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NICE recommends NHS and Doctors to offer Mindfulness Meditation for depression, stress and mental illness

Mon, 11 Jan 2010

Mindfulness practices have shown to be a powerful and effective method to reduce stress, anxiety, SAD, GAD and even depression . Mindfulness is learning to pay attention in a non-judgemental way to the present moment.

Mindfulness comes from the Sanskrit word Smriti literally means "remembering". By remembering we pay attention to what is happening, mindfulness always arises in context within ourselves or others.

Our breath, our movements, our posture, thoughts, feelings and the transient phenomenon around us are all part of the interconnected web of relationships within which we can cultivate mindfulness.

Mindfulness is taught using our breath as the anchor to focus our attention to the present moment in a gentle, non-judgemental and sustained way.

Mindfulness has been brought to clinical and health practice through Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) by Prof Jon Kabat-Zinn who developed an eight-week MBSR program over a period of ten year with over four thousand patients at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center.

Mindfulness has been used for over 3000 years as a powerful, non-toxic and portable self-therapeutic method in traditions such as Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism.

Dav Panesar has created and taught both formal and informal Mindfulness based programmes in the UK since 1993. e.g. " Stress Management through Meditation" was created specifically to assist with work-based stress and was delivered at Coventry University to local SME business owner/managers. He also teaches "free walk in" mindfulness meditation at local centres for those who are unable to access MBSR via their health professionals.

EXERCISE

Mindfulness (by Dav Panesar)


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