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Annotated Bibliography

Does practicing meditation actually improve health?

Daejah Atkinson
Professor Malcolm Campbell
English 1103
3/11/15

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Annotated Bibliography
Aubrey, Allison. "Mindfulness Meditation Can Help Relieve Anxiety And Depression." NPR.
NPR, 07 Jan. 2014. Web. 05 Mar. 2015.
This article from NPR discusses how mindfulness meditation can help relieve anxiety and
depression. Mindfulness meditation a technique of meditation in which distracting
thoughts and feelings are not ignored but are rather acknowledged and observed
nonjudgmentally as they arise to create a detachment from them and gain insight and
awareness. This article touches on research done to evaluate the effectiveness of
meditation for managing a whole range of medical conditions, from breast cancer,
irritable bowel syndrome and fibromyalgia to depression. This article has great
information on actual studies done and is very recent. I will use this source to form my
argument that meditation can help physical and psychological health.
Davis PhD, Daphne M., and Jeffrey A. Hayes PhD. "What Are the Benefits of Mindfulness?"
Http://www.apa.org. American Psychological Association, July-Aug. 2012. Web. 05
Mar. 2015.
This article from the reliable website of the American Psychological Association
provides a large amount of information backing up my argument. This article primarily
focuses on the benefits of mindfulness in relation to meditation. The term "mindfulness"
has been used to refer to a psychological state of awareness, the practices that promote
this awareness, a mode of processing information and a character trait. The article
highlights the effects of meditation on therapists and the outcomes of clients whose
therapists meditate. This source will be great to show another side of my argument: how

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meditation affects people who deal or associate with those who suffer from a mental
illness.
Oman, Doug, John Hedberg, and Carl E. Thoresen. "Passage Meditation Reduces Perceived
Stress In Health Professionals: A Randomized, Controlled Trial." Journal Of Consulting
And Clinical Psychology 74.4 (2006): 714-719. PsycARTICLES. Web. 5 Mar. 2015.
In this peer-review journal, Oman speaks about how meditation reduces stress in health
professionals. According to the journal the Eight-Point Program possesses both important
similarities to and key differences from other well-known methods of meditation. This
form of meditation uses a variety of related methods to integrate meditative states of
mind, experienced during formal sitting practice, into the remainder of daily living.
Although this journal has some good information about meditation helping reduce stress,
it doesnt contain very recent findings. The most recent date for this journal is 2006. I
think this source has very useful information pertaining to my topic. I will use this source
to form some of my basic arguments, showing how studies were in the past. I will
compare these findings to more recent studies to show how science has changed over
time.
Winerman, Lea. "Changing Our Brains, Changing Ourselves." Http://www.apa.org. American
Psychological Association, Sept. 2012. Web. 5 Mar. 2015.
This article speaks about using meditation to help us develop the right emotional style' to
improve our lives. Richard Davidson speaks to Winerman about how new research on
brain plasticity suggests that interventions like meditation and cognitive behavioral
therapy can allow people to change their emotional styles by changing the very brain
circuits that govern them. Topics in this article once again back up claims that

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meditation can change a person on a cognitive level, improving psychological and

physical health. This article is very wordy and difficult to understand at times, but I will
pick through it to find information to back up my argument.