MBSR or using the practice of mindfulness to reduce stress
Overview Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) is a group of tools that has been brought together by Jon Kabat-Zinn, medical
doctor and professor at the University of Massachussets in the of Massachussets in the USA.
Very knowledgeable and experienced in many different sorts of mindful practices both from the East and from the West,
Jon Kabat-Zinn has founded the Stress Reduction Clinic where patients are sent in time of crisis (heavily
sickness, in intense physical pain, in very unbalanced emotional state, etc) to learn and handle their present situation as
good as they can.
Jon Kabat-Zinn written work Jon
Kabat-Zinn has conducted scientif researches in the use of mindfuness practice to reduce stress. He has written numerous
scientific articles in various reviews. His main books are
* Full Catasrtophe Living
(present the original MBSR 8-week program) * Where ever you go there you are (a more philosophical
take on mindfulness with concrete suggestion for individual practice) * Coming to our senses (an impressive
synthesising piece of work, bringing together a life-time of experience in the field of the practice of mindful and its integration
in daily life)
The original programme
The programme proposed at the Stress Reduction
Clinic is an eight-week programme.
The first
two weeks are dedidcated to body scan. This technique offers a way of bringing mind and body together in a more co-ordinated
fashion, allowig the mind to bring focus and attention on certain on the body in parts and as a whole. In turn, it allows
for the body to send feedback to the mind about the perceptions experienced.
The
next two weeks are dedicated to mindful body practices like mindful yoga. THe mindfulness is practice in action,
it accompanies the body movements. Symbolically it is meant to demonstrate that mindfulness can
be practice in action, in particular in daily life.
Week six and
seven brings guided meditation among the techniques to be practiced. At the beginning, the support of the guidance
helps making the passage between action and inaction. It breaks the depth of the silence and
possible create experience and space for what comes next.
The last
two weeks the practice goes more in the direction of silent sitting and walking meditation. It helps getting a taste
for what meditation is and may play as invitation to continue the practice in a different set up.
