WHAT ARE MINDFULNESS-BASED APPROACHES?ARTICLE 1

Article 1

There are a number of different mindfulness-based appeoaches that are based on contemplative traditions and meditative practices that are thousands of years old and that many millions of people around the world have found helpful. Mindfulness-based stress reduction was orginially developled in the 1970 by Jon Kabat-Zinn as a training vehicle for the relief of suffering. He wondered if people with long standing and serious health problems such as chronic pain, psoriasis, cancer and heart diseases might benefit from learning mindfulness, and distilled the contemplative traditions and practices into a secular eight-weektraining programme.

The mindfulness-based stress reduction programme intoduces several core mindfulness practices for people with chronic physical health , to help them live with these conditions with less stress and greater sense of wellbeing . Those who do the course learn to recognise patterns of thinking and feeling that cause suffering to bring awareness and compassion to these monuments , and to learn more ‘choiceful’ ways of responding to situations .

Over time and with practice people learn the willingness and capacity to be present in their experiences with discomment , curiosity and kindness. After the course they typically report feeling better able to cope, not only with their chronic health problems, but also with their lives more generally.

I will complete in article 2 soon.