Thanks for the recommendation. Do you have personal experience with this book? Do you mind sharing your thoughts on the book as well as the practice of mindfulness meditation?
I can't speak for the book, but I was a participant in a mindfulness study a decade ago. The biggest thing about it, I've taken, is that you recognize your feelings and acknowledge how they are causing you to behave. It doesn't transform you into an emotionless monk, but rather aims to make you aware (or mindful) of how you and your actions are being motivated through your emotions and non-awareness. For example, a mindfulness-driven diet would place emphasis on cultivating awareness of mindless snacking and aim to make you aware that you don't actually need to be eating at the moment - you are just snacking out of boredom or instinct.
With regard to emotion, like I said, mindfulness isn't meant to eliminate emotions, or even eliminate negative emotions. If something makes you mad or angry, you may carry that emotion into later tasks. Mindfulness is about recognizing the anger, acknowledging it, but understanding not to project onto other things.
There's probably more to it, but I was trained in mindfulness by proxy of martial arts (that was the study) [1]. I never studied it outright and only took a Mindfulness Attention Awareness Scale survey a few times over a few years. The paper I linked might give you some ideas on what mindfulness is.
My personal experience with the book, and mindfulness in general, is that it has significantly transformed my life for the better. I say that despite the fact that my practice of mindfulness has been pretty poor, but I keep working on it.
I don't subscribe to what I would call woo woo thinking or philosophy, so I was pretty skeptical at first. However, the fact that this book was written by a medical doctor helped me overcome my skepticism. My initial attempts at mindfulness meditation, however unskilled it was, sealed the deal.
It has been incredibly helpful (beyond what I originally thought was possible) to use the techniques of mindfulness to be able to notice the thoughts and emotions I was experiencing, without judgement, and then gently, and purposely direct my attention towards something more positive or peaceful. I use the techniques, even if just a little bit, every day. It's helped my emotional self-regulation, my relationships, and my ability to focus on work. It's helped me cope with pain, and maintain resilience even when I was feeling particularly low.
There are lots of wonderful books on this subject. Another great one is "Happiness" by Matthieu Ricard (another scientist). Sam Harris talks about mindfulness extensively, so you might check his work, and his app (although the app is a paid service).
