Awesome post! Well written and well organized.

I actually got myself enrolled in a mindfulness meditation study for precisely this reason. I'm 7 weeks into the 12-week study, and plan to post about it once it's finished. Ostensibly it's a study for people with social anxiety, which I have to a mild degree, but not to the point that it really affects my life at all–I enrolled in the study mainly because having homework logs to hand in increases my motivation to meditate half an hour a day. Beeminder is also helpful.