Center for Healthy Minds

Center scientists are evaluating and comparing the effectiveness of brief trainings to buffer against the negative effects that acute stress has on behavior and cognitive abilities.

Center researchers investigated whether compassion – the feeling of caring for and wanting to help others who are suffering – could be cultivated through meditation training using an online intervention.

Are people who are better at controlling their attention, emotion or pain responses in a laboratory setting more successful at carrying that skill into daily life?

Researchers at the Center studied how people who ruminate respond differently to stresses and how this might impact mental health and well-being.

Center researchers seek to unearth how the brain processes emotions differently depending on a person’s awareness of what’s causing that emotion.

Mindfulness shows promise for improving health, but unbiased tests, led by Center researchers, are needed.

Center scientists are conducting a pilot study with the Madison Police Department to investigate the impact of an eight-week mindfulness training program on police officers' physical and mental health

Center researchers are developing a program to teach scientifically-informed practices and principles that facilitate well-being.

Center experts are developing assessments and tools that examine ways to cultivate well-being across a variety of people and contexts.

Our scientists examine how individual differences in emotional reactivity and recovery to emotional stimuli, brain structure and patterns of brain activity are related to life experiences, personality, behavior, health and well-being across the adult lifespan in a large national longitudinal sample.

Center experts are researching the impact of a mindful parenting program to help address stressors and demands of parenting as well as promote positive and supportive parent-child interactions.

Center researchers are investigating possible ways to prevent teacher burnout in the classroom.

Center scientists are exploring the bodily changes associated with a specific type of yoga in individuals on the autism spectrum.

Center researchers are examining how flexibility in self-image influences well-being and pro-social behavior.

Center scientists and collaborators examine the impact of well-being training.

Center researchers are exploring how to improve the lives of veterans by expanding the range of treatments available for PTSD and learning more about the brain mechanisms involved in PTSD and its treatment.