In the summer of 1992, I had the great good fortune of participating in a 5-day professional training workshop with Drs. Jon Kabat-Zinn and Saki Santorelli in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) at Omega Institute in New York State.  This watershed experience occurred after I had personally been practicing mindfulness meditation for about 16 years.  Among its many other benefits, it provided the necessary impetus for me to pioneer  the first MBSR program in a Minnesota hospital, which I directed  from 1994 until I retired in 1999.  

One of the many high points of the training for me occurred near the end when Jon described how a very courageous teacher in Utah (Mrs. H) had successfully implemented a version of the MBSR program in her fourth-grade classroom.  He reported that he had sent flowers to her and her class at the end of the school year to honor this remarkable pioneering achievement.

He culminated his description of this project by reading a very touching personal letter that he had received from Doug, one of the students in the class.  Doug had been diagnosed with ADHD and–due to his many behavioral problems–had barely been promoted into the fourth grade.   Mrs. H reported that the consensus of his former teachers was that he had made remarkably positive gains in the fourth grade.  I was so impressed with his letter  that I subsequently took the time to transcribe it from an audio recording of the training program and have saved it in my files to the present time.  Here it is:

Dear Dr. Kabat-Zinn,

Hi, Dr. Kabat-Zinn.  I would like to thank you for doing so much for me and my class.  I have never been given as much as one flower in my life before and I really appreciate the ones you gave me and my class.  Mr. D [the school principal] has not shown his support about us doing stress reduction.  Finally, about two weeks ago, we got Mr. D to come in our classroom and do stress reduction and yoga with us.  I am glad that you and Mrs. H  have taught me this neat way to focus and relax.  It has taken me all year to learn this method called stress reduction, and I can still only manage it for five minutes without a movement.  It is nice to know that someone cares about our stress reduction practice.  Thank you for being so generous to me and my class, and I hope that I can meet you some day.

Love, Doug

Upon learning of this early experiment in teaching mindfulness to children and hearing Doug’s letter, I began to dream of a day when mindfulness training would gain the same integral importance in schools as teaching the “three R’s.”  I’m delighted to see rapidly growing evidence that this long-held dream is now starting to come true.

In the last two decades–due in large part to the great success of the MBSR program–mindfulness has been applied increasingly in many different settings of mainstream American society–including psychology, psychotherapy, medicine, neuroscience, business, corrections, the military, and sports.   Although I strongly believe that its ultimate application is in our schools, this “open secret” is just now beginning to gain the widespread recognition that it rightfully deserves.

Thanks to the outstanding work of Goldie Hawn, Dr. Daniel Siegel, and Representative Tim Ryan, among many others, I’m very hopeful that parents, teachers, and school administrators will soon recognize how incorporating this basic mind training program into schools–starting in kindergarten or pre-school and continuing through high school–can help markedly in overcoming the common deficits in attention and empathy that have become so prevalent in children.  There is also abundant evidence that such a program  can significantly enhance academic performance.

The following videos provide an excellent introduction to what is happening in this exciting new educational arena  (Click on each embedded link to see video):

Goldie Hawn and Dan Siegel at TEDMED 2009

Hawn Foundation Video with Dr. Dan Siegel 

Dan Siegel:  The Neurological Basis of Behavior, the Mind, the Brain and Human Relationships

Representative Tim Ryan on Mindfulness in Schools

Transform Your Mind, Change Your Brain

Also, here’s a very important recent talk by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn to a Mindful Schools group:

Jon Kabat-Zinn speaking to a Mindful Schools group in Berkely, California on April 12, 2012

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IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT

By clicking on the following link, you can  get a FREE self-guided program in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, including 6 audios in mp3 format.

What does it take to make you happy?  How happy are you whenever “it” occurs?  How long does “it” last?  How attached are you to “it”–that is, how UNHAPPY are you when “it” isn’t occurring?  Can you imagine yourself being happy even if “it” were never to occur again?

In his article in the Irish Times, Padraig O’Morain addresses these questions very pointedly.  I strongly encourage you to read very reflectively what he has to say, as he puts a very practical and interesting new spin on part of what the Buddha taught some 2500 years ago.

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IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT

By clicking on the following link, you can  get a FREE self-guided program in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, including 6 audios in mp3 format.

Parents and teachers, listen up.  Goldie Hawn is on a mission to recruit you in helping children become the leaders of tomorrow through the practice of mindfulness and yoga.  To this end, she has authored a best-selling book, entitled “10 Mindful Minutes.”  You can learn more by reading this article in the NZ Herald.

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IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT

By clicking on the following link, you can  get a FREE self-guided program in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, including 6 audios in mp3 format.

Over thirty years ago, Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn ingeniously  recognized that Buddhist mindfulness meditation could be of major benefit to people in coping with chronic pain.  This led him to develop a standardized eight-week program in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) that has enjoyed immense success for over two decades.  Variations of this program are now offered in both medical and non-medical settings in most large cities in North America  as well as in many other parts of the world.

I personally received  training in MBSR from Dr. Kabat-Zinn and his colleague Dr. Saki Santorelli in  the summer of 1992. Subsequent to this, I pioneered the first MBSR program in a Minnesota hospital (Abbott-Northwestern Hospital in Mpls., MN) from 1994 through 1999.  

There is now a large and ever-increasing body of research showing the effectiveness of the MBSR program–especially in terms of coping effectively with pain and anxiety.  An especially interesting example of such research has been conducted at the  Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, where it was found that even novices can apply mindfulness effectively in coping effectively with pain.  

I invite you to CLICK HERE to learn more about this particular research.

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IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT

By clicking on the following link, you can  get a FREE self-guided program in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, including 6 audios in mp3 format.

As a result of the amazing generosity of Jay Uhdinger, I’m very happy to share with you a basic video course in Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT).  I became aware of this impressive, high quality resource via an email from Mr. Uhdinger with this introduction:

Together with a friend who is an illustrator, I have created a 100% free (no catch, no email subscription or whatever) mindfulness based cognitive therapy (MBCT) course. . .

I have to stress this again… this is 100% free and my whole interest is that people learn about these essential concepts because they can rock their world (as they rocked mine).

The lessons are easy to understand, come as videos with illustrations and I also cite the Psychology studies that I used as sources. I have a bit of experience with giving online courses because that is what my for profit ventures are about.

MBCT has changed my life and that’s why I would be happy if more people would learn about it.

It is a pretty powerful combination of cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness meditation. Right now it is used to prevent people from relapsing into depression BUT the concepts can also be used to simply take your life to the next level (and that’s what this course is meant for).

Nothing more, nothing less.

If you have any questions, comments or feedback just hit the reply button. If you don’t have time right now and want me to remind you about the course again just hit reply and write for example “2 days”  and I will get back to you then.

Thanks for reading this and all the best.

Jay Uhdinger

You can access this course by clicking HERE

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IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT

By clicking on the following link, you can  get a FREE self-guided program in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, including 6 audios in mp3 format.

]]> http://www.wisewaystohappiness.com/a-free-mindfulness-based-cognitive-therapy-course/feed/ 0 http://www.wisewaystohappiness.com/mindful-eating-as-food-for-thought/ http://www.wisewaystohappiness.com/mindful-eating-as-food-for-thought/#comments Sat, 11 Feb 2012 21:50:09 +0000 George Shears http://www.wisewaystohappiness.com/?p=739

As I have posited repeatedly on this blog, mindfulness can be understood as a “master skill” in that it potentially enhances the performance of nearly all other human skills.  Moreover, it also serves as a powerful corrective for a wide variety of unskillful human propensities–especially those that are compulsive or addictive in nature.

This very informative article in the 2/7/12 edition of the New York Times entitled, “Mindful Eating As Food for Thought,”  provides an outstanding illustration of  this fact and also demonstrates how mindfulness continues to gain mainstream prominence in the U.S.

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IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT

By clicking on the following link, you can  get a FREE self-guided program in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, including 6 audios in mp3 format.

]]> http://www.wisewaystohappiness.com/mindful-eating-as-food-for-thought/feed/ 0 http://www.wisewaystohappiness.com/shortcuts-to-inner-peace-by-ashley-davis-bush/ http://www.wisewaystohappiness.com/shortcuts-to-inner-peace-by-ashley-davis-bush/#comments Sun, 22 Jan 2012 16:31:22 +0000 George Shears http://www.wisewaystohappiness.com/?p=730

Due to the prevailing “time poverty” of the modern world, many people are unlikely to free up the requisite time to engage in a formal practice of mindfulness meditation.  As the following review by Bodhipaksa of Ashley Davis Bush’s book, Shortcuts to Inner Peace,  emphasizes, however,  nearly anyone can implement the simple, but powerful, methods of bringing mindfulness into everyday life.

The following article by Bodhipaksa shows that we offer a great service to others and to humanity in general by cultivating the art of happiness:

“ Saddhamala wrote the other dayabout how we “catch” emotions from others. As she points out, this happens when you’re hanging around someone who is negative, and it brings you down, and that it even happens when we watch a movie!”

(Read the entire article HERE.)

In the following article, Bodhipaksa offers an impressive array of skillful ways to increase our levels of joy and happiness:

“Joy (sukha in Pali) should be our natural state of being. Unfortunately, though, we’ve been brought up in a society that emphasizes wanting things and having things. Wanting things actually destroys joy, while having things brings only a short-term burst of pleasure that fades quickly.”
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Read the entire article HERE. 

Jon Kabat-Zinn, an MIT-trained molecular biologist, began meditating in 1966, when the practice was primarily the province of hippies and gurus, not scientists. Now, thanks in large part to his efforts, it has become mainstream medicine. Dozens of studies have since shown the benefits of what he termed Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) in treating cardiovascular disease, depression, addictions, chronic pain and many other conditions.

Kabat-Zinn has authored a new book,  Mindfulness for Beginners that aims to introduce meditation to first-timers.

Read more here