Another Mindfulness for Health System Employees Course Has Finished
11/19/2019
The fourth Mindfulness for Health System Employees course finished last week. These eight-week classes are supported by the UVa Be Wise program. They are open to anyone who works in…
Thanksgiving and President Lincoln
11/19/2019
Thanksgiving will once again be here soon. It is a time that promotes pausing to take stock of those things we appreciate and are grateful for. Like many people, I learned the origin story of the pilgrims’ Thanksgiving in grade school. However, I only recently discovered that Thanksgiving was not established as a national holiday until Abraham Lincoln did so in 1863, in the middle of the Civil War. Even in that time of hardship and sacrifice for many, Lincoln believed there were reasons to give thanks, and he also acknowledged “all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged”
10/28/2019
Medical Center Hour: The Moore Lecture of the School of Medicine Co-presented by the Center for Health Humanities and Ethics, Center for Contemplative Sciences, Compassionate Care Initiative, Center for Appreciative…
10/28/2019
Mindfulness Fosters Professional Quality of Life and Mindful Attention among Emergency Medical Technicians Healthcare workers often are exposed to psychologically intense and physically exhausting stimuli during their work that can…
10/28/2019
All of us have certain things that tend to trigger strong emotional reactions like anger. When they occur, we often externalize their causes. If feeling a lack of respect from others is a trigger, we can be quick to rationalize our reaction as being justified because other people “should” be respectful. If we just feel that respect for others is a desirable but not necessary quality, we might note its absence, yet might not be triggered by it. Someone else might not be angered by lack of respect, but would be by perceiving someone else as lazy. These strong reactions often feel natural and justified, and we may not question them. They are our reality, like the water in this David Foster Wallace story: “There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says ‘Morning boys. How’s the water?’ And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes ‘What the hell is water?’...
The Future of Human Flourishing: Re-envisioning Higher Education as a Catalyst
9/27/2019
Aneel China, PhD Wed., Oct 9 2019 - 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM Rotunda Multipurpose Room What is the future of human flourishing? In a world where cultural rhythms are accelerating, technology is…
Worldwide Use of The Pause Documented
9/27/2019
In 2009, UVa nurse Jonathon Bartels first led The Pause in the emergency department. Following an attempted resuscitation when a patient did not survive, Jonathan asked the team to pause…
A Brief History of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction at UVa
9/27/2019
Two Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) courses started at UVa this week. In our introduction to the class we are teaching for healthcare providers, Matt Goodman and I briefly reflected on the history of the Mindfulness Center, with which we have been affiliated for 23 and 18 years respectively. This led me to want to expand on this a bit more. MBSR courses remain the core offerings of the Mindfulness Center as they have for the past 24 years, since the Mindfulness Center was established by Maria Tussi Kluge and Allie Rudolph as one of the first such centers in an academic institution in the country. MBSR was developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn and first taught in the University of Massachusetts Stress Management Clinic in 1979. The benefits for patients quickly became apparent, and led to several formal research studies.
9/23/2019
Compassionate Care Initiative Tuesdays Guided Meditation | 1:00-1:45 p.m. |Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1:00-1:45 PM Led by Betty Mooney Tuesdays Guided Meditation | 5:30-6:30 p.m. Led by Sam Green Wednesdays T'ai…
Free Lecture Open to the Public
8/28/2019
Flourishing: Is There More to Life than Happiness? Professor Corey Keys 12:00-1:00 PM Friday, September 20 Rotunda Dome Room Sponsored by the UVa Contemplative Sciences Center In this talk, Professor…