Maximising mindfulness for Māori

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2021-05-20 10:18

New Zealand

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Research backs mindfulness practices for mental health, but are they applicable across cultures? New Zealand researchers analysed existing research on mindfulness, and found cultural relevance was rarely considered - despite its origins as a very specific cultural and spiritual practice. Discussing examples from Māori cultural practices, they say standardised mindfulness programmes can be contextualised by implementing some Māori customs, such as mihimihi (greetings) and karakia (incantation), and that doing so for certain exercises can help Māori understand these practices and recognise how they can fit within existing spiritual and cultural beliefs. The authors say more research is required to understand how different cultures understand mindfulness as a concept, but that doing so is important in order to maximise the benefits for all practitioners.