February 26, 2011

Mindfulness is one of the new buzzwords in the treatment of stress, and Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) is an eight-week mindfulness training course that is gradually finding its way into hospitals, schools, and even the military. The course has research behind it with recent studies showing course participants experiencing a greater ability to relax, an improved cognitive ability while under stress, and on a physical level, an increase in gray matter in the brain’s hippocampus.

Mindfulness refers to the awareness of present-moment experiences with a compassionate and non-judgmental attitude, and the MBSR program includes eight weeks of instruction on systematically and intentionally cultivating mindfulness. Students begin by practicing sitting meditation, gentle yoga, breathing, and a body scan that sequentially calls non-judgmental awareness to each region individually and then to the body as a whole. As the course progresses, emphasis is placed on open awareness meditation, where the field of awareness is gradually expanded to include anything that appears in the consciousness, or a simple awareness of one’s presence in the here and now.

In addition to class time, students receive recordings of guided mindfulness exercises and are instructed to practice daily at home. Mindfulness is also encouraged informally during everyday activities such as eating, showering and walking down the street.

MBSR programs are now offered in over 200 hospitals in the U.S., including those affiliated with Stanford, Duke and The University of Pennsylvania. In New York City, MBSR is taught at New York Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Medical Center, Mount Sinai’s Department of Geriatrics and the Martha Stewart Center for Living, and Beth Israel’s Continuum Center for Health and Healing. The time commitment is approximately 2.5 hours per week for eight weeks, with usually an additional day of six hours. Course costs may vary anywhere from $300 to $600 depending on the location.

The MBSR program was created in 1979 by Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD who is the founding Executive Director of the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He is also the founding director of its Stress Reduction Clinic and Professor of Medicine emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

Studies:
Hölzel BK, Carmody J, Vangel M, Congleton C, Yerramsetti SM, Gard T, Lazar SW., “Mindfulness practice leads to increases in regional brain gray matter density.” Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging 2011 Jan 30;191(1):36-43.

Amishi P. Jha et al., “Examining the Protective Effects of Mindfulness Training on Working Memory Capacity and Affective Experience” Journal of Emotion. 2010 Feb;10(1):54-64.

Sources: The University of Massachusetts, Harvard University & The University of Pennsylvania

Dave Gorczynski is president of SPARK, a non-profit organization that has provided free energy work sessions and workshops across New York City since 2002. He writes a regular column about energy work and meditation for the Compact News in New York City's Chinatown. E-mail him at dave@sparkenergy.org.