Making a Case for Mindfulness

Growing numbers of attorneys are embracing some form of practice to achieve mindfulness. Their reasons for doing so are varied, but chief among them are stress management and improved mental and physical health. This is a hopeful shift, given the well-known Johns Hopkins study which found that lawyers are more prone to depression than members of any other profession. In the most recent study, Harvard researchers found that practicing a form of mindful meditation for as little as 30 minutes a day for eight weeks resulted in measurable changes in the brain regions involved in learning, memory, emotion regulation and stress. Charles Halpern, a trailblazing public interest lawyer notes that a growing openness to the practice of mindfulness "is making us more skilled and effective as lawyers, more focused, more active listeners, better at helping our clients and serving justice, and doing it in a way that is sustainable."

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