#621 Mindfulness in the British Parliament

Interim report of the Mindfulness All-Party Parliamentary Group (MAPPG)

Executive Summary:

The Mindfulness All-Party Parliamentary Group has carried out an eight-month inquiry into the potential for mindfulness training in key areas of public life - health, education, workplaces and the criminal justice system. We find that mindfulness is a transformative practice, leading to a deeper understanding of how to respond to situations wisely. We believe that government should widen access to mindfulness training in key public services, where it has the potential to be an effective low-cost intervention with a wide range of benefits. We urge all political parties to consider our recommendations for inclusion in their manifestos for the 2015 General Election, as part of the pressing task of tackling the country's mental health crisis.

Key Recommendations:

Health
We recommend that access to Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) is substantially widened for adults with a history of depression, because it significantly reduces risk of depressive relapse and can reduce healthcare use.

Workplace
We recommend that public sector employers such as the NHS and civil service pioneer good practice and set up mindfulness pilot projects, which can be evaluated as part of their responsibility to combat stress.

Education
We recommend making mindfulness in schools a priority for development and research. Mindfulness programmes are popular with children and teachers, and research has shown promising potential, with an impact on a wide range of measures including wellbeing, executive function (attention, focus), emotional self-regulation and improved relationships.

Criminal Justice System
We recommend those in the criminal justice sector develop and evaluate pilot projects to identify appropriate forms of mindfulness teaching and establish their acceptability and effectiveness.

http://www.themindfulnessinitiative.org.uk/files/Mindful-Nation-UK-Interim-Report-of-the-Mindfulness-All-Party-Parliamentary-Group-January-2015.pdf

#618 Education Without Wisdom is Hollow, Irrelevant

     Quietly, diligently, skillfully working over a lifetime, for the love of one's profession, craft or trade and the overall benefit of humanity, without interest in glory, riches or other material payoff, is prosocial, civilized, and a sign of wisdom. It nurtures a life of deep meaning and value - it is how one cultivates one's own character, as a sculptor creates a sculpture. Such a refined quality of life could, and should be accessible to all human beings.
     However, too often, too many of us are in such a frenzied, egocentric hurry to achieve goals, that we fail to consider the actual value of the goals, or the consequences. Quick results are hyped in our shallow, materialist culture as sexy, and are richly rewarded with cash and glory. Far too many of us live naively spellbound by "lifestyles of the rich & famous". Shortcuts trample other people and the environment, and sooner than later, even the "perps" suffer. We ignorantly keep adding to humanity's heavy burden of needless suffering.

                Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
                Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, 
                The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
                The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
                The best lack all conviction, while the worst
                Are full of passionate intensity.
                                                                                                                   William Butler Yeats

     All intelligent, decent human beings are surely fed up with the escalating global deluge of uncivilized, antisocial, foolish, unwise behavior. 
     Human foolishness is literally tearing our world apart. Philosophers and psychologists have long advocated the urgent necessity of teaching wisdom (not only knowledge) in our universities: 
               http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2014/01/teaching-for-wisdom-urgently-needed-now.html
and 
               http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/16142/#sthash.hYxQPbDk.dpuf

     Why is wisdom completely absent from our educational system when humanity so desperately needs it? Progressive, relevant universities will surely offer not just courses, but undergraduate and graduate degrees in wisdom studies.  

     Universities, what are you waiting for?

#527 What Can We Do About Toxic Environments?

     We instinctively pull away from unpleasant, difficult situations, people, activities, and are attracted to pleasant, comfortable situations, people, activities. It's the well-known approach-avoid dichotomy see: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2012/03/65-embracing-full-catastrophe.html
     One very unfortunate consequence of this tendency is that when things start going awry in one's surroundings eg a colleague's behavior becomes disruptive, we're apt to avoid dealing with it in a timely, direct manner. We find it unpleasant, we may fear negative consequences from speaking to the person, we may feel incompetent intervening, we may not want to hurt the colleague's feelings, etc. Many of us have minimal training or skills in the behavioral sciences.
     Without constructive intervention, problems tend to persist or escalate. We'll often continue to avoid addressing the offender, because now it's really out of hand - way too much for us to handle. Now we may be grumbling incessantly about the problem with other colleagues, behind the offender's back, and even behind the backs of management, who could & should address the problem. Soon we're also grumbling about management for allowing the problem to get out of hand! THIS is the perfect recipe for poisoning one's environment. This is how a collegial, collaborative, family-like atmosphere can easily be turned toxic - not by the one troubled colleague - but by all the bystanders - the "nattering nabobs of negativism."

     So what is an appropriate, intelligent response (instead of avoidance) to such problems?  
     1) awareness & acceptance of problems
     2) approach & investigate them with curiosity 
     3) learn & apply skills to solve them early
     4) institute proactive preventive measures

     We can learn to become competent in any arena.  Competence transforms unpleasant difficulties that we may once have avoided, into manageable, even interesting challenges. We can become truly proactive by initiating a cultural shift in which training & competence in the psychosocial realm becomes a valued, integral part of our educational system. 
     See: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2013/04/fear-avoidance-ineffective-existential.html
     and: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2013/01/270-interpersonal-conflicts-inevitable.html

Peet J van Eeden, National Geographic   http://photography.nationalgeographic.com

#396 Intentionally Improving our own Mental & Emotional Health

     "... just as we as a society are learning to take more responsibility for our physical health by engaging in regular physical exercise, we can also take more responsibility for our minds & brains by engaging in certain mental exercises (mindfulness meditation) that can induce plastic changes in the brain and that may have enduring beneficial consequences for social and emotional behavior. 

     ... qualities such as well-being ought to be viewed, at least in part, as a product of trainable skills ... interventions explicitly designed to promote well-being may have beneficial behavioral and biological effects."

       Davidson RJ, McEwen BS. Social influences on neuroplasticity: stress and interventions to promote well-being. Nature Neuroscience 2012; 15(5): 689-95.

     For a nice summary of the neuroscientific support for the effectiveness & benefits of Mindfulness training see: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2013/09/emotions-attention-introspection-are.html

instagram.com/toddler777#

"Well-being is actually a skill," said Dr. Richard J. Davidson, professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and the study's senior author. "It's something that can be enhanced with training. If we can take more responsibility for our well-being, we can help to minimize burnout or decrease its severity." - See more at: http://wisdomresearch.org/blogs/news/archive/2013/09/05/mindfulness-meditation-fights-burnout-new-study-of-teachers-suggests-video.aspx#sthash.DXmVJtve.dpuf