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Sophia Rando

English 1201-Online

Professor Hellmers

17 March 2019

Annotated bibliography

My essay will be focused on covering the history of meditation and mindfulness and

analyzing its effectiveness in today’s world as well as discussing the best ways to practice it.

Mindfulness is an old idea that originated in many different forms through religion. The most

popular was Buddhism. Today it is practiced by CEOs and sports teams and even taught to

children in school. Most people don’t know they are practicing mindfulness even when they are,

so I am searching to answer the question: What exactly does it mean to be mindful entail, and

how can we use meditation to reach this goal?

Cuncic, Arlin, and Steven Gans. “The Benefits of Meditation for Generalized Anxiety Disorder.”

Verywell Mind, Dotdash, 7 Dec. 2018, www.verywellmind.com/the-benefits-of-

meditation-for-generalized-anxiety-disorder-4143127.

This article was written by Arlin Cuncic and published on December 7, 2018. The article

includes medical facts and is approved by a board-certified physician. The article was published

on a website called “verywellmind” which focuses on mental health and wellbeing. The article

begins by defining meditation and covering a brief history. The author talks about how to

practice mindfulness through meditation. Then, Cuncic discusses ways that meditation can be
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used to treat generalized anxiety disorder. Lastly, the article covers tips for successful

meditation. This article is well written and broken up into many different sections providing for

easy location of information and clarity. Verywell Mind is a website that seeks to provide

information for those struggling with mental health and the author provides well written and up

to date information. It is also reviewed by a certified physician. I will use this source for general

background info on mindfulness and meditation. It will be very helpful in relating to meditations

effect on anxiety and related conditions.

Jakobsson, Malin, et al. “Sleep Duration and Sleeping Difficulties among Adolescents:

Exploring Associations with School Stress, Self‐Perception and Technology

Use.” Scandinavian Journal of Caring Sciences, vol. 33, no. 1, 2018, pp. 197–206.,

doi:10.1111/scs.12621.

This study was created by Malin Jakobsson and is called “Sleep Duration and Sleeping

Difficulties among Adolescents: Exploring Associations with School Stress, Self-Perception, and

Technology Use.” The scientific journal comes from the Scandinavian Journal of Caring

Sciences and I found it by using the Sinclair library. This study was done to identify correlations

in adolescent behavior among hours of sleep, self-perception, stress, and technology usage. The

study identified that over 50% of adolescents are getting less than eight hours of sleep per night.

They also demonstrated how this was affected by their technology use. The audience for this

piece would be people trying to learn about adolescent behavior and what outside forces are

affecting them. The study appears to be conducted in a manner without bias. They used proper

sampling techniques. I will use this journal for statistics when I am discussing stressors that
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adolescents are under today. This will be beneficial to my thesis because I can then discuss the

ways in which practicing mindfulness and meditation would relieve some of that stress.

Lake , James. “Meditation and Mindfulness for Anxiety.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers,

23 Aug. 2018, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/integrative-mental-health-

care/201808/meditation-and-mindfulness-anxiety.

This article was written by Doctor James Lake and was published in August of 2018.

This article is rather short but it discussed some of the more technical ways that meditation helps

to relieve stress. It covers the physiological response that our body has to meditation along with

the results of a study on MSBR effectiveness. The article is written by a medical doctor and was

published in 2018 providing up to date research. The author cites the study they reference well

and summarizes information from them. I will reference this article when I make my claims

about how meditation and mindfulness can relieve stress in everyday life. It will help answer

questions in regards to the legitimacy of mindfulness-based meditation. The results of the study

show that there is evidence supporting the effectiveness of meditation.

“Meditation for Anxiety.” Headspace, Headspace Inc., 2019,

www.headspace.com/meditation/anxiety.

This webpage serves to give background information to support and app called

“Headspace”. It is an app for guided meditations and the site is used to provide information

related to the benefits of meditation and also the conditions that it may help to resolve. The
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website has a lot of information about general anxiety disorder. I cannot see who it is written by

as it isn’t an article per se, but it contains many statistics and links to other pages. The page was

last updated in 2019 providing reliable information. Headspace contains guided meditations and

mindfulness techniques. This page mainly discusses anxiety and gives statistics about it, it also

covers the ways in which meditation can be practiced to relieve these feelings of stress. I will use

this page primarily for statistics. It will be great for when I am discussing how young children

learning to meditate would benefit them in the future. I am going to make the point that if people

had good skills developed for stress relief at an early age this would help for when they might

develop disorders lie anxiety. This website will supplement that.

Pickert, Kate. “The Mindful Revolution.” Time, TIME USA, LLC., 23 Jan. 2014,

time.com/1556/the-mindful-revolution/.

This article was written by Kate Pickert and published in 2014. It was not published as

recently as would be ideal for current information, but, the article is mostly about the experience

of the author at a class teaching mindfulness-based stress reduction so The information will still

be relevant. The article covers the lessons of experts on the technique and discusses the ways in

which mindfulness can be used in any walk of life. Pickert gives background information about

mindfulness and then also discusses her experience of learning about and practicing it. The

article contains an abundance of information covering the authors experiences and research

around the topic. I will use this article to reference an expert on the subject and ways in which

mindfulness is used today such as by athletes, CEOs, engineers, etc. I will also be able to talk
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about the experience of someone who did not used to practice mindfulness and now has learned

how to.

Rando, Sophia N. “Mindfulness and Meditation With Dr. Robert Rando.” 10 Mar. 2019.

This interview was conducted by me on the tenth of March 2019. I interviewed my father

who is a Psychologist and directs the counseling center at Wright State University. After getting

a doctorate to be a psychologist, he has learned very much about mindfulness. This interview

contains information about mainly the effects of meditation and benefits. He talks mostly about

the importance of meditation and the best ways to practice it. He also discusses the typical

perception of those trying to learn meditation and talks about ways to meditate more effectively.

I will use this source to explain the benefits of mindfulness and meditation as well as the best

ways to practice them.

Reynolds, Gretchen. “How Meditation Changes the Brain and Body.” The New York Times Well,

The New York Times Company, 18 Feb. 2016, 5:45 AM,

well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/02/18/contemplation-therapy/.

This article was written by Gretchen Reynolds and was published in 2016. The article

covers a study on the effects of mindfulness and how practicing it can actually change the brain.

It tells about how a certain part of the bran can actually change with time. The article was not

written as recently as I would hope, but after doing some background research I decided the

content seemed current enough to still pull facts from. I will use this article to prove that long
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lasting practice of mindfulness can lead to a better life by discussing the way the brain reacts to

consistent practice.

Wilson, Jeff. Mindful America: Meditation and the Mutual Transformation of Buddhism and

American Culture. Oxford University Press, 2014.

This book was written by Jeff Wilson and published in 2014. The book mainly covers the

history to mindfulness and it’s Buddhist origins. There is a lot of great information about how

mindfulness made its way to the United States and how much has changed through the process.

The author also discusses some of the most important figures of early American mindfulness.

The author discusses how an ancient Buddhist practice has evolved in a “cure-all” for the

problems of todays Americans. I will use this source to develop the readers understanding of the

origin of mindfulness and discuss how it transitioned into the lives of today’s Americans. This

will give great background so that the reader has a complete understanding of the topic of my

essay from an early point.