Doctoral programme at the IGVF

As part of the research project "From the menstrual cycle to the mindfulness cycle", we offer the opportunity for external doctoral studies. The natural menstrual cycle has an influence on numerous physical, psychological and behavioural processes such as sleep, eating behaviour, stress perception, immune response and physical activity. It is reasonable to assume that there is also a connection to motivation for health-promoting behaviour, which is particularly significant in view of the rapidly increasing incidence of chronic diseases associated with an unhealthy lifestyle.

We would like to investigate these questions as part of a mixed-methods study project and examine the extent to which monthly fluctuating hormone levels within the natural menstrual cycle are related to meditation in everyday life and the motivation to do so. In order to cover as broad a spectrum as possible, both people who have meditated autonomously for many years and people with little or no meditation experience will be included. Part of the doctoral studies, for which a positive ethics vote has already been obtained, is the conduct and analysis of qualitative (in-depth) interviews as well as the evaluation of quantitative questionnaires of a planned randomised controlled study with the 7Mind app.