammation.” In addition to other excellent presentations on the Feldenkrais Method by Dr. Diane Hannemann, Forest Bathing by Dr. Sara Warber, climate change and health by Dr. Heidi Gullett, and Neuroaesthetics by Dr. Susan Magsamen, we also experienced a guided, 3-hr forest bathing experience with Forest Therapy Guide, Clare Kelley in a local arboretum. Ahhh…..embodying integrative health!

COURI Summer Research Symposium 2019

July, 2019: As covered in a feature story for Rowan Today, the Mindfulness Lab attended the COURI symposium with other labs from the College of Science & Math (CSM) to present posters on their summer research projects. Amanda Colangelo and Stephanie May made us #RowanPROUD, earning Honorable Mention for best poster (Top 3 out of 60+ entries) and the only Psychology poster!

Rowan Today: All About Research

July, 2019: The Mindfulness Lab was one of several faculty research labs featured in a story on Rowan Today about the value of summer undergraduate research experience. Read the story here.

Insight Meditation Society: Silent Retreat

June, 2019: Dr. Greeson spent 6-days in contemplative silence, practicing mindfulness with a community of meditators at Insight Meditation Society (IMS) in Barre, MA. The theme for the retreat was “Finding a True Refuge.” Although it was a *major* challenge to be without a smartphone, computer, books, journal, or voice for nearly a week, the challenge *was* helpful in elucidating the “default” ways of thinking, judging, and analyzing that often feed into stress, frustration, and time urgency. Extended silence also opened up new levels of awareness, insight, and appreciation for nature, food, and connection with others!

Gabrielle Chin, M.A. -- Successful Master’s Thesis Defense!

June, 2019: Doctoral student Gabrielle (Abby) Chin defended her Master’s Thesis, titled "Mindfulness and Cardiovascular Health across Demographics: Analyses from the Serenity Study." Results showed that some trait mindfulness facets relate differently to BP across race and gender, that MBSR training may not be effective at lowering BP in demographics outside of people who are White, that improvement in trait mindfulness may not drive change in BP after MBSR training, and that mindfulness research would benefit from improved sample diversity to explore potential demographic differences in the relationship between mindfulness and health, rather than assuming beneficial effects generalize across populations.

Addressing Diversity in Mindfulness Research -- NEW PAPER published

May, 2019: BIG CONGRATS to doctoral student Gabrielle (Abby) Chin, who published her 1st first-author paper in the newly launched Cooper Rowan Medical Journal. Article is *free* at link above, thanks to CRMJ open-access policy. Mindfulness Lab alum Vanessa Anyanso was co-first author and Dr. Greeson was senior author on this article. Thanks to former Dept. Head and Director of Clinical Training (DCT), Georita Frierson, PhD, for inspiring this work!

Yoga Research Society: Medical Yoga Conference

May, 2019: Dr. Greeson, Abby Chin, and Upasna Singh attended the annual Medical Yoga conference, sponsored by the Yoga Research Society (YRS) and the Marcus Institute of Integrative Health at Jefferson. Led and organized by longtime friends and colleagues, Dr. Vijayendra Pratap, Marc Goldberg, and Barbara Levitt, we enjoyed a yoga practice in the morning, followed by a keynote address on the role of herbs in Western medicine by Dr. Sara Jane Ward, whom Dr. Greeson had the honor of introducing.

Health Coaching for Chronic Disease -- NEW PAPER published in WORK

May, 2019: Led by longtime colleague, nutritionist, and integrative health coach, Dr. Joel Edman, we published a new paper in the journal WORK. This pilot study on a health coaching program designed for healthcare system employees with chronic disease found that participants who took the health coaching program reported significant weight loss, along with reduced stress and other healthy lifestyle changes. Link to full paper here.

Dr. Joel Edman

Emma McBride First Year Project

April, 2019: At the conclusion of her first year in Rowan’s Clinical Psychology PhD program, graduate student Emma McBride presented her first year project to faculty and peers. Titled “Uncoupling Emotional and Heart Rate Reactivity: Implications for Mindfulness-Based Interventions”, the project focused on the degree of concordance between negative affect reactivity and heart rate reactivity to a laboratory stressor and the extent to which concordance between the two is moderated by trait mindfulness and mindfulness training.

Watch Emma's first year project video here (25:13).

Jared Richards, Dean’s Outstanding Senior Award (DOSA)

April, 2019: Congratulations, Jared! On Monday, April 29, the Rowan University College of Science & Mathematics/School of Health Professions honored its 2019 Dean's Outstanding Senior Award (DOSA) winners. Each awardee was nominated by a faculty mentor and then selected by their department's faculty. See link above for short bios on all of the honorees as well as a video that includes the award recipients and their faculty mentors.

Rowan University’s 45th Annual Psychology Research Conference

April, 2019: The Rowan University Psychology Department's Annual Research Conference is an opportunity for undergraduate and graduate students to present their research in a professional context, exercise professional skills, and network with peers and faculty mentors. The 45th annual conference and consisted of both oral presentations and poster sessions. The MSH Lab had students participating in both types of presentations. Senior Jared Richards gave an oral presentation titled, “Do Social Support or Decentering Moderate the Relationship Between Mindfulness and Psychological Distress?” Doctoral students Gabrielle Chin and Emma McBride presented a poster titled, “RU Mindful: Trait mindfulness and better mind-body health in Rowan students - An interim analysis”. And undergraduate students Amanda Colangelo and Victoria Kloster also presented a poster titled, “RU Mindful: Are religious students more mindful, with greater psychological well-being?”

West Chester University, Center for Contemplative Studies

April, 2019: Dr. Greeson gave an invited presentation to the WCU Center for Contemplative Studies titled “Are You Mindful? The Science Linking Mindfulness, Stress & Health.” In addition to catching up with long-time friend, colleague, and mindfulness teacher extraordinaire, Don McCown, Dr. Greeson also met WCU undergraduate Upasna Singh, who soon thereafter joined the MSH Lab as a student researcher! :)

American Psychosomatic Society (APS) Conference: Vancouver!

March, 2019: The American Psychosomatic Society (APS) is an academic society focusing on advancing and integrating the scientific study of biological, psychological, behavioral and social factors in health and disease. At their 2019 conference in Vancouver, Dr. Jeff Greeson and second-year doctoral student Gabrielle Chin presented as part of a symposium titled “Mindfulness and Cardiovascular Health: Outcomes, Mechanisms, and Individual Differences”. This symposium, with colleagues Eric Loucks, PhD, Sue Everson-Rose, PhD, and Maria Llabre, PhD, focused on mindfulness as an innovative approach to cardiovascular health, including preventing and treating high blood pressure and heart disease. Rowan senior Honors student, Jared Richards, presented a poster titled “Do participant characteristics predict BP outcomes following mindfulness training?” Emma McBride, a first-year Rowan Clinical Psychology PhD student, also presented a poster titled “Uncoupling physiological and emotional responses to stress with mindfulness: Relevance to psychosomatic medicine.” Dr. Greeson was excited to see his tweets on the "Big Board", while Emma networked with fellow Canadian, Dr. Linda Carlson, and the students explored pristine Stanley Park!

ABCT 2018

November, 2018: Dr. Greeson, Rowan graduate students Abby Chin and Emma McBride, and UPenn research coordinator Vanessa Anyanso attended the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT) Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. Abby presented work on the moderating effect of race on the relationship between trait mindfulness and blood pressure and Emma presented work on the association between emotional and physiological reactivity before and after mindfulness training. Both posters were presented with the Behavioral Medicine and Integrated Primary Care Special Interest Group (SIG). Emma’s poster, titled “Mindfulness Training Uncouples Physiological and Emotional Responses to Stress: Implications for Psychopathology and Physical Illness?”, won the “Excellence in Student Research” award for the SIG. Vanessa’s poster on the relationship between sleep quality and mindfulness training outcomes, was presented as part of the Mindfulness and Acceptance SIG.

Medical Education Grand Rounds: "Mindfulness in Medicine"

November, 2018: Dr. Greeson presented a Grand Rounds lecture at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University (CMSRU) in Camden, titled “Mindfulness in Medicine: Science & Practice” Watch video here, in which Dr. Greeson discusses the rationale and scientific evidence for mindfulness training in medical patients and medical providers alike.

A big LIFT! NEW PAPER published & NEW GRANT awarded from NIH.

September, 2018: A new multisite clinical trial called LIFT, led by Dr. Chris Cox at Duke University Medical Center, was funded by the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH). This project, on which Dr. Greeson is a Co-Investigator, aims to optimize user experience, dose, and effectiveness of a smartphone application to deliver mobile mindfulness training to critical care patients after they’re discharged from the ICU, to aid coping, resilience, and recovery. The long-term goal, should the mindfulness app be effective, is to make the app widely available to other patients after they leave the hospital. A paper describing the NIH/NCCIH-funded pilot randomized clinical trial (RCT) was recently published in the high-impact journal Thorax.

Integrative Medicine Grand Rounds Lecture: 20-Years of Mindfulness Research

April, 2018: Dr. Greeson gave an invited Integrative Medicine Grand Rounds lecture at Sidney Kimmel Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University, titled “20 Years of Mindfulness Research: From Self-Report Surveys to Cell Signaling Pathways.” Watch video here, to learn about Dr. Greeson’s 20-years of research in the mindfulness field, beginning at Jefferson!

Harvesting Happiness Podcast: Mindful Solutions to Chronic Pain

November, 2016: Dr. Greeson joined host Lisa Cypers Kamen to discuss the science of mindfulness and how it relates to managing chronic pain. Download and listen here. (NOTE: Dr. Greeson's interview begins at 31:00. Highly recommend Dr. Danny Penman's opening segment, too!)