Mindfulness based stress reduction Presented by Chris, Lindsay, & Robin

What is Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction? Created in 1979 Originated at Outpatient Stress Reduction Clinic at University of Massachusetts Medical Center Created to compliment medical treatment Offer an environment to experiment with a range of novel and potentially effective methods for facing, exploring, and relieving suffering at the levels of both body and mind Understanding the potential power of the body-mind connection

What Does It Look Like? 8 week clinic/course for outpatients People encouraged to assume degree of responsibility for own well-being and healthiness Encourages new perspective on internal experience described as metacognitive insight or de-centering Done by cultivating and refining our innate capacity for paying attention for a deep, penetrating, seeing/sensing, of the interconnectedness of apparently separate aspects of experience (mind-body and inner-outer experience)

Intentions Creating a vehicle for effectively training medical patients in relatively intensive mindfulness meditation Includes hatha yoga and its immediate applications to stress, pain, and illness Needs to be free of the cultural, religious, ideological factors associated with mindfulness

Intentions Con’t Designed as referral service for physicians and other health care providers For people who are not responding completely to more traditional treatments or were falling through the cracks and not satisfied with medical treatment and outcomes Provide model for other hospital and medical centers where stress, emotional and physical pain, or illness as a disease were primarily concerns

Intention Results Now offered in hospitals and clinics around the world, as well as schools, workplaces, corporate offices, law schools, adult and juvenile prisons, inner city health centers, and a range of other settings

Evaluation Tools Mindful Attention Awareness Scale Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory Toronto Mindfulness Scale

Attitudinal Foundations of Mindfulness Non-judging Patience Beginner’s Mind Trust Non-striving Acceptance Letting go

8 Week Program Every day for the 8 week duration, individuals practice 45 minutes of meditation Week 1 & 2: Body scan meditation Week 3 & 4: Alternates body scan with hatha yoga postures Week 3: Try to be aware of one pleasant event every day as it’s happening. Look at how body felt at the time, what thoughts/feelings present, and meaning Week 4: Same thing as week 3, but moves to one unpleasant or stressful event per day, bringing awareness to it as it happens Week 5 & 6: Stop doing body scan, replaced with sitting meditation. Alternate 45 minutes sitting one day, with yoga the next day Week 7: Self-directed practice. Week 8: Back to Body Scan, sitting meditation, and yoga One day intensive at the end of the 8 weeks

Raisin Meditation

Diaphragmatic Breathing

Body Scan

References Baer, R., Smith, G., Allen, K. (2004). Assessment of mindfulness by self-report: The Kentucky inventory of mindfulness skills. Assessment, 11:3, Kabat-Zinn, J. (2003). Mindfulness-based interventions in context: Past, present, and future. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 10:2, Kabat-Zinn, J. (1990). Full catastrophe living: Using the wisdom of your body and mind to face stress, pain, and illness. Delta: New York.