Breath counting as an objective behavioral measure of mindfulness.

Another fascinating piece of work from Richard Davidson's group at the University of Wisconsin, evaluating breath counting as a potential objective and rigorous behavioral measurement of mindfulness. (The technique of indexing mindfulness of breathing by breath counting is referenced as early as 430 AD.) A provisional PDF of the article describing four different studies evaluating this approach can be downloaded from the link.  I recommend that you read the discussion section.  For those who want just the bottom line, here it is from the abstract. They found:

...skill in breath counting associated with more meta-awareness, less mind wandering, better mood, and greater non-attachment (i.e. less attentional capture by distractors formerly paired with reward). We also found in a randomized online training study that 4 weeks of breath counting training improved mindfulness and decreased mind wandering relative to working memory training and no training controls.

The procedure followed was very straightforward:

We instructed 120 participants to “be aware… of the movement of breath” and count their breaths from 1 to 9 repeatedly. With breaths 1-8 they pressed one button, and on breath 9 they pressed another, measuring counting accuracy. Every ~90 sec (60-120 sec range) experience sampling probed state mind wandering and meta-awareness, respectively, with 2 6-point Likert scales, “just now where was your attention? [completely on-task / off task]” and “how aware were you of where your attention was? [completely aware / unaware].” Participants were then probed for their count.

Here is their abstract:

Mindfulness practice of present moment awareness promises many benefits, but has eluded rigorous behavioral measurement. To date, research has relied on self-reported mindfulness or heterogeneous mindfulness trainings to infer skillful mindfulness practice and its effects. In four independent studies with over 400 total participants, we present the first construct validation of a behavioral measure of mindfulness, breath counting. We found it was reliable, correlated with self-reported mindfulness, differentiated long-term meditators from age-matched controls, and was distinct from sustained attention and working memory measures. In addition, we employed breath counting to test the nomological network of mindfulness. As theorized, we found skill in breath counting associated with more meta-awareness, less mind wandering, better mood, and greater nonattachment (i.e. less attentional capture by distractors formerly paired with reward). We also found in a randomized online training study that 4 weeks of breath counting training improved mindfulness and decreased mind wandering relative to working memory training and no training controls. Together, these findings provide the first evidence for breath counting as a behavioral measure of mindfulness.