The project
Friday January 24th, 2020

 Scientific assumptions: why meditation?

The WHO defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease.” It is now well known and supported by an increasing number of scientific publications the beneficial effect of meditation on emotional, psychological, and physical levels. Through exercises on breathing and relaxation techniques, meditation becomes an important complement to traditional treatment of some diseases, for example those of a psychosomatic nature, and acts on strengthening the immune system that chronic stress threatens.  Our project, which has been active for more than 6 years, has had positive effects on hundreds of participants who have participated in meditation practice and the wellness events we have organized.  We have received positive feedback from participants as well as we found positive effects of meditation in our scientific research.

What is our mission?

Our goals include fostering the dissemination of meditation among the Italian population as well as to produce scientifically relevant data to contribute to the understanding of the effects of meditation on well-being. Our team is composed of people motivated to spread and study the benefits of meditation in its various aspects. Our journey is continually evolving, support and participate in our initiatives, we are waiting for you!

What projects have we carried out?

Through meditation projects aimed at a general audience, we enabled people who did not suffer from problems to experience the benefits of meditation on aspects of psychological life, such as emotional regulation and anxiety management, that affect our daily lives and well-being. Examples of these projects include “Let’s Meditate for Pavia,” “Cremona Meditates,” and “Meditation Pills” in which we developed meditation interventions aimed, respectively, at the population of Pavia, workers in a company, or the entire Italian population subjected to lockdown measures during the COVID-19 pandemic. The people who participated in our projects were offered the opportunity to learn meditation techniques and experience its benefits on psychophysical health quickly and effectively. These projects have been complemented with numerous meditation sessions both in physical locations in the Pavia area and on digital platforms across Italy.  Other projects have focused on the use of meditation as a treatment for problems. In the project “Meditation & Nutrition” our goal has been to help people re-establish a healthier relationship with food and their bodies by providing them with special diets and dietary information as well as a meditation course.  In the project “Meditation & Sleep” we have targeted people with reduced sleep quality or actual sleep disorders and our goal was to help them re-establish healthier and more functional sleep patterns. With “MEDitiamo” addressed to medical students, our aim was to reduce the well-known load of anxiety, depression, burnout, and emotional discomfort which increasingly affects medical students.

What projects are currently underway?

  1. “Meditation for Psycho-physical well-being: neurophysiological and subjective indicators“. We are aiming to conduct a deeper investigation of the effects of meditation on participant’s psychophysical wellbeing. We will test brain activity with electroencephalogram (EEG) and use sensors to measure other physiological indicators such a Heart Rate Variability Rate and Respiration rates. The target population is young adults.
  2. Project of the Italian psychophysical wellbeing. For this project we have partnered with the Mental Health Million Project. The goal of this project has two purposes : 1) to measure the mental wellbeing across different regions of Italy and 2) to collect data that will be analyzed in scientific studies in order to plan future personalized programs that support health. The final Mental Health Quotient assessment will automatically provide a mental wellbeing score defined as a person’s ability to handle life and its various challenges. The responses collected will provide knowledge and insight into the mental wellbeing of the global population! Please click here to participate in Progetto di Benessere Psicofisico Italiano.

Phase 2 of Progetto di Benessere Psicofisico Italiano will be to implement and assess the beneficial causal effect of a composite mindfulness-based social intervention that includes meditation, nutrition, and physical activity. We intend to provide participants the tools to develop their own skills for promoting optimal mental and physical well-being. The use of digital health tools such as personal tracking devices, sensors and mobile apps will be used to measure physiological indicators. The target population is young adults (ages 18-34).

  1. Mindful Aging: Meditation for age-related cognitive decline and psycho-physical well-being. We will investigate the potential beneficial effects of meditation on age-related cognitive decline and new life challenges in older adults. The aim is to test if meditation can offset and enhance functions that decline as a part of the natural aging process and help promote improved psychological wellbeing. The effect of meditation intervention will be measured via assessments that include self -reported questionnaires aimed at evaluating a variety of psychological endpoint (e.g., psychological wellbeing, stress, anxiety, mindfulness etc.), and health related cognitive tasks.

 

Other initiatives

Finally, some of our other initiatives have been aimed at spreading scientific theories along with practical application of meditation. These include our “Neuroscience of Meditation” course held at the University of Pavia, where meditation experts and researchers gave lectures on the brain mechanisms involved in meditation. Also, for dissemination purposes, we held video conferences featuring meditation experts such as Daniel Lumera and Immaculata De Vivo. Not to leave anything out, we also dealt with art, organizing an exhibition at the University of Pavia that hosted some of the most distinguished representatives of the Quantum Creativity movement.

Where?
All our initiatives were held with the participation of the University of Pavia and the support of UNIVERSITITIAMO. Most of our in-presence meditation meetings are held at the beautiful “Aula del 400” (Piazza L. Da Vinci, 6, Pavia).

Results
The results of our scientific studies show that the meditation interventions we conducted among the population are causally associated with improvements in participants’ psychological functioning and well-being.

Scientific publications:

1) Short-Term Meditation Training Fosters Mindfulness and Emotion Regulation: Pilot Study: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.558803/full

2) Boosting psychological well-being through a social mindfulness-based intervention in the general population: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/22/8404/htm

3) Mindfulness meditation training in an occupational setting: Effects of a 12-weeks mindfulness-based intervention on wellbeing: https://content.iospress.com/articles/work/wor210510

4)  Online Short-Term Mindfulness-Based Intervention During COVID-19 Quarantine in Italy: Effects on Wellbeing, Stress, and Anxiety: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.914183/full

5) Improving stress management, anxiety, and mental well-being in medical students through an online Mindfulness-Based Intervention: a randomized study. In review

6) Beneficial effects of an online mindfulness-based intervention on sleep quality in Italian poor-sleepers during the COVID-19 pandemic: a randomized trial. In review

Links:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/MeditiamoInsiemePavia

Instagram: www.instagram.com/meditiamoinsieme

YouTube: Scienza Meditazione

Email: scienzaemeditazione@gmail.com

 

Goals

Step 1: 3.500 euro

Completion of the project “Let’s meditate for Pavia” and publishing the study results:
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/22/8404/htm

Step 2: 5.000 euro

Completion of the project “Cremona Meditates” and publishing the study results:
https://content.iospress.com/articles/work/wor210510

Step 3: 9.000 euro

Development of “Meditation and Nutrition” course, completion of the project “Meditation Pills” and publishing the study results:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.914183/full

Step 4: 14.000 euro

Completion of the projects “Meditation and Sleep” e “MEDitiamo” and the results of the studies waiting for publication.

Step 5: 25.000 euro

Organization and development of the projects “Meditation for Psycho-physical well-being: neurophysiological and subjective indicators” and “Project of the Italian psychophysical wellbeing”, including data analysis and elaboration of results.

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Rewards

50 euro

Spilla personalizzata con il logo del progettoSpilla personalizzata con il logo del progetto

100 euro

Maglietta personalizzata con il logo del progetto

500 euro

Ringraziamento nella pubblicazione

Team

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Luisa Bernardinelli

Prof. | Founder

Luisa Bernardinelli

Prof. | Founder
Head of Medical and Genomic Statistics Unit, Department of Brain and Behavioral Sciences, University of Pavia Complete CV
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Salvatore Bruno

Trainer di meditazione

Salvatore Bruno

Trainer di meditazione
Naturopath and counsellor at the Istituto di Psicosintesi in Milan Complete CV
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Gabriella Bottini

Professoressa Ordinaria di Neuroscienze Cognitive | Founder

Gabriella Bottini

Professoressa Ordinaria di Neuroscienze Cognitive | Founder
Gabriella Bottini è Professoressa Ordinaria di Neuroscienze Cognitive presso il Dipartimento di Scienze del Sistema Nervoso e del Comportamento dell'Università di Pavia e Direttrice del Centro di Neuropsicologia Cognitiva dell’ASST Grande Ospedale Metropolitano Niguarda di Milano. È delegata con responsabilità per le attività di Terza Missione di Ateneo dell'Università di Pavia.
Autrice di più di 150 studi pubblicati su riviste scientifiche internazionali (Science, Nature, Brain, Neurology, Cortex, Current Biology, etc.), i suoi interessi di ricerca riguardano i disturbi neuropsicologici associati a lesioni cerebrali o patologie neurodegenerative, soprattutto negli ambiti della rappresentazione corporea, della consapevolezza motoria, del senso di appartenenza corporea (body ownership) e dell’integrazione sensori-motoria. Inoltre, ha condotto studi sperimentali su partecipanti sani per sviluppare modelli cognitivi della rappresentazione del corpo. Infine, è interessata all'interazione tra le neuroscienze e il diritto e le loro implicazioni su pazienti con malattie neurologiche o psichiatriche.
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Francesco Bubbico

Responsabile dei progetti e responsabile della comunicazione

Francesco Bubbico

Responsabile dei progetti e responsabile della comunicazione
PhD student in "Psychology, Neuroscience and Data Science at the University of Pavia"
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Teresa Fazia

Organizzazione della ricerca, analisi statistica dei dati.

Teresa Fazia

Organizzazione della ricerca, analisi statistica dei dati.
Post-doc Fellowship, Department of Brain and Behavioral Sciences, University of Pavia Complete CV
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Lisa Catanzaro

Organizzazione della ricerca, comunicazione.

Lisa Catanzaro

Organizzazione della ricerca, comunicazione.
PhD student in "Psychology, Neuroscience and Data Science at the University of Pavia"
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Gerardo Salvato

Disegno dello studio e interpretazione dei risultati

Gerardo Salvato

Disegno dello studio e interpretazione dei risultati
I am a cognitive neuroscientist, psychologist-neuropsychologist and psychotherapist who holds the position of assistant professor at the Department of Brain and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Pavia.
Since 2015, I have worked as a research consultant at ASST Grande Ospedale Metropolitano Niguarda in Milan, where my research activity is mainly based. I mainly study how the brain represents the space and body in healthy and pathological populations, and the contribution of multisensory integration that allows us to maintain a coherent sense of the self. I have published several articles in prestigious international journals (e.g., Human Brain Mapping, The Lancet Neurology, NeuroImage: Clinical, Current Biology, Current Opinion in Neurology and Cortex). I am author of more than 42 papers. I have received two major grants: one from the European Commission (Horizon 2020) (as co-investigator) and one from the Italian Ministry of Health (as principal investigator). In addition to my ability to attract funding, one of the greatest strengths of my scientific activity is its multidisciplinary breath, which is enhanced by my profound curiosity about the brain and behaviour.
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Andrea Nova

Analisi statistica dei dati

Andrea Nova

Analisi statistica dei dati
PhD student in ‘Psychology, Neuroscience and Data Science’ at the University of Pavia.
Andrea Nova è laureato in Biostatistica presso l’Università Milano-Bicocca. Attualmente svolge un dottorato di ricerca in Data Science in Biomedicine presso l’Università di Pavia dove si occupa di statistica medica e genetica.
Precedentemente ha svolto il lavoro di Biostatistico presso una Contract Research Organization (CRO).
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Giancarlo Caimi

Collaboratore per i progetti: Pillole di Meditazione, Meditazione e Sonno, MEDitiamo

Giancarlo Caimi

Collaboratore per i progetti: Pillole di Meditazione, Meditazione e Sonno, MEDitiamo
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Ludovica Bonanno

Collaboratrice per i progetti: Meditazione e Sonno, MEDitiamo

Ludovica Bonanno

Collaboratrice per i progetti: Meditazione e Sonno, MEDitiamo
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Riccardo Facchini

Collaboratore per i progetti: Meditazione e Sonno, MEDitiamo

Riccardo Facchini

Collaboratore per i progetti: Meditazione e Sonno, MEDitiamo
Funzionario nel settore finanziario, è da oltre dieci anni attivista per i diritti umani in due organizzazioni non governative (Amnesty International e Terre des Hommes Italia). Appassionato di misticismo, Yoga e filosofie orientali, sta attualmente conducendo studi sulla Psicosintesi.

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