Mindfulness-based interventions have emerged as unique approaches for addressing a range of clinical and subclinical difficulties such as stress, chronic pain, anxiety, or recurrent depression. Moreover, there is strong evidence about the positive effects of yoga practice on stress management and prevention of burnout among healthcare workers. The aim of this study was to conduct a single-arm clinical trial to assess the effectiveness of an intervention based on mindfulness-based stress reduction and yoga in improving healthcare workers’ quality of life. Healthcare workers of two hospitals in Rome were enrolled in a 4-week yoga and mindfulness course. Four questionnaires were administered at different times (Short Form-12 (SF-12), State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) Y1 and Y2, and Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS)) to evaluate the efficacy of the intervention. Forty participants took part to the study (83.3 %). The Mental Composite Score-12, that is part of the quality of life assessment, passed from a median of 43.5 preintervention to 48.1 postintervention (p = 0.041), and the negative affect passed from a score of 16 in the preintervention to 10 in the postintervention (p < 0.001). Both the forms of the STAI questionnaires showed a decrease after the intervention. Yoga and mindfulness administered together seem to be effective to reduce stress and anxiety in healthcare workers, providing them with more consciousness and ability to manage work stressful demands.

Despite the acknowledged relationship between consciousness and attention, theories of the two have mostly been developed separately. Moreover, these theories have independently attempted to explain phenomena in which both are likely to interact, such as the attentional blink (AB) and working memory (WM) consolidation. Here, we make an effort to bridge the gap between, on the one hand, a theory of consciousness based on the notion of global workspace ( GW ) and, on the other, a synthesis of theories of visual attention. We offer a theory of attention and consciousness ( TAC ) that provides a unified neurocognitive account of several phenomena associated with visual search, AB and WM consolidation. TAC assumes multiple processing stages between early visual representation and conscious access, and extends the dynamics of the global neuronal workspace model to a visual attentional workspace ( VAW ) . The VAW is controlled by executive routers , higher-order representations of executive operations in the GW, without the need for explicit saliency or priority maps. TAC leads to newly proposed mechanisms for illusory conjunctions, AB, inattentional blindness and WM capacity, and suggests neural correlates of phenomenal consciousness. Finally, the theory reconciles the all-or-none and graded perspectives on conscious representation.

A successful transition to a lower-emission society may require major changes in the patterns of individual behaviours. Yet, whilst awareness and concern about climate change have increased in recent years among the global population, global greenhouse gases emissions have not ceased to rise. This paper discusses potential reasons underlying the gap between individual knowledge of climate change and the actions implemented to contain greenhouse gas emissions. To investigate this phenomenon, we look at the scientific literature exploring the factors influencing pro-environmental behaviour. First, we highlight how an individual’s environmental knowledge is not only approximate but also biased by cognitive, affective, and cultural factors, influencing their appraisal of climate information and their motivation to act. Second, we discuss three major models of pro-environmental behaviour, such as the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB), the Norm-Activation Model (NAM), and the Value-Belief-Norm (VBN), to highlight their failure to account for automatic cognitive and affective factors influencing an individual’s ability to implement pro-environmental intentions. Then, we discuss the Comprehensive-Action-Determination Model of pro-environmental behaviour (CADM), and its efforts to overcome the limits of the previous models. Finally, we examine the dispositional traits associated with pro-environmental engagement to highlight how the relationship between dispositions and pro-environmental behaviour performance appears related to self-regulation processes, supported by executive functioning; increased self-regulation would enable alignment of pro-environmental intentions and behaviours, and anticipation of the long-term consequences of present behaviours. We conclude by calling for more research to be carried out on the effect of enhanced self-regulation, and of self-regulation training, on individual reactions to the climate crisis.

Global workspace access is considered as a critical factor for the ability to report a visual target. A plausible candidate mechanism for global workspace access is coupling of slow and fast brain activity. We studied coupling in EEG data using cross-frequency phase-amplitude modulation measurement between delta/theta phases and beta/gamma amplitudes from two experimental sessions, held on different days, of a typical attentional blink (AB) task, implying conscious access to targets. As the AB effect improved with practice between sessions, theta-gamma and theta-beta coupling increased generically. Most importantly, practice effects observed in delta-gamma and delta-beta couplings were specific to performance on the AB task. In particular, delta-gamma coupling showed the largest increase in cases of correct target detection in the most challenging AB conditions. All these practice effects were observed in the right temporal region. Given that the delta band is the main frequency of the P3 ERP, which is a marker of global workspace activity for conscious access, and because the gamma band is involved in visual object processing, the current results substantiate the role of phase-amplitude modulation in conscious access to visual target representations.