Tag: Mindfulness

New Studies on the Effects of Mindfulness meditation 3

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Sometimes the studies on MBSR can be quite small and therefore it is hard to make very solid claims based on the research. Different ways of doing research can be  used and this makes it sometimes difficult to compare results. In order to overcome this problem, a new study was conducted, looking at all the studies carried out on MBSR and MBCT in the past 30 years, but using only the more rigorous, randomized,  trials which used control groups,  and only those studies with a minimum of 33 participants.

The research team, led by Lone Fjorback,  who works at the Research Clinic for Functional Disorders and Psychosomatics, Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark,   performed a systematic review of all the articles published with these criteria. Using this type pf meta-analysis, they found that they showed that MBSR was beneficial for reducing stress and distress, alleviating depressive symptoms, and improving anxiety in both clinical and non-clinical populations.  Looking at MBCT, they found that it was shown to reduce the risk of relapse in depressive patients who had recovered from three or more previous episodes of depression.

The researchers concluded that Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction has a significant evidence base for its approach towards improving mental health for both clinical and non-clinical populations.

Fjorback, L. O., Arendt, M., Ornbol, E., Fink, P., & Walach, H.  (2011).  Mindfulness-based stress reduction and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy – A systematic review of randomized controlled trials.  ACTA Psychiatrica Scandinavica, Volume 124, Issue 2, pages 102–119, August 2011

Letting there be room

Karl Duffy1 Comment

Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.

Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart

Who says that life should be straightforward?

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When uncomfortable things happen to us, we rarely want to have anything to do with them. We might respond with the belief ‘Things shouldn’t be this way’ or ‘Life shouldn’t be so messy.’ Who says? Who says that life shouldn’t be a mess? When life is not fitting our expectations of how it’s supposed to be, we usually try to change it to fit our expectations. But the key to practice is not to try to change our life but to change our relationship to our expectations — to learn to see whatever is happening as our path. “Our difficulties are not obstacles to the path; they are the path itself. They are opportunities to awaken. Can we learn what it means to welcome an unwanted situation, with its sense of groundlessness, as a wake-up call? Can we look at it as a signal that there is something here to be learned? Can we allow it to penetrate our hearts? By learning to do this, we are taking the first step toward learning what it means to open to life as it is. We are learning what it means to be willing to be with whatever life presents us.

Ezra Bayda, Being Zen: Bringing Meditation to Life

The right response

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Life is given to us; every moment is given.

The only appropriate response therefore is gratefulness. When we wake up to the fact that everything is a gift, it is only natural to be thankful and to look on everything that happens as a chance to respond to the Given Life.

David Steindl-Rast, The Music of Silence

Being sustained on our path

Karl Duffy1 Comment

Mystery is not much in favor these days. The notion that there are limits to what we can do, what we can know, limits to our dominion, does not sit well with kings and queens of the hill. Humility and reverence, we hear, are the attitudes of cowards. . . . By ‘mystery’ I do not mean simply the blank places on our maps. I mean the divine source — not a void, not a darkness, but an uncapturable fullness. We are sustained by processes and powers that we can neither fathom nor do without. I speak of that ground as holy because it is ultimate, it is what makes us possible, that shapes and upholds everything we see. The stories I am most interested in hearing, reading, and telling, are those that help us imagine our lives in relation to that ground.

Scott Russell Sanders, Staying Put: Making a Home in a Restless World

Cradling our fears

Karl Duffy1 Comment

The essential practice is to cultivate maitri, or loving-kindness. The Shambhala teachings speak of “placing our fearful mind in the cradle of loving-kindness.” Another image for maitri is that of a mother bird who protects and cares for her young until they are strong enough to fly away.  People sometimes ask, “Who am I in this image – the mother or the chick. The answer is both….Without loving kindness for ourselves it is difficult if not impossible to genuinely feel it for others

Pema Chodron, Comfortable with Uncertainty