Mindfulness in the context of "Five hindrances"

Meditation is a practice in which an individual uses a technique to train attention and awareness and detach from reflexive, "discursive thinking", achieving a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state, while not judging the meditation process itself.

Techniques are broadly classified into focused (or concentrative) and open monitoring methods. Focused methods involve attention to specific objects like breath or mantras, while open monitoring includes mindfulness and awareness of mental events.

Group psychotherapy or group therapy is a form of psychotherapy in which one or more therapists treat a small group of clients together as a group. The term can legitimately refer to any form of psychotherapy when delivered in a group format, including art therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy or interpersonal therapy, but it is usually applied to psychodynamic group therapy where the group context and group process is explicitly utilized as a mechanism of change by developing, exploring and examining interpersonal relationships within the group.

The broader concept of group therapy can be taken to include any helping process that takes place in a group, including support groups, skills training groups (such as anger management, mindfulness, relaxation training or social skills training), and psychoeducation groups. The differences between psychodynamic groups, activity groups, support groups, problem-solving and psychoeducational groups have been discussed by psychiatrist Charles Montgomery. Other, more specialized forms of group therapy would include non-verbal expressive therapies such as art therapy, dance therapy, or music therapy.

Buddhānusmṛti (Sanskrit; Pali: Buddhānussati), meaning "Buddha-mindfulness", is a common Buddhist meditation practice in all Buddhist traditions which involves meditating on a Buddha. The term can be translated as "remembrance, commemoration, recollection or mental contemplation of the Buddha." It is also one of the various recollections (anusmṛti) taught by the Buddha in the sutras.

Early Buddhist sources mostly focused on Gautama Buddha in their contemplation. Later Mahayana traditions like Pure Land Buddhism and Vajrayana also taught meditations focused on other Buddhas like Amitabha, Maitreya or Vairocana.

Ānāpānasati (Pali; Sanskrit: ānāpānasmṛti), meaning "mindfulness of breathing" (sati means mindfulness; ānāpāna refers to inhalation and exhalation), is the act of paying attention to the breath. It is the quintessential form of Buddhist meditation, attributed to Gautama Buddha, and described in several suttas, most notably the Ānāpānasati Sutta (MN 118).

Derivations of anāpānasati are common to Tibetan, Zen, Tiantai, and Theravada Buddhism as well as Western-based mindfulness programs.

Anussati (Pāli; Sanskrit: Anusmṛti; Chinese: 隨念; pinyin: suíniàn; Tibetan: རྗེས་སུ་དྲན་པ, Wylie: rjes su dran pa) means "recollection," "contemplation," "remembrance," "meditation", and "mindfulness". It refers to specific Buddhist meditational or devotional practices, such as recollecting the sublime qualities of the Buddha, which lead to mental tranquillity and abiding joy. In various contexts, the Pali literature and Sanskrit Mahayana sutras emphasise and identify different enumerations of recollections.

Anussati may also refer to meditative attainments, such as the ability to recollect past lives (pubbenivāsānussati), also called causal memory.

Conscious breathing encompasses techniques directing awareness toward the breathing process, serving purposes from improving respiration to building mindfulness. In martial arts like tai chi and qigong, breathing exercises are said to strengthen diaphragm muscles and protect organs, with reverse breathing being a common method. Meditation traditions, including yoga and Buddhist meditation, emphasize breath control. Yoga's pranayama is believed by practitioners to elevate life energies, while Buddhist vipassanā uses anapanasati for mindfulness of breathing.

In music, circular breathing enables wind instrument players to produce a continuous tone. Singers, too, rely on breath control through consciously managed breathing stages. The Buteyko method in physical therapy focuses on breathing exercises for conditions like asthma, emphasizing nasal breathing and relaxation. In psychology, Integrative Breathing combines various techniques to address specific needs, particularly in cases of drug abuse disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Mindfulness has been defined in modern psychological terms as "paying attention to relevant aspects of experience in a nonjudgmental manner", and maintaining attention on present moment experience with an attitude of openness and acceptance. Meditation is a platform used to achieve mindfulness. Both practices, mindfulness and meditation, have been "directly inspired from the Buddhist tradition" and have been widely promoted by Jon Kabat-Zinn. Mindfulness meditation has been shown to have a positive impact on several psychiatric problems such as depression and therefore has formed the basis of mindfulness programs such as mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, mindfulness-based stress reduction and mindfulness-based pain management. The applications of mindfulness meditation are well established, however the mechanisms that underlie this practice are yet to be fully understood. Many tests and studies on soldiers with PTSD have shown tremendous positive results in decreasing stress levels and being able to cope with problems of the past, paving the way for more tests and studies to normalize and accept mindful based meditation and research, not only for soldiers with PTSD, but numerous mental inabilities or disabilities.

Four components of mindfulness meditation have been proposed to describe much of the mechanism of action by which mindfulness meditation may work: attention regulation, body awareness, emotion regulation, and change in perspective on the self. All of the components described above are connected to each other. For example, when a person is triggered by an external stimulus, the executive attention system attempts to maintain a mindful state. There is also a heightened body awareness such as a rapid heartbeat which triggers an emotional response. The response is then regulated so that it does not become habitual, but constantly changes from moment to moment experience. This eventually leads to a change in the perspective of the self.