Psychological Mechanisms Driving Stress Resilience in Mindfulness Training
Many mindfulness-based interventions include two principal components, both monitoring present moment experience and cultivating an attitude of acceptance and equanimity. In this study, the investigators evaluated the effects of a…
Another Mindfulness for Health System Employees Course Has Finished
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
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”
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…
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…
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?’...
