The best mindfulness research resource on the web

The American Mindfulness Research Association is a terrific resource for anybody involved in promoting or researching mindfulness. Its Mindfulness Research Monthly appears in PDF format and lists many research projects on mindfulness together with links to the publications in which the research is reported and it also highlights some of the studies.

Its news section reports on a very wide variety of areas in which mindfulness has been studied. These recent headlines will give you an idea of just how wide scope is:

"Mindfulness practice found to benefit drug-resistant epileptics."
"Mindful awareness programme offered to elite athletes on the USA cycling team."
"Veterans report reduced PTSD symptoms after a mindfulness meditation program."
"Brain imaging study of adolescents
links cortical changes and mindfulness."

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Ireland's Mister Mindfulness, Frank Liddy, becomes Zen chaplain to Belfast City Council

Image from Belfast Telegraph

If Ireland has a "Mister Mindfulness" his name is Frank Liddy and he's based in Belfast. If you're involved in mindfulness work you won't spend long in Belfast without hearing his name. He runs the Mindfulness Belfast website  along with David Cameron (no, not that one).

According to the Belfast Telegraph, he is now the first Zen chaplain to Belfast City Council "his role is to provide secular advice for the Lord Mayor, and he is also a mindfulness practitioner for Aware, the Northern Ireland based depression charity."

He was appointed as a local assistant to the Dalai Lama on the latter's two visits to Belfast.

I really like this quote from the Belfast Telegraph article:

"My Zen teacher told me that I had two lives. When I asked when I would get my second life he told me it was when I realised that I had only one. The idea is that only when you fully realise that you have one life is when you will live it to the full."

He is a member of the Black Mountain Zen Centre in Belfast.

The Meditation How website  has this interview with Frank Liddy about how he came to Zen via the trauma of the Troubles and his discovery of Transcendental Meditation.

Oh, and it you'd like to hear the Body Scan delivered in a Belfast accent, check this out.

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British parliamentarians recommend the promotion of mindfulness practice by government.

An all-party  group of Members of Parliament in Britain has issued a report urging the adoption of mindfulness practices in many areas of public life. The Mindful Nation UK report is based on evidence given to the group by various occupational bodies and by people involved in the promotion of mindfulness and also draws on international research.

The report recommends the promotion of mindfulness practices particularly in education, health, the workplace and the criminal justice system.

It includes case studies and references to research and would be particularly valuable if you're interested in promoting the value of mindfulness within particular settings such as a workplace.

Some main points from the report:

Health
The NHS should make Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy available to the 580,000 adults each year who will be at risk of recurrent depression.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence should review the evidence from mindfulness-based interventions in the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome, cancer and chronic pain.

Education
The Department for Education should designate three teaching schools to pioneer mindfulness teaching.

Schools should be offered the opportunity to bid for a fund of £1 million a year to pay for training teachers and mindfulness.

Workplace
The Department for Business Innovation and Skills should work with employers to promote the use of mindfulness.

Government departments should encourage the development of mindfulness programs in the public sector.

Criminal justice system
Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy should be offered for recurrent depression to the offender population.

The effect of mindfulness-based interventions among the U.K.'s offender populations should be researched.

You can get a PDF of the report at this link.

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From awareness to thoughts and back again

Sometimes you "know" thing for a long time before it finally clicks. For me, the thing I knew is that in mindfulness practice we learn to distinguish, as we go, between awareness and our thoughts about what we are aware of - then we continually move out of our thoughts and back to awareness.

Let's say I am aware that a dog is mooching along the street. As soon as I become aware my thoughts start up. These can include memories of dogs I have owned, wondering where the owner of the dog is, an opinion that people who have fierce dogs ought to muzzle them in public as the law requires, and so on. If I practice mindfulness, then when I spot these thoughts buzzing around like flies  I  return to awareness which is simply awareness of the dog.

So you begin with awareness, move automatically into thoughts and then move deliberately back to awareness again. You would be surprised at how much unnecessary stress this simple practice can remove from your life. Yesterday I drove to the wrong terminal at Dublin airport. The error would mean leaving the airport and coming back again to get to the right terminal.  While staying with the awareness of what had happened and of what I needed to do next, I was able to spend only microseconds in thoughts about how inconvenient it was, how unfair it was, blah blah. Even when I discovered along the way, but too late, that I could still have got to the correct terminal without leaving the airport, I was able to stay with the awareness of that, including awareness of the fact that I didn't like having missed that particular turnoff. But I stayed out of the storm of thoughts that my mind wanted to kick off so badly it was practically jumping up and down. I was quite surprised by the complete absence of stress in the whole experience thanks to that simple mindfulness practice.

So the method is awareness, realising that you have moved from awareness into thoughts and then returning to awareness again. You could think of it as awareness-thoughts-awareness. Or ATA.

 As I said, this is something I always knew or at least always knew since I began to practice mindfulness a long time ago but it really clicked for me when I read about the distinction between awareness and thoughts in Dan Harris's book 10% Happier,  a witty and very useful look at his journey into mindfulness and Buddhism.

Four mindfulness books for that new Kindle

Mindfulness for Health: A practical guide to relieving pain, reducing stress and restoring wellbeing 
by Vidyamala Burch and Danny Penman

I'm currently reading this and really impressed by it. Vidyamala Burch's work is essentially with people suffering chronic pain (through the Breathworks organisation) but this is actually a really good guide to the practice of mindfulness.

Light Mind: Mindfulness in daily living
by Padraig O'Morain

This mindfulness guide, by yours truly, aims to bring clarity and simplicity to the practice of mindfulness. So far as I know, it was the first Irish guide to mindfulness when published in 2009 and may still be.

The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness
by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

You're most likely to enjoy this book if you are already practicing mindfulness or interested in Buddhism. The author, a master of a lineage of Tibetan Buddhism takes a clear and friendly approach, recommending short mindfulness practices.

Sane new world
by Ruby Wax

This book, about Ruby Wax's psychological journey through some dark periods of her life, is funny, engaging and informative. The section on mindfulness is refreshingly free of piousness and bullshit.