To be or not to be..... This is the question?
If Hamlet asked an ontological rhetorical question, Jon Kabat-Zinn answered a hermeneutical practical one by getting in the mainstream of evidence based medicine the ancient bouddhist meditation practice.
Jon
Kabat-Zinn, PhD, who developed the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)
program at the University of Massachusetts defines mindfulness as "paying
attention on purpose in the present moment, nonjudgmentally". Being mindful
refers therefore to a state of mind consisting of two key elements: (i) an
alert mode of being aware of all mental contents (i.e. perceptions, sensations,
cognitions and emotions) and (ii) a friendly, open-hearted and non-judgmental
attitude toward those mental contents.
Research
consistently documents symptom reductions in:- Chronic pain
- Cancer
- Job or family
stress
- Sleep disturbance
- Heart disease
- Auto immune
disorders
- Irritable bowel
syndrome
- Headaches
- High blood pressure
- Anxiety and panic
- Pre and Post
surgery stress
- Organ transplant
issues
- Shyness
