Meditation as Medicine

Dr. Robert Stahl has founded Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) courses in medical centers around the San Francisco Bay Area. He recently gave a Tech Talk at Google about meditation as medicine in relationship to MBSR. As you can imagine, the lecture was very well attended.

Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction was founded by Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center about thirty years ago. Initially, it was designed for patients in the hospital setting. Now it has found almost universal acceptance now.

There are MBSR classes in many cities. The teachings of mindfulness are placed in a secular setting without reference to the original sources.

Meditation as Medicine

Please allocate enough time to STOP and watch this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu5irWStNvA

You may find the following anagram very interesting (from the talk):

S - Stop = stop what you are doing for a moment
T - Take a breath = make it a mindful breath
O - Observe = observe your breath, body and feelings
P - Proceed = proceed in mindfulness

Note that the commentary on the anagram meanings was my own take on them. You may wish to think about STOPping on your own terms.

This is the kind of mindfulness exercise we can do almost wherever we are. For example, when we come to a STOP sign or a red light.

Now It's Your Turn

Do you find this to be helpful? What meaning do you ascribe to the anagram?

What else can you take home from the video? I would like to hear from you and so would your family and friends.