[Promoting Self-Regulation of Adolescents in School Through Mindfulness]. / Achtsamkeit zur Förderung der Selbstregulation bei Jugendlichen in der Schule.

Promoting Self-Regulation of Adolescents in School Through Mindfulness. Evaluation of the Mindfulness Training "8-sam" Mindfulness describes the psychological process of purposely bringing one's attention to the present experiences with an accepting, non-judgmental attitude. As such, it has attracted increasing interest in educational institutions. The present study aims to evaluate a mindfulness training for adolescents in a German high school. For this purpose, the program "8-sam" has been developed. Feasibility, acceptance and efficacy of this four-week training were examined in a sample of 48 ninth-grade students. Self-ratings of mindfulness, chronic stress, emotion regulation and health, as well as behavioral measures of attention and mind-wandering of the intervention group (n = 22) were compared to the wait control group (n = 24) before, immediately and 6 weeks after the training. As indicated by self-designed evaluation questionnaires, the training proved to be well accepted and implementable at school. The intervention group showed less mind-wandering after the training than the control group. The findings offer implications for future research and the application of mindfulness trainings in schools. Implementing mindfulness in the daily school routine promises to support self-regulatory processes and thus, strengthen the resilience of children and adolescents.

Mental practice maintains range of motion despite forearm immobilization: a pilot study in healthy persons.

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether mental practice of wrist movements during forearm immobilization maintains range of motion. DESIGN: Randomized controlled trial. PARTICIPANTS: Eighteen healthy young men aged between 20 and 30 years were assigned to either a control or a mental practice group. Both groups were immobilized with a circular forearm cast for 3 weeks to simulate a distal radial fracture. METHODS: The mental practice group received 1 × 60-min, followed by 3 × 30-min, sessions of supervised mental practice. Consecutively, they were asked to perform 15 min/day of self-guided imagery sessions, during which they mentally exercised motion sequences of the immobilized joint. The training program followed the Mental Gait Training procedure. The control group did no training. Wrist movement was measured with a goniometer before and after immobilization. RESULTS: Mental practice preserved dorsal extension and ulnar abduction. The sedentary control group showed due to this variables a significant decrease after cast removal. There was no significant change in palmar flexion and radial abduction in either group. CONCLUSION: Despite the study limitations, these results suggest that mental practice may be useful in preventing loss of hand function associated with mid-term immobilization. Because of the expected clinical benefits, the low cost and simple application of the intervention, the effects of mental practice in orthopedic rehabilitation of the upper extremity warrant further study.