Online Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Course | Hacker News Reader

Online Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Course

palousemindfulness.com

101 pointstomaskazemekas19 comments

I'm using https://www.headspace.com/ for two years and it had a huge impact on my life.

Being mindful is a cognition pattern of introspection and self-awareness. More invested hours lead to a higher "skill" like in playing music or programming.

So you should train your brain on a regular basis to make this behavior more dominant in your thinking processes.

Mindfulness for your work: http://focusr.co/ (i.e., instead of being mindful to your breath or some aspect of your environment, you can practice mindfulness by bringing your attention back to your current task).

That's Flow:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)

I think flow is the more the state achieved, whereas mindfulness is learning to notice when flow is not achieved, or is achieved for the wrong thing.

For example, I can be in flow while coding, but if things get too frustrating I may drop out of flow. Mindfulness for me is noticing quickly that I am frustrated. If I don't, I may end up in flow while reading Hacker News; being mindful helps me recognize that state rather than getting caught in it until noprocrast boots me.

smoothscroll.js is quite annoying for mac users.

There is a chrome extension that does this https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/momentum/laookkfkn...

There's also a Chrome extension for Focusr: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/focusr/fgdcnfgmneb...

This is especially useful because it prevents downward spirals from happening before they begin. For example, if you want to work on X, you can write "Do X" in this extension. Then, when you open a new tab to do something non-productive (like browsing reddit, etc), you'll see a huge reminder of "Do X" to prevent goofing off before it even happens.

Mindful in May is also happening this month and those that subscribe are taken through a great course in mindfulness with daily emails.

http://www.mindfulinmay.org

> whether they live in Moscow, Idaho or Moscow, Russia

That's a funny way to put it.

I can say from personal experience that actively learning to be mindful - meaning present and sensing - instead of constantly being obsessed with thoughts and mental picturing of the future and the past - has a very positive impact on my well-being and that of the people in my environment who I communicate and interact with.

I am definitely going to give this course a try.

I meditate daily. I use Passage Meditation and it has made my life a lot better.

For those interested in exploring, here is a link to the free online course: http://www.easwaran.org/introductory-passage-meditation-cour...

When I was looking for mindfulness resources on HN, one of the fundamental books on the subject was referenced in one of the comments: "Full Catastrophe Living" by Jon Kabat-Zinn. It is a fat book, more than 700 pages, and I proceded to read some shorter books on the field. Eventually, I came back to the book and now have almost finished it.

The linked course is based on the materials and the MBSR programe developed by the author of the book, Jon Kabat-Zinn, but I see that the author of the course has found and included some excellent additional audio and video resources.

These kind of things turn on all my bullshit/cult flags - does anybody here have any experience with this particular course or better yet scientific evidence that it works?

It is used within the British NHS, which means that a standards body has determined that it is evidence based.[1]

Personally, I've found it difficult to keep up the practise (meditating every day), but when I do remember it does improve things. Even as a one-off activity occasionally it is good for introspection, and identifying subconscious sources of stress allowing you to act on them.

[1] NICE aren't perfect, but they do a reasonable job.

> It is used within the British NHS, which means that a standards body has determined that it is evidence based

Hang on, that's not how it works. (For one thing health is devolved in Scotland so you have seperate English, Scottish, and Welsh NHSs. (Not sure what happens with NI.) More importantly:

http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/homeopathy/Pages/Introduction.a...

> Homeopathy is not available on the NHS in all areas of the country, but there are several NHS homeopathic hospitals and some GP practices also offer homeopathic treatment.

So, it's possible to get a stupid pointless "treatment" on the NHS. You might want to write to your local clinical commissioning group if you want to stop them spending money (about £4m per year) on homeopathy.

To be fair on NICE, from the same page:

"NICE currently does not recommend that homeopathy should be used in the treatment of any health condition"

"Some homeopathic remedies may contain substances that are not safe, or that interfere with the action of other medicines"

"there is no evidence that homeopathy is effective as a treatment for any health condition"

"Some people who use homeopathy may see an improvement in their health condition due to a phenomenon known as the placebo effect"

I'm not sure what the phrase 'NHS homeopathic hospitals' means. Does it mean more than what is implied by the paragraph following the one you quoted, that some people that work for the NHS also work privately on alternative medicine like homoeopathy.

I'd also be interested to know more about the £4m per year.

The page on mindfulness has a very different tone [1] to the one on homeopathy.

[1]: http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/stress-anxiety-depression/pages...

Yes, I think there was an MIT study done which concluded that it helped with hypertension.

Not sure why you're downvoted. Seems a reasonable question.

Wikipedia defines: "Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) is a mindfulness-based program designed initially to assist people with pain and a range of conditions and life issues that were difficult to treat in a hospital setting developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, which uses a combination of mindfulness meditation, body awareness, and yoga to help people become more mindful. In recent years, meditation has been the subject of controlled clinical research. This suggests it may have beneficial effects, including stress reduction, relaxation, and improvements to quality of life, but that it does not help prevent or cure disease. While MBSR has its roots in spiritual teachings, the program itself is secular. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness-based_stress_reduct...

Meta-Analysis of 209 studies published 2013 in Clinical Psychology Review: "Conclusion: MBT is an effective treatment for a variety of psychological problems, and is especially effective for reducing anxiety, depression, and stress." [1]

[2] is a recent meta-analysis published in the same journal and looking into identifying the underlying mechanisms of mindfulness-based therapy aka how it works: "These findings are largely consistent with the theoretical underpinnings of MBSR and MBCT. Evidence for mindfulness, cognitive reactivity and emotional reactivity as mechanisms support the key theoretical premises underlying MBSR and MBCT that the cultivation of mindfulness skills leads to insight and non-reactive acceptance of one's experience which in turn lead to positive outcomes."

The underlying theory of this course is sound and has been shown to be on a similiar level of effectiveness as other therapies including pharmacological ones. Whether this specific online course (or any online course) is effective i can't comment on.

[1] http://www.verksampsykologi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/K...

[2] http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kate_Cavanagh/publicatio...

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