Teaching Mindfulness

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.

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

Over the years Mindfulness has been a way to treat a variety of health related conditions anywhere form stress, anxiety and even cancer (M.Orsillo, 2010). Practicing mindfulness does not relate directly to any specific faith or religious beliefs. Mindfulness inside the practice of social work was implemented to help those with suicidal thoughts and borderline personality disorder. DBT teaches individuals the skill to not be judgmental. Being non-judgmental can be a difficult skill these days because we were raised or taught to have different thoughts and points of views (Brantley, 2007).

This article was based on a pilot study that provided mindfulness training to obese individuals. The training was an established curriculum called Mindfulness Eating and Living (MEAL) and was used as an intervention. It was hypothesized that MEAL would be associated with a decrease in weight and inflammation and improvement in metabolic markers. Outcome markers were established at baseline, after completion of the program and in follow up at 12 weeks.

For example, a student making an offensive remark can disrupt the entire class as students start to laugh. Nevertheless, mindfulness practice is unique as it focuses on emotional and awareness support for students. Similarly, teachers can benefit from mindfulness practice as it allows them to establish an effective buffer from distracting and stressful experiences. Thus, mindfulness practice can be valuable for ensuring classroom focus remains on teaching and obtaining educational outcomes.

Kabat-Zinn (2011) explains that MBSR program is related to instruction of Buddhist philosophy without Buddhist wording to being reachable for a non- religious audience. Furthermore, Hozel et al. (2011) showed that four or five days of twenty minute mindfulness meditation in adults decreases depression, improves immune-system and enhances ‘visual-spatial memory’, ‘working memory’ and ‘sustained attention’.

The second stated “long-term meditators would show superior performance to short-term meditators”. And the third stated “concentrative meditators would be more subject to expectancy effects…mindfulness meditators would show superior performance relative to concentrative meditators when the stimulus was unexpected” (Valentine & Sweet, 1999, p. 63). Using the Wilkins’ Counting Test (a measure of sustained focused attention) the control group was placed in a classroom to perform the test while the meditation groups were tested post meditation sessions in a separate room. The test was comprised of a series of tones which each group was asked to count (the meditation groups were told there would be three rather than two sets). The results confirmed the three hypotheses, overall concurring the use of meditation leads to improved concentration with little difference between concentrative and mindfulness meditation (Valentine & Sweets, 1999).

With Mindfulness training, individuals will be encouraged to intentionally attend in an open, accepting, and discerning way in distressing thoughts and feelings, and consistent engagement rather than avoiding it (Black, 2011). In addition, mindfulness will also allow an individual to consciously appraise situations in a non-judgmental manner, wherein their emotions and beliefs about the present situations are detached. With this, it will enable them to properly process the situation, which will give rise to their respective emotional responses and stop a person from having dysfunctional beliefs or distorted thought

My choice of mindfulness was influenced by my desire to incorporate a mindfulness meditative practice into my life to assist with coping with my diagnosed depression and anxiety. Previously in my therapy, I used mindful practices, such as mindfulness sitting meditation along with Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), and while the mindful practices, were helpful, I did not fully commit to the practices. The 5 Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ), a 39-question survey that categorizes mindfulness into five items: Observing, Describing, Acting with Awareness, Non-judging and Non-reacting (Baer, R., Smith, G. T., et. al., 2006). The questions are answered on a basis of 1 (never or very rarely) to 5 (very often or always true).

Follow-up research into the perceived benefits from the mindfulness-based training course found that counsellors participation in mindfulness-based therapy had an overall positive impact on both their personal and professional life. Results suggest the training course had associated benefits in the subjects’ personal life, particularly personal growth/self-care and interpersonal relationships. Firstly, within personal development/self-care, results found participants noticed physical benefits including increased flexibility, energy and circulation. Recorded emotional benefits included a greater sense of emotional control and reduced anxiety. Some participants added that the continuation of mindfulness-based practice allowed them to reduce self-criticism. Increased intellectual abilities participants recorded included a greater ability to focus on a particular thought as well as developing an open mind. Participants also recorded an increased sense of awareness allowing them to be more conscious about their physical and psychological well-being. Here, the results suggest that the mindfulness-based course does lead to increased well-being. Further research into the physical and psychological domains is required due to external factors that may also influence participants’ well-being.

The hypothesis is projected that mindfulness interventions will alter and improve the way the teachers score the students and perceive their behaviors as well as the students’ ability to improve academically and behaviorally when extended interventions take place. It is suggested that mindfulness training serves as a benefit to the students as well as the teachers in that it will train the teachers to conduct their classes in a certain manner as well as train students to practice a mindset that is conducive to formulating what is a non-disruptive learning environment to both teacher and student.

Using 45 randomly selected college students with no histories of neurological or mental disorders, the researchers randomly assigned subjects to either a group receiving MBCT or a “waiting list” group. Their findings concluded a systematic reduction in anxiety and negative thoughts as measured by four different scales. These results were consistent over five points, which were pre-test, mid and final sessions, and in both one and six-month follow-up points. Kaviani et al. believed that the results of their study proved that even the non-clinical population could benefit from MBCT to reduce depression and anxiety produced from isolated stressful incidents (2011). Kaviani et al. (2011) noted that the strictly female convenience sample used in their study could limit the generalizability of their results to the whole population. They also suggested that failure to measure mindfulness prior to the study and lack of another intervention group for comparison could present issues with interpretation of the

2. The Mindfulness Studies certificate is a semester-long program for those looking to expand their knowledge in the quickly popular mindfulness practice. The program will let students explore the role of mindfulness in medicine, psychotherapy,

Mindfulness, in particular, is associated with perspective taking and empathetic responding, relatedness and interpersonal closeness, and emotional communication, and anger management. Therefore, mindfulness may help a teacher be more responsive to individual students. Teaching is an extremely emotionally-demanding profession. Fortunately, studies show that mindfulness-based interventions may promote resilience and reduce the emotional exhaustion that precedes burnout. This can help teachers promote their own sense of well being and self care, in turn maintaining their care and compassion for their students.

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.”