Mindfulness Training
By now, most people have heard of the mindfulness and are familiar with at least some of its benefits. Since many of today’s most common, costly, and chronic diseases are stress-related, the stress reducing capacity of mindfulness can have an obvious impact on our physical health. From a psychological perspective, mindfulness has been demonstrated reduce rumination, stress, and emotional reactivity, and increase working memory and focus, cognitive flexibility and relationship satisfaction. In addition, mindfulness can help manage pain, as well as reduce depression and anxiety symptoms.
If the benefits of mindfulness are clear, what is also obvious is that one does not simply become mindful by telling oneself to be so any more than one becomes strong or fit by wishful thinking. Just as fitness or physical strength are the result of deliberate training, so, too, mindfulness. The most validated and empirically tested mindfulness training is the 8-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction class (MBSR). Developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn in the late 1970s, it has become the gold standard of mindfulness training and the default protocol for mindfulness research. Although many claim to teach mindfulness, only a handful of those have qualification to teach MBSR. I am a qualified teacher of MBSR trough the University of California at San Diego Center for Mindfulness—one of only a few places able to certify teachers of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction. I am also a meditation teacher trained in the Buddhist Shambhala tradition.
An offshoot of MBSR, Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) is a modified form of cognitive therapy that incorporates mindfulness practices that include present moment awareness, meditation, and breathing exercises. This therapy was formulated to address depression. Using these tools, the mindfulness-based therapist teaches a client to be in the here and now as well as break away from negative thought patterns that can cause a decline into a mood-disordered state; this therapy can help a person fight off a difficult frame of mind before it takes hold.
I teach MBSR as well as MBCT classes. In addition to these two classes, I do mindfulness trainings for groups and organizations. See the Services page for details.
1.https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352250X18301969
2.https://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/07-08/ce-corner
3.https://www.mayoclinichealthsystem.org