Dr. Howard Smith Oncall

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/C5oDg1yuV4k/   Mindfulness meditation can reduce your guilt, but doing so may have a negative impact on your social relationships.  Psychologists at the University of Washington conducted a series of 8 experiments on 1400 participants that included 3 groups: US adults recruited online, undergrads at UPenn’s Wharton business school, and Portuguese grad students.   The initial study demonstrated that mindfulness exercises could effectively reduce guilt feelings.  Subsequent studies went on to explore the consequences of that guilt reduction.  One experiment showed that those whose mindfulness reduced their guilt were significantly less likely to provide financial compensation to someone they had wronged.  Another study showed that mindfulness-driven guilt reduction drove a reduced tendency to apologize and otherwise smooth over an abrasive social interaction.   Like many techniques, mindfulness can have negative as well as positive consequences.  The researchers found that