Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction - 5 ways MSBR Improves Your Life

Mindfulness-Based Stress reduction was first pioneered by Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D and assisted by Saki Santorelli, Ph.D and colleagues in 1979 at the university of Massachusetts Medical center. Since then numerous clinics based on the Jon Kabat-Zinns' program of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) have developed in nearly every country.

The Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program is an intensive course to help empower participants to take an active role in the management of their health and wellness. Participants are often asked to practice mindfulness meditation and or mindful movement for 30-40 minutes a day.The object of MBSR is a clinical program developed to facilitate adaption to medical illness, which provides systematic training in mindfulness meditation as a self-regulatory approach to stress reduction and management.

Meditation can help in five different ways:

* Meditation increases the coherence of the brain wave patterns in the brain, which suggests it improves creativity and learning and changes the way the brain works.

* Meditation helps to decrease stress and depression, irritability and moodiness.

* Meditation improves memory.

* Medication increases the subjective feeling of happiness and contentment.

* Meditation increases emotional stability.

The primary goal of MBSR is to provide patients with training meditation techniques to foster the quality of 'mindfulness'. 'Mindfulness' has been conceptualized as a state in which one is highly aware and focused on the reality of the present moment, accepting and acknowledging it, without getting caught up in thoughts that are about the situation or in emotional reactions.

Mindfulness based stress reduction aims to teach people to approach stressful situations 'mindfully' so they may respond to the situation instead of automatically reacting to it.

Although various mindfulness training techniques differ in terms of procedure, they share the same goal of teaching people to become more aware of their thoughts and feelings and to change their relationship to them. The meditation techniques are used to develop a perspective on thoughts and feelings as mental events rather than as aspects of the self or as necessarily accurate reflections of reality.

With repeated practice, mindfulness allows participants to develop the ability to calmly step back from thoughts and feelings during stressful situations, rather than anxious worry or other negative thoughts.

Mindfulness based stress reduction programs have improved the lives of many participants ability to live and cope with chronic pain, illness, relaxation and stress reduction. By learning to actively participate in the management of health and well being people report that they are more able to manage stress and depression, fear, anger, and anxiety both at home and in the workplace.

Many also report a decrease of the frequency and length of medical visits to hospitals and health care professionals. It has also resulted in the decrease of the use of medication.

Mindfulness is a lifetime engagement, not to get somewhere else, but to be where and as we actually are in this very moment, whether the experience is pleasant, unpleasant or neutral.