Mindfulness Mediation Essay

This source helps provide an idea of how mindfulness will play a role in our healthcare today and the future. I want to use this source for that specific reason and to show its role in my own chosen profession of a physician. The article discusses many costs saving measures when mindfulness is applied and there is a potential of billions to be saved.

Almost everyone is preoccupied with happiness but yet the population seems to be increasingly unhappy. As society and human experience changes we can’t help but ask ourselves how can we fix an increasingly unhappy and dissatisfied society? Mindfulness meditation is a progressively popular solution to this issue. Mindfulness meditation stems from Buddhist tradition and is a practice that includes focusing one’s attention. Does mindfulness meditation have real psychological effects? And if so can they help improve quality of life? Many studies have been conducted proving that mindfulness meditation does have real psychological effects and can help individuals live a more meaningful and happy life. This can be proven through research related to neuroscience, depression and happiness.

When approaching meditation as a novice like anything new you begin to categorize and assign key ideas based on the generalization of the word. One would expect when discussing the topic of mediation key components would arise to conform to the American Heritage Dictionary definition, “a devotional exercise of contemplation or a contemplative discourse” (Heritage, 1982). In such an exercise as mediation how would a simple subject of civility impact your ability to reflect and improve on upon yourself? Forni proposes that, “as a society we take a new, close look at that intriguing code of behavior based on respect, restraint and responsibility we call civility” (M., 2002, p.14); with in mind, one can correlate the relationship civility

This paper is about my experience with mindfulness based meditation and scientific inquiry of these experiences. Mindfulness based meditation is describes as technique used to cultivate nonreactive, non-judgmental and stable awareness of the present moment (Garland and Gaylord, 2009). The end goal is to sustain this meta-cognitive state for a long period of time. I practiced non-denominational form of mindfulness based meditation for the first time in my psychology class, which was devoted towards intellectual and experiential examination of meditation. The practice was conducted in a group it was instructed by our own professor and it begun at the end of class. There was one sessions per week and each session was structured meaning it was

Mindfulness is another way of meditation. Meditation was used to seek to improve one’s psychological or physical health, or spiritual growth. (Brantley, 2007). The history of Mindfulness comes from Buddhism and his search for enlightenment and a foundation of the four noble truths. The Buddha teaching focus on the four noble truths which consist of knowing suffering exists, there is a cause of suffering, there is cessation of suffering and there is a path that leads to the cessation of suffering. (Van Gordon, 2015). The four noble truths were not only there to represent the Buddha’s experiential understanding of suffering, but also to express the truth (Van Gordon, 2015). Studies of Buddhism and the Four Noble Truths teach us that there is always going to be suffering in our life but to find ways to overcome suffering (Tsering, 2005).

When you are guiding your team member or client through a mindfulness session, there are a few things you can provide which will enhance the experience and ensure both you and your client is well prepared mentally and physically.

In terms of stress reduction, mindfulness refers to the development of skills “characterized by a nonjudgmental awareness, openness, curiosity and acceptance of internal and external present experiences” (Chiesa & Serrety, 2009. p. 593). The constant practice of mindfulness exercises accounts for the reduction of stress. In their review of ten articles relevant to the effectiveness of mindfulness practices on stress reduction (MBSR), Chiessa and Serretti, (2009) found a significant positive effect of mindfulness practices compared to no treatment, in reducing stress levels in healthy people. MBSR is a psychoeducational group intervention (Cadwell et al, 2010), where participants receive formal training in various

The bulk of literature examining the effectiveness of mindfulness consists of qualitative studies. Of those studies, the focus has been on how effective mindfulness interventions and therapies are for clients and not so much regarding mindfulness practices of clinicians and its implications.

Meditation teacher and author Sylvia Boorstein states that mindfulness is having " the aware, balanced acceptance of present experience. It is not more complicated than that. It is opening to or receiving the present moment, pleasant or unpleasant, just as it is, without either clinging to or rejecting it."

Since Introduction to Counseling class, I am biased for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for its efficacy in treating psychological disorders as well as for its effectiveness in helping individuals to change thinking patterns and modifying people’s behavior by a wide variety of techniques and strategies. However, after researching Mindfulness, I come to realized that Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) is also beneficial in alleviating both psychological and physical conditions such as chronic pain, anxiety, depressive and eating disorders, including fibromyalgia and psoriasis as medical problems ( Keune & Forintos, 2010), which is relevant to the field of psychology. According to the literature, mindfulness has been incorporated in the

come to the conclusion that there is a limit to what they can do. A conscious

Many people think that mindfulness meditation consists solely of sitting still and thinking about nothing for twenty or thirty minutes and are put off by the thought. In fact, mindfulness

Instead of seeing a "soul" or a "mind" as the seat of personal identity, in Buddhism, the self is to be found in processes. Meditation, then, has the therapeutic effect of disengaging the practitioner from self-consciousness, freeing the mind. The view of the world without the construct of a permanent essence enables one to "experience reality as it really is" (3). It is important to note that Buddhism does not distinguish mental processes from other senses. Just as seeing takes a visual object, the mind takes a mental object (1). Just as the eye is free to take in different visual objects, the mind is free, as well. While meditation aims to develop "single-pointedness of mind," it is ultimately to free it from external objects. The focus is on the process of breathing, in Zen, and, eventually, one can reach a state where one is not considering anything (2). Zen considers the "blank-mind" stage to be a higher form of consciousness because it is free from attachments.

Before taking the class, and before really understanding the benefits of mindfulness, I must admit, I did not really take mindfulness exercises seriously. I tried a few exercises, led by a phone application, but I constantly wondered what these exercises were supposed to achieve. I always thought to myself, “I know what happens around me, being mindful is great, but specific exercises for this seemed exaggerated.”

The results of this study showed significant improvement in quality of life, anxiety, and blood pressure in the meditation group. While in controls, quality of life deteriorated and there was no improvement in blood pressure.