Suttie knows the benefits of mindfulness, but she still doesn't practice it. What holds her back? I can’t say I’m not informed about the benefits of mindfulness. Our Mindful Mondays series provides ongoing coverage of the exploding field of mindfulness research. As a writer for Greater Good, I’ve read countless books on mindfulness and have been lucky tointerview some of the leading scientists in the world who study it. I’ve written articles about mindfulness improving health and wellbeing for kids,teachers, pregnant women, and parents. And I’ve covered its positive effects on over-eating and sexual dysfunction. I know that it’s a powerfu... posted on Apr 13 2015 (31,271 reads)

you consider mindfulness to be just another buzzword or New Age fad, think again. Mindfulness has been around for centuries and has now made the transition from Tibetan monasteries to the corporate boardrooms of America. In "The Mindful Revolution," a recent TIME magazine article, Kate Pickert says that already many devotees see mindfulness "as an indispensable tool for coping—both emotionally and practically—with the daily onslaught." Is it worth your while, as a business owner, to pay attention to this trend? The Meaning of Mindfulness One of the best definitions of mindfulness comes from Jon Kabat-Zinn, professor of medicine emeritus at the Univ... posted on Jun 1 2014 (143,245 reads)

is a former classroom teacher, community organizer, and mentor in Richmond, CA who is the Founder and Executive Director of the Mindful Life Project.  Since its founding in the Fall of 2012, Mindful Life Project has focused on empowering underserved students through training in mindfulness, expressive arts, yoga, and mindful hip-hop in Richmond, CA, one of the cities with historically the most generational poverty and violence in the United States.  The organization has served 15,000 students, trained hundreds of teachers, principals, Richmond Police Officers, and the local District Attorney's Office, to create a mindful and compassionate community ... posted on Sep 26 2017 (10,547 reads)

35 percent, according to the Center for Disease Control—who are considered obese, having a body mass index of 30 or greater. Obesity increases health risks like heart disease, stroke, and diabetes, to name a few, and the health care costs to treat obesity-related illness are skyrocketing, with CDC estimates in 2008 reaching $147 billion dollars. Danny Hellman But now there is a new prescription for combating obesity, one that goes beyond ubiquitous diet and exercise regimens: mindfulness, the moment-to-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, and surroundings. Researchers are learning that teaching obese individuals mindful eating skills—like paying closer att... posted on Jul 28 2012 (19,353 reads)

the growing conversation around mindfulness, we're constantly hearing about meditation in the workplace and tech CEOs who swear by the practice. But less attention is being paid to the quietly growing movement for mindfulness in the family, and the use of meditation to optimize the health, well-being and happiness of children. It's not just adults that can stand to benefit from cultivating a focused awareness on the present moment. Research is beginning to shed light on the power of mindfulness as an intervention for a number of behavioral challenges that children face. We're also starting to recognize that mindfulness practices could be beneficial for children for... posted on Sep 21 2014 (46,598 reads)

Halpern is a public interest pioneer and an innovator in legal education. Author of Making Waves and Riding the Currents: Activism and the Practice of Wisdom, he has made multiple big waves in the public sector – as the "father" of the public interest law movement, as a social entrepreneur, and as a pioneer in the movement to bring mindfulness to the law and social justice efforts.  The outer waves of social transformation that Charlie has supported have been enabled by his inner waves of personal transformation.  And those inner waves are supporting him on his latest challenging quests: working for the mindful transformation of the criminal justic... posted on Jul 13 2017 (6,468 reads)

that we make. We make them mindfully, and then we start to use them mindlessly, forgetting that when we’re at work, we’re people. We have the same needs we had when we were on vacation. And you should get to the point where you’re treating yourself whether you’re at work or at play in basically the same way. [music: “Seven League Boots” by Zoe Keating] KRISTA TIPPETT, HOST: Ellen Langer is a social psychologist who some have dubbed “the mother of mindfulness.” But she defines mindfulness with counterintuitive simplicity: the simple act of actively noticing things — with a result of increased health, competence, and happiness. Her t... posted on Mar 28 2016 (25,237 reads)

unconventional studies have long suggested what neuroscience is now revealing: Our experiences are formed by the words and ideas we attach to them. Naming something play rather than work — or exercise rather than labor — can mean the difference between delight and drudgery, fatigue or weight loss. What makes a vacation a vacation is not only a change of scenery, but the fact that we let go of the mindless everyday illusion that we are in control. Ellen Langer says mindfulness is achievable without meditation or yoga. She defines it as “the simple act of actively noticing things.” What follows is the transcript of an On Being interview between ... posted on Apr 2 2018 (17,276 reads)

teaching law at the University of San Francisco. Over the years teaching hundreds of students about the many ways that racism affects law and justice, she came to realize that we can’t just think our way out of racism or other biases—we need to go deeper than intellectual understanding if we are to truly address bias in ourselves and others. Enter her new book, The Inner Work of Racial Justice, which combines stories and analysis to illuminate recent research on bias and mindfulness. In doing so, it provides an introduction to mindfulness meditation and compassion practice. I spoke with her about the book and her reasons for turning to mindfulness as a way of confront... posted on Jun 10 2020 (9,861 reads)

I walked in to teach my first mindfulness class at a charter high school in Oakland, no one seemed interested. One student was sleeping in his chair; a few kids were messing around in the classroom. Everyone looked at me like I was in the wrong place. I was nervous and not really sure what I would do. So I just started talking about stress. I asked students if they ever felt stressed, what they do when they are stressed, and asked each of them to share an experience about the last time they were stressed and how they dealt with it. That was the right move. After teaching more than 20 10-week introductory mindfulness courses at five different high schools over the past fe... posted on Mar 15 2019 (10,573 reads)

may have been the year of the "mindful revolution," but 2015 proved that mindfulness is here to stay. The more we learn about mindfulness -- the cultivation of a focused awareness on the present moment, most commonly through meditation -- the more health and well-being benefits we discover. This year, researchers delved further into the science of meditation and uncovered even more surprising evidence of the practice's powerful effects on the mind and body. Here are the five most incredible scientific findings on mindfulness of 2015. We figured out how mindfulness improves health. We know that mindfulness is linked to a number of physical and mental health ben... posted on Jan 25 2016 (22,694 reads)

article is the third in a series exploring the effects that unconscious racial biases have on the criminal justice system in the United States. Officer Tina Latendresse of the Hillsboro Police Department in Oregon meditates during a mindfulness training program for police. Benjamin Brink/The Oregonian When I was promoted to tenured full professor, the dean of my law school kindly had flowers sent to me at my home in Pacific Heights, an overpriced San Francisco neighborhood almost devoid of black residents. I opened the door to find a tall, young, African-American deliveryman who announced, “Delivery for Professor Magee.” I, a petite black woman, dres... posted on Jan 5 2017 (11,722 reads)

following is an excerpt from Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu's book, "From Mindfulness to Heartfulness: Transforming Self and Soceity with Compassion"(Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2018) Why Heartfulness? Heartfulness describes a way of being in mindfulness, in compassion, and in responsibility. The word mindfulness, by itself, seems insufficient to explain how mindful consciousness extends into compassion and is expressed in active caring. Heartfulness portrays this expansive sense of living with openness and clarity, being true to ourselves, acting in sympathy with all beings, resonating with and being part of the world around us. The word com-passion literally means &ld... posted on Mar 8 2018 (13,794 reads)

May 30, 2017 Your browser does not support the audio element, but you can play it here. Diane Musho Hamilton is a spiritual teacher, mediator, and group facilitator who has been studying mindfulness for more than 30 years. She is a featured presenter for A Year of Mindfulness, Sounds True's yearlong online meditation program. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon and Diane discuss how her experience with mindfulness has helped her to become an effective group mediator. Diane speaks on how mindfulness skills transfer to interpersonal communication and skillful relationship—especially when it comes to being able to take on someone else's perspecti... posted on Oct 29 2017 (14,882 reads)

notion is a candidate for further testing and exploration. That’s part of what makes our work at Greater Good so exciting: We’re constantly uncovering research that looks at humanity in new ways, helping us all learn to be happier, more compassionate, and more resilient. This year’s top insights are a tribute to that spirit. They debunk things we thought we knew, like how many human emotions there are. They inject some questions into the popular discussion of mindfulness, which can at times be overenthusiastic. And they open up new horizons for us to consider, like the possibility of finding purpose later in life and even changing our personality. Besid... posted on Jun 21 2018 (18,641 reads)

past few years have been marked by two major trends in the science of a meaningful life. One is that researchers continued to add sophistication and depth to our understanding of positive feelings and behaviors. Happiness is good for you, but not all the time; empathy ties us together, and can overwhelm you; humans are born with an innate sense of fairness and morality, that changes in response to context. This has been especially true of the study of mindfulness and attention, which is producing more and more potentially life-changing discoveries. The other factor involves intellectual diversity. The turn from the study of human dysfunction to human s... posted on Jan 23 2014 (128,000 reads)

and digital distractions, it's not society's defining trait. And we're all to blame. Because we’ve all been there. Driving to work while making a phone call. Eating dinner while writing tomorrow's to-do-list. Watching a movie while texting and eating popcorn. The list goes on. In a hyper connected world, bombarded by multiple forms of stimulation, how do we remain aware of the quiet gifts that the present moment has to offer? Cultivating a mindfulness practice can be a powerful way to train our minds and tune into the beauty of here and now. There are many ways to approach it. Whether we take a few minutes to notice ou... posted on Aug 18 2015 (26,488 reads)

of the world. Since I would be asking them to be mindful, I wanted to do what I could right from the start to induce that state. I wanted to assure them that I would be mindful and that I hoped that they too would be as fully present in the moment as they could, as a way of reminding themselves to be mindful in their work as a health professional, attentive, truly listening, trying to see the uniqueness in each patient.   This brief performance has become a useful way of inducing mindfulness, drawing students into the moment and experiencing rather than being told. By bringing myself in a performative, playful way students are invited to bring themselves into the classroom, wi... posted on Aug 24 2017 (13,829 reads)

new studies point toward three benefits to cultivating moment-to-moment awareness in the workplace. Research says mindfulness works for individuals. But does it work in the bottom-line-driven workplace, or is it just a frivolous feel-good program? This is the question tackled in a growing number of studies. Here are three ways, based on four recent studies, that cultivating moment-to-moment awareness might improve workplaces. Meditation might build self-confidence in leaders Our Mindful Mondays series provides ongoing coverage of the exploding field of mindfulness research. A.D. Amar and colleagues at the University of Westminster measured the self-perception of leadershi... posted on Jan 16 2015 (28,235 reads)

Rhonda Magee is a faculty member at the University of San Francisco law school, an expert in contemplative pedagogy, the President of the Board of the Center for Contemplative Minds in Society, and a teacher of mindfulness-based stress reduction interventions for lawyers and law students. She has spent her career exploring the interrelationship between law, philosophy, and notions of justice and humanity. Having grown up in a segregated North Carolina, Magee developed an early interest in racial and social justice, as well as a deep sense of spirituality and inner work - both aspects of her personal life that profoundly inform her daily work. In this Awakin call conversation, with ... posted on Jun 1 2017 (13,572 reads)