What is MINDFULNESS and MBSR
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Across the world, people from all walks of life, backgrounds, and beliefs have practiced mindfulness meditation. They are a lot like you, and they've learned to integrate the methods developed at the Centre for Mindfulness into their everyday lives.
More than two decades of published research indicates that the majority of people who complete the MBSR curriculum report:
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60 Minutes Mindfulness featuring Jon Kabat Zinn
Jon Kabat-Zinn and Oprah Winfrey - Steep Your Soul |
Restoring within yourself a balanced sense of health, well-being, and increased awareness.
Scientific studies have demonstrated mindfulness practice to benefit a variety of psychological and physical conditions, as well as to have measurable positive effects on the brain.
The Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction -MBSR program is run over an eight-week period that includes an orientation class, a weekly 2.5 hour group meeting, a half-day retreat, and instruction in four formal practices: yoga, body scan meditation, walking meditation, and sitting meditation. The program is designed to teach program participants how to integrate and apply mindfulness into their lives and face the challenges that can arise from medical and physiological conditions and everyday life stresses.
Based on the world-renowned teachings of Jon Kabat-Zinn, the curriculum focuses on a systematic and intensive training in mindfulness, meditation, and mindful hatha yoga. The primary aim of this course is to develop new ways of learning and being that can be beneficial to all aspects of life, and reach far beyond the completion of this program
Participants receive guided instruction in several types of mindfulness meditation, gentle yoga, mindful movement and communication techniques. The classes are highly participatory, supportive and structured. You will learn how to integrate mindfulness, meditation, and yoga into your everyday life using it to connect with your own inner wisdom. With an improved awareness of the mind-body connection, relationships, health and overall well-being can be transformed.
Why do people take this MBSR course? I have experienced many different reasons why people choose to take this course. For some it is because they are dealing with very challenging life situations and feel the need to find a more effective way of supporting themselves. For others it may be that they are finding their coping skills for dealing everyday stresses are not sufficient and want to establish new ones, or they are feeling tired, with low mood and without the enthusiasm that being alive should offer. People come because they have life or health issues such as concussion, anxiety, depression, new parents, new job, low self esteem, students, teachers, health care professionals, this program is suitable for many regardless of age race sex or religious orientation. As long as you are human you will be facing the endless ways in which we all try to cope and navigate life in healthy and balanced ways. This is a way of bringing a quality of peace and balance to your life through the exploration of developing ways to meet and face the world as it unfolds.
There is an increase in referrals from health care professionals such as GPs and Psychotherapists for their patients/clients to my MBSR Programmes. The research evidence of MBSR has increased the interest in this very effective health management programme. MBSR is more than ‘Mindfulness’, It is a specifically designed stress reduction programme that offers many benefits to all tose who are willing to participate.
Here Are the Core Sessions to Help You Create Your Own Mindfulness Practice
ORIENTATION
This introductory session will acquaint you with the practice of mindfulness as taught at the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. You will learn how this secular, scientific, evidence-based practice has become an accepted part of mainstream medicine, and discover how it can positively affect the quality of your everyday life.
WEEK ONE
Here you will receive an overview of the course and establish the learning context for the rest of your experience. You will learn the theory and evidence of mind-body medicine and how to apply it in your life. You'll be experientially introduced to mindful eating, mindful breathing, and the body-scan method, with a special emphasis on what it means to be fully engaged in the present moment.
WEEK TWO
Perception is key in mindfulness—how you see things (or don't see them) will determine in a large part how you respond. This week's session and practices will ask you to examine your perceptions, assumptions, and the way you view the world. You will learn to use the body-scan practice to cultivate a greater degree of awareness of how you react to stressful situations. Changing the way you perceive and respond to difficulties and challenges will impact the short- and long-term effects of stress on your mind and body.
WEEK THREE
In this session, you'll practice several distinct yet interrelated mindfulness practices—mindful hatha yoga, sitting meditation, and walking meditation. This is an ideal time to share your insights about your experiences with formal practice and integrating mindfulness into your daily life. You will discover that there is both pleasure and power in being present—you'll directly attend to and investigate how your experiences create such reactions as pleasure or discomfort in the mind and body.
WEEK FOUR
By practicing mindfulness, we cultivate curiosity and openness to the full range of our experience, and through this process our ability to pay attention becomes more flexible. This week, your practice will focus on the development of your ability to concentrate and systematically expand your field of awareness. You'll learn about the physiological and psychological bases of stress reactivity, and experience mindful strategies for responding in positive, proactive ways to stressful situations.
WEEK FIVE
At the halfway point in this course, you should now be familiar with the foundations of mindfulness and able to focus on applying it more rapidly and effectively to specific challenges and stressors in your life. This week you will begin to pay attention to the places where you might be stuck in repeating, unhealthy patterns that you can disarm through mindful awareness. You will also learn how to apply mindfulness at the critical moment when you experience a physical sensation, intense emotion, or condition, with special attention to exploring the effect of reactivity in health and illness.
WEEK SIX
Resilience or “stress hardiness” is our ability to return to equilibrium after stressful situations. This week, you will focus on transformational coping strategies to broaden your inner resources and enhance your resilience through mindfulness practice. You'll also learn the fundamentals of interpersonal mindfulness—applying awareness and presence at times when communication becomes difficult or fraught with strong emotions. You'll gain direct experience of a variety of styles for more effective and creative interpersonal communication.
ALL-DAY RETREAT
This day-long guided retreat will take place between weeks six and seven. The intensive nature of this six-hour-plus session is intended to assist you in firmly and effectively establishing the use of MBSR skills across multiple situations in your life, while simultaneously preparing you to utilize these methods far beyond the conclusion of the program.
WEEK SEVEN
Mindfulness is most effective when it is a lifetime commitment. This week, you will explore the many ways that you can integrate mindfulness more fully and personally into your life. While having a dedicated regular practice for mindfulness meditation is important and beneficial, it is just as important to bring a broader sense of awareness and presence to every moment in your life, and to use non-judgmental mindfulness in your self-reflection and decision-making processes. You'll learn how to maintain the discipline and flexibility of daily practice as circumstances change over the course of your life.
WEEK EIGHT
In the final week of the program, you will have a complete review of everything you've learned over the course, with an emphasis on carrying the momentum you've built forward into the coming months and years. You'll learn about resources available to you to pursue mindfulness in new directions as your life and practice evolve, as well as the support systems that exist to help you continue to integrate, learn, and grow. The final lesson creates a satisfying closure by honoring both the end of this program and the beginning of the rest of your life.
