Thinking about mindfulness? Several good videos online produced by University of California San Diego’s UCTV in their consumer series Health Matters (requires the free Real Player) cover mindfulness, stress and pain management.
In the first half-hour video, Steve Hickman Psy.D. describes measures of sensation and distress to define and manage pain, with the tools of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR). Mindfulness is a simple but powerful concept borrowed from Buddhism and applied in a secular way to psychotherapies from cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and dialectic behaviour therapy (DBT) to more informal stress reduction and relaxation skills. It’s “non-judgmental awareness” of the moment that helps with identifying, accepting, and/or an active change in thinking. Mindfulness ideally brings insight and increased self-control, including, in this case, control over chronic physical pain.
In a second UCTV show, Hickman delves further into research and teaches some practical skills, and the third video features guest Jon Kabat-Zinn, author of “Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World Through Mindfulness.”
Mind Hacks recently wrote about mindfulness and shared some good links, including the podcast All In The Mind focussed on mindfulness in evidence-based treatments. Listen online or subscribe to the weekly audio podcast; it’s a fantastic source of thoughts about cognition.
Link to videos about mindfulness.
Link to All in the Mind podcast on the same topic.
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Relaxation » Blog Archive » Minding Mindfulness (11/20/2007)
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2 Comments to
“Minding Mindfulness”
I don’t know that mindfulness brings self control or control over physical pain. The idea is that the mindfulness changes our relationship with ourselves and the way we relate to pain. But to call this control is to miss a major point. Mindfulness, in fact, enables us to let go of trying to control things that can’t be controlled, and thereby gives us a certain level of acceptance. The idea is that it is not the pain, per se, that is the problem. It is our unwillingness to “have” it, and our attempts to control that make it unbearable.
You said it much better than I - thanks Greg.
It’s a tricky concept to explain to someone who’s never tried it, then to learn to use the technique consistently. 
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Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 12 Nov 2007
