We find ourselves in a unique time in history, where time-saving technology is encroaching on our ability to relate to each other and ourselves. We spend more time engaging in stimulation and entertainment and less time integrating emotional experience.

The result?

Chronic, low-level stress and a nagging sense of disconnection.

Enter meditation.

Meditation is a tool for us to down-regulate our nervous systems. This, in turn, allows us to turn toward what we value. By engaging in meditation and sharing the practice with others, we have an opportunity to provide tools for health and happiness to a wide range of individuals, including ourselves.

Teacher training

Learn more about meditation and how to share this powerful tool with others at the upcoming Beginning Meditation Teacher Training, held at the Vail Vitality Center starting in June. The training, which is open to yoga teachers and meditation practitioners, will take place over the course of four weekends; it will be held one weekend a month, June through September.

This course will explain meditation along traditional lines, offering teachings that are accessible to all. By taking a close look at the various types of meditation, we will gain insight into the benefits of different techniques, and when they might be appropriate for an individual. Learn about common difficulties encountered during practice, as well as traditional methods to overcome these difficulties. With this knowledge, you will not only improve your own practice, but also learn how to guide others effectively.

The training is a great opportunity for yoga instructors who want to feel confident leading a meditation at the end of a yoga class, or for regular meditation practitioners to get a better understanding of their own practice and possibly begin to guide others.

We will explore mindfulness meditation and heart practices, and begin an inquiry into the practice of concentration and opening to insight. While the practices will be based on Buddhist meditation traditions primarily those of Theravadin Buddhism it will also include context for practices in other traditions. Rather than a religious-based training, the training will have a secular approach, for broad application in modern culture.

It is a common belief that meditation is simply forcing the mind to be quiet; with this attitude the practice appears difficult, and many people are afraid to begin, or quit after trying a couple of times. Learn how to overcome this resistance and employ a powerful tool that will reduce stress, increase self-awareness and happiness, and improve your emotional and physical health.

For more information, visit http://www.vailvitalitycenter.com.

Karen Anderson is the yoga director at the Vail Vitality Center. She has attended 10 month-long silent meditation retreats in Asia and the U.S. Her training in meditation is primarily in the Indo-Tibetan tradition. She is empowered and certified to teach meditation by Noah Levine in the lineage of Jack Kornfield and the Thai forest tradition.

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Beginning Meditation Teacher Training begins mid June at Vail Vitality Center - Vail Daily News

The gentle force behind a proposed Redding Tai Chi Meditation Garden near the Sundial Bridge is seeking online votes for a monthlong grant competition that starts April 12.

Acupuncturist Michel Czehatowski and members of Redding Tai Chi have partnered with the Shasta County Arts Council and Turtle Bay Exploration Park to create a tai chi park near the Sundial Bridge.

A Redding Tai Chi Meditation Garden project video has been submitted to the A Community Thrives (ACT) grant competition, which runs from 8:59 a.m. PST April 12 to 8:59 a.m. PST May 12. You can vote once daily by viewing the submission at this link.

A News Caf caught up with Michel, who runs Redding Acupuncture Health Care on Hartnell Avenue, to find out more about the garden project and what he hopes it will bring to the community.

Hi, Michel, and welcome to A News Caf. For those who dont know you, could you tell us briefly about yourself and your connection to Redding?

After attending and graduating from the San Francisco College of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine in 1984, we moved to Redding and I opened my first acupuncture practice that November. My daughter was 5 months old at the time; my son was born in Redding a couple years later. I consider Redding my home and enjoy living here very much.

Photos courtesy Michel Czehatowski / Foreground, Michel Czehatowski teaches tai chi.

I started learning tai chi in the mid-1970s and taught briefly in the early 80s and 90s. With a growing family and business, teaching tai chi was not a priority, but I always continued to practice on my own. A few years ago I started a class at Old City Hall and I also now teach through the Shasta College Community Education program. There are a lot of people in Redding interested in learning tai chi. When I offer a new class at either location, it always fills up quickly. I enjoy teaching and sharing my knowledge of tai chi and Oriental culture with my students.

We are glad youre herethank you for what you offer the community. A meditation garden seems like a natural fit for the Sundial Bridge. Could you walk us through how this concept originated and how its location was chosen?

My tai chi students and I practice tai chi outdoors in the McConnell Arboretum on the second Saturday of each month. Its beautiful and peaceful there, and we really enjoy it.

Tai chi in the McConnell Arboretum on a cold January morning.

Last summer I came across a news article about the David Chen Memorial Tai Chi Court in Rockville, Maryland. After David passed away, his tai chi students built an amazingly beautiful court for tai chi practice in his memory. I shared the article with my students, and we all thought how wonderful it would be to have one like that here in Redding. Because the arboretum is so beautiful and centrally located, our first thought was to build it inside the arboretum.

Yes, the arboretum is a lovely spot. Where did you take the meditation garden idea from there?

After deciding to go forward, we approached Debra Lucero of the Shasta County Arts Council. She liked the concept and offered to help. She introduced our project to several people, including Kim Niemer, Reddings director of community services. Kim liked the idea also and after we expressed our desire to build in the McConnell Arboretum, she contacted Mike Warren, president and CEO of Turtle Bay Exploration Park. That led to a meeting with Mike and some of his staff members. Mike suggested a place at the northwest end of the Sundial Bridge.

The spot couldnt be better. Theres a great view of the Sundial Bridge, the river, and easy public access. Its a perfect location to enjoy the outdoors. This spot will utilize an area that previously was a staging area for construction of the Sundial Bridge. Because of the construction fill it is not easy to grow plants there, so creating a use for it that does not require more intensive watering works well.

Left to right, architects Terry Topolski and Ryan Russell, with Michel Czehatowski, look at the project plans at the site location.

That does sounds like an ideal location and use of landscape. What excites you most about this project?

Im passionate about this project for several reasons. One, of course, is because I think tai chi is an exercise that could benefit a lot of people. Second, it will provide an area for seniors (and others) to practice low-impact meditative exercises and hopefully influence more to consider taking up those practices.

Another reason is that there are only two existing tai chi courts in the USA one in Houston and one in Maryland. Ours will be the third in the country and the only tai chi court on the West Coast. With our central location we are sure to draw a lot of interest to Turtle Bay and the city of Redding.

Thats really interesting that it would be only the third tai chi court in the country. Would you give a basic description of what tai chi is and how it relates to yoga or other martial arts?

Tai chi is a low-impact, meditative exercise that originated in China. Because it is rejuvenating in nature, it is very popular with middle-aged and senior citizens. With most exercises you will peak at a certain point and eventually you will have to stop, but with tai chi you actually improve with age. It is quite common for people to actively practice tai chi into their 80s and beyond.

Tai chi increases flexibility and balance. It reduces stress. The movements are very slow, which encourage deep breathing and relaxation. Some people describe it as a standing form of yoga or standing meditation. Thats why we use the word meditation in the name of our project.

Tai chi is different from other martial arts in that we dont emphasize the martial aspects. Truthfully, anyone can learn to fight in a few months. But to develop your inner self takes a meditative practice. Practicing tai chi can help tame the emotions and make you feel more harmonious in your environment.

What will the meditation garden look like?

The Tai Chi Meditation Garden will be about 50 feet in diameter or roughly 1,800 square feet and will be made of flagstone. By itself it will be a work of art functional art since we have a purpose for it. The design is that of the tai chi diagram which Americans commonly call the yin yang symbol. The tai chi diagram is where the exercise tai chi gets its name. The outer circle of the symbol represents the oneness of all things and the inner fish-shaped design represents the duality or opposites in all things, such as night and day, hot and cold, heavy and light, hard and soft, left and right.

An artists rendering of the proposed Redding Tai Chi Meditation Garden.

How do you envision people actually utilizing the space on a given day? Will you teach classes out there? Can people do different activities on it at the same time?

I think people who practice tai chi will be there mostly in the early mornings or evenings. I plan to offer free instruction on Saturday mornings. This park is for everyone so we expect people who practice other low-impact exercises such yoga, dance, or breathing exercises like Qigong to also use it, and theres no reason why this all cant happen at once. There will be plenty of room. People can also sit on the benches and relax.

That sounds delightful. How much will it cost to build the garden? In addition to the ACT grant competition, how else are you seeking to raise funds?

We need $100,000 to build the park, and we must have those funds on hand before we are allowed to start construction. We believe that we have a good project for the ACT grant competition, but in order to be considered we need to be ranked in the top ten most popular videos in our category of Wellness. Thats why getting the word out and having people vote for the project is so important.

However, we are looking at other grants and we also accept donations. The Shasta County Arts Council is our fiscal sponsor so donations are tax-deductible. You can make a donation online with your credit card or paypal through their website.

Besides the people already mentioned, are there others working with you on this project?

First and foremost, the Wuwei Tai Chi Club in Rockville, Md., inspired us for the project. They have been sharing their experience in building their Tai Chi Court and most importantly they allowed us to use their architectural plans as a guideline for our project. We are very indebted to them for their help.

Besides our dedicated Redding Tai Chi students we have partnered with the Shasta County Arts Council. It was through the efforts of Debra Lucero and her awesome staff that we were able to make a top-notch video for the competition. Turtle Bay Exploration Parks Lisa Endicott, who is their horicultural manager, will be designing the landscaping around the project. We also have two fine architects, Ryan Russell of Russell Studio and Terry Topolski, modifying our plans for the site. Former Redding resident Hannah Grgich of Hook and Ladder Design has been donating her graphic arts skill. She has designed our project logo, artist rendering of the project, and created animations for our video.

The project logo is composed of the tai chi symbol (yin yang symbol) and the Sundial Bridge. Theres also a turtle in it for Turtle Bay (not everyone sees the turtle at first).

Is there anything else youd like to say about the project, or the upcoming grant competition?

This project will benefit the community on a lot of levels, and I believe it is a win-win for everybody. It provides a public area to increase health awareness and promote exercise, it creates a new feature to benefit Turtle Bay Exploration Park, and we hope it will increase tourism in our area. My goal is to have the park built when the Turtle Bay Sheraton Hotel opens.

This is a nationwide competition so you dont have to live in Redding to vote on it. If you like this project, encourage your family and friends to vote also. Winning the grant would make all the difference in the world in making this happen and wed love to have you be a part of our success.

Thank you, Michel.

You can view the Shasta County Arts Council video about the projecthere.

The top 10 voted submissions in the ACT grant competition will be reviewed by a panel of judges, who will award $50,000 or $100,000 each to their top three picks. Voting starts Wednesday here.

Follow project updates on Facebook search for Redding Tai Chi Meditation Garden Project.

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Redding Tai Chi Meditation Garden Project Seeks Online Votes for Grant - A News Cafe

MENLO PARK, Calif., April 11, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- At a time when the World Health Organization announces that depression tops the list of ill health conditions, the Abide mobile app built by Carpenters Code reports that their guided Christian meditation platform is helping 4 million users in 210 countries alleviate their depression, anxiety and day-to-day worries. For more than a year, the fast growing mobile app has been ranked in the Top 10 by iTunes for the search term "depression." Abide users report that the guided meditations help them calm down wherever they are, regardless of the time they may have.

The first step The World Health Organization recommends for recovery of depression is to speak to someone they trust. Meditation, a long held Christian tradition to connect with God, is making a big comeback through the Abide mobile application. Abide reaches millions daily through their partners, the YouVersion Bible app and Christian radio station KLOVE, and tracks more than 15,000 new downloads per month for the past two years.

"Christian meditation is one of the best ways to fight depression, the world's leading illness, which often can go untreated," said Neil Ahlsten, co-founder of Carpenters Code. "Our guided meditation app is designed to meet the often very private needs of people in the midst of very busy lives. Our users report that Abide helps them find pockets of time to connect with God for peace and stability in their lives."

Stats for Abide - Christian Guided Meditation

Stats for Depression - World Health Organization

Social Links

About Abide

Abide, built by Carpenters Code in Silicon Valley, is the leading digital platform for Christian meditation reaching 4 million users in 210 countries. The daily guided meditations, led by members of the Abide team and prominent guest leaders, offer a range of topics and guides based upon Scripture and proven meditational practices. Available for free or $29.99 a year with premium content through iTunes or Google Play.

Media Contact Stephanie Xavier 154459@email4pr.com 415-602-4035

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/four-million-turn-to-guided-christian-meditation-app-for-relief-of-depression-anxiety-and-spiritual-health-300437896.html

SOURCE Carpenters Code

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Four Million Turn to Guided Christian Meditation App for Relief of Depression, Anxiety and - PR Newswire (press release)

Author and public speaker Tim Ferriss interviewed over 200 high performers and business leaders, and found that 80 percent of them meditate.

I liked how he described meditation is like taking a warm bath for your brain. Ahh, that sounds so good. Most of us love a nice relaxing bath. Why not take one for the brain?

I believe some of the reasons people do not meditate are:

Let me dispel some of these beliefs.

Meditation can be done pretty much anywhere, at any time, for any length of time and in many different ways. It is about finding a way that works for you personally.

My daily ritual is to meditate when I get into bed. Every night I decide how I want to meditate and for how long. Sometimes it could just be for a minute, other times an hour. Other times I listen to a guided meditation, occasionally I just sit in silence or soak up some soothing music.

One of my favorite ways to meditate is to visualize how I would like to see something play out in my life. My favorite experience of this is when I was preparing for my hike up Mt. Whitney. Every night I would visualize the hike. When I actually did the hike and made it to the top, it was if I had done the hike many times before.

The power of visualization is that the brain takes it in as if it is truly happening. Then the brain is working while you are asleep or doing other activities to make your visualization happen. This is why 80 percent of leaders meditate. They know it works.

So what is it that meditation does and why is it that people swear by it?

Here is a list of 50 different benefits that studies have shown on the benefits of meditation.

With this list, why would we not meditate? To help you get started or assist you in your meditation practice, here are some wonderful Android and iOS apps for you to explore: Insight Timer, Buddhify, Calm, Headspace, Mindbody Connect, Mindfulness App.

And speaking of technology, lets see what happens when we combine meditation with technology.

In your minds browser, clear your cache Now delete your historyNow navigate to a blank web page (Joyoftech.com).

Contact Dr. Shelly Zavala at DrZavala.com or [emailprotected]

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Insights: Meditation is a Warm Bath for Your Brain - Newport Beach Independent Newspaper

by Wilson Walker April 9, 2017 7:26 PM

A woman meditates during a "sound bath" at the Conservatory of Flowers. (CBS)

SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX) As night falls on Golden Gate Park, people file in to the Conservatory of Flowers, past the exotic plants, carrying yoga mats.

They arent here for a yoga class, however.

What were trying to do is create an environment where people can unplug from the day unplug from their life for an hour, Guy Douglas explained.

Douglas describes himself as a sound practitioner and he wants to help people tune in the music of the spheres.

Were all carrying our own vibrations as we walk in here from our day. So its really an aligning of frequencies to kind of align you with these pure harmonics and tones very organic and astral, designed to take you out of your mind, Douglas said.

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Squelching Stress With Sonic Meditation at Conservatory of Flowers ... - CBS San Francisco Bay Area

Mindfulness is a hot commodity these days. The market around meditation and mental well-being has, in recent years, ballooned to more than $1 billion, with countless websites, YouTube series, mobile apps, and subscription services existing on top of your traditional in-person classes and studio memberships. With just a few finger taps or mouse clicks, you can find a whole world of self-help gurus and zen advisors that are eager to help you, oftentimes for free, enhance your self-awareness and better cope with negative emotions.

The sheer enormity of the industry is enough to overwhelm any stressed or anxious individual, to say the least. And thats precisely what drew me to Sway. The iOS app, costing just $2.99, is a different kind of mindfulness software. It uses the motion of the phone, as measured by the accelerometer, to try and put you into a relaxed and meditative state for about 20 minutes per day.

Sway is bite-sized mindfulness for medtiation novices

The idea centers on moving your phone around in a gentle circular motion, while lush nature sounds from the app help facilitate the calming effect. You can also walk at a steady rhythmic pace, while leaving the phone in your pocket. If youre moving too fast, or too slow, the app will alert you so you can adjust. In my time using the app every day for the past week, I found it be a pretty low-effort but surprisingly high-reward experience. Ive ended up using Sway about once every two hours or so to clear my head and write this article, it turns out.

The app was conceived by interaction designer Peng Cheng and developed in partnership with digital design studio Ustwos Malmo, Sweden, division. You may recognize Ustwo as the brand behind breakout mobile game Monument Valley. That app was a blissful and meditative experience of its own, relying on mind-bending graphic design, cryptic narrative elements, and abstract and atmospheric sound design to create an otherworldly experience. Much of the same visual and audio aesthetics can be found in Sway, which employs minimalist colors and scatters sparse lines of text on-screen only when absolutely necessary.

Its Chengs philosophy, however, that gives Sway its power. The designer worked with Ustwo three years ago to develop Pause, a similar mindfulness app that had you tracing shapes with your finger on the phone screen. With these apps, Chengs design outfit Pauseable is trying to create the effect of simple meditation without the intense instruction and repetitious practice that makes modern mindfulness apps feel like chores. The goal with Sway is pretty simple: let anyone anywhere meditate using only the motion of their hand and a pair of headphones. Cheng tries to achieve this by treating the smartphone not as a detracting force you have to ignore, but as a tool thats essential to the process.

The idea of Sway is actually really simple: we want to bring the mind back to the body. Most of the time we use our body in a rather mechanical or automatic way, but the body is actually an amazing tool for mindfulness practice, Cheng says in a promotional video for Sway. Were using technology to sense human voluntary attention. The music and the visuals are just there to help sustain the focused attention, he adds. In fact, the visuals arent integral. Pauseable and Ustwo designed the app so you wouldnt need to look at the screen at all.

Its this embrace of the phone as an object necessary to this particular meditative practice and not just a window to an on-screen guide that sets it apart. Most apps of this variety, like the mobile mindfulness leader Headspace, rely on whats known as guided meditation. They ferry you, through voice lessons and illustrated graphics, like a teacher would. The goal is to help you learn the tenets of meditation and explore a number of ways to apply those lessons to your work performance or your diet or even your dating life.

The apps themselves are mostly there to gamify the experience letting you unlock new levels and earn rewards for hitting your goals and to act as databases for a multitude of different existing techniques for you to explore. In the case of Headspace, that means paying a subscription fee that costs anywhere between $6 to $13 a month (or a whopping $419.95 for a lifetime membership) to access a majority of the content. Its certainly an option for those looking to get quite serious about making meditation and mindfulness practice a big part of their daily routine.

But there is an inherent contradiction in relying on software to help you find peace of mind, when so much of modern lifes anxieties feel linked to our hyper-accelerated news feeds and dependencies on social networks and the steady drip of messaging notifications. If youre seeking a healthier and more mindful mental state, it seems more difficult to do so while staying helplessly tethered to a smartphone screen and LTE data connection. Of course, you can take your learnings from an app like Headspace and leave your phone behind. Or you could sign up for a good old-fashioned meditation class at a yoga studio. But it still begs the question: how at peace can these practices be when theyre impossible to access without staying plugged in?

Sway, at the very least, embraces the contradiction. It doesnt treat technology as a foe, but its not also completely dependent on it. It recognizes that our smartphones will reasonably be with us at all times. It then uses that fact to create a meditation system thats always at your fingertips, and devoid of the burdensome feeling of a gym membership. Of course, it may not be as intensive and thorough as Headspace, or as life-changing and rigorous as traditional meditation practice. But its bite-sized mindfulness for when the news notifications feel like an avalanche and Twitter feels like a vice, which is just when you might need the relaxation the most.

See the article here:

Sway embraces the contradiction of meditating with your smartphone - The Verge

In 1993, a hundred years after the renowned World Parliament of Religionsmet in Chicago a second parliament gathered. The highlight for many was an address by the Dalai Lama. And certainly a worthy thing.

For me, however, the most important thing to come out of that gathering was a document, Towards a Global Ethic. The principal author was the Roman Catholic priest and scholar Hans Kung. Father Kung is something of a controversial figure within his church, I once heard him described as the Catholic Churchs finest Lutheran theologian. He is nonetheless considered one of the ecumenical Christian communitys finest minds.

The document declares there are four broad, ancient guidelines for human behavior which are found in most of the religions of the world, which it listed as irrevocable directives for those who would find peace on and for our planet.

The document was signed by two hundred religious leaders representing, if not officially, pretty much all the worlds religions, including Christians, Jews, Muslims, Taoists, Jains, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Bahai, Native Americans and other earth-centered traditions. The Dalai Lama signed it, as did the Reverend Dr Robert Traer of the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches in the United Kingdom, and, Im delighted to note, my old mentor the Buddhist scholar Professor Masao Abe.

These irrevocable directives were, I should say, are 1) a commitment to a culture of non-violence and respect for life 2) a commitment to a culture of solidarity and a just economic order 3) a commitment to a culture of tolerance and a life of truthfulness 4) a commitment to a culture of equal rights and partnership between men and women.

Im deeply moved by this analysis, which I think cuts through the fog of the conservative part of religions, that part which is meant to sustain and transmit a particular culture, defining an inside and an outside, a us and a them and, which is so often the part of religion used as a club to beat people into conformity. And, instead, really, really succeeds at pointing to the radical heart of pretty much all religions, that part which opens us to the finest of what it means to be human located within and among, fully celebrating, all as a part of some mysterious whole that claims our allegiance. More, claims our very lives.

The first of the directives, a grand intuition of our deep humanity, is that in spite of our natural proclivities to violence, there is always the possibility of a better way. The second tells us we genuinely are responsible for each other, and how our lives need to take that deep truth into account. The third points to our need for broad tolerance, which is found within our commitment to genuine honesty with our selves and with each other. And, finally, that fourth, so buried in so many religions, but implicit at their heart, that women and men need each other, and can only heal from the wounds of life when we see we are all in it together as equals. I would add that the issues of sexual minorities are bound up with this last assertion, inevitably, inextricably. The only thing missing is a clear statement seeing beyond the wounds of race. Sadly, it is a big thing missing.

Small wonder the Zen Peacemakers founded by Roshi Bernie Glassman and other members of the White Plum Asangha have adopted it as a principal document. And, my own Boundless Way Zen has, with some tweaking of the language to address our own sense of the need to fix that one missing point by explicitly including women, and men, and people of every race and condition sharing this small and fragile planet, trying to capture that fullness through the phrase all people, also take it as a core document, usually cited in our precepts ceremonies as well as in our ordinations.

I commit myself to a culture of nonviolence and reverence for life; I commit myself to a culture of solidarity and a just economic order; I commit myself to a culture of acceptance and a life based on truthfulness; and I commit myself to a culture of equal rights and partnership among all people. Here we these four commitments I feel we find something terribly important being held up. It is a call to a life of authenticity and truth. And it shows us a way of healing for hearts and mending a world torn by strife.

And certainly, certainly this is something expressing much of the heart of the Zen way. At least as Ive come to understand that way of holiness and care through attention to the totally ordinary.For me this document and its four irrevocables take us from ink on paper and into our actual lives.

There is a Japanese saying, gyogaku funi, which means practice and study are not two.And these four deceptively simple statements, these four commitments are a pretty good way to find how that practice and our investigation of the deep matter are in fact not two.

And, yes, not one, either. Messy. And beautiful.

See more here:

Zen and the Four Commitments: A Small Meditation - Patheos (blog)

Meditation helps kids perform in school Miami Herald The Quiet Time Program, using the Transcendental Meditation technique (TM), has been shown to reliably reduce mental and physiological stress, create orderly brain functioning, and promote development of intelligence, creativity, and problem solving.

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Meditation helps kids perform in school - Miami Herald

METRO/MylesGoode

Ayahuasca, a powerful South American hallucinogen often consumed as a tea to take users on spiritual journeys has similar effects to meditation.

Researchers in Barcelona have found that taking ayahuasca leads to traits seen in experienced meditators such as increases in openness and decentering.

Amanda Feilding of the UK-based Beckley Foundation says decentering is the ability to objectively observe ones thoughts and feelings without associating them with identity.

Ayahuasca tea contains DMT, a chemical which causes intense LSD-like trips.

Its pretty powerful stuff one user on Erowid says, I was transported to that extremely alien-like realm that I had been to so many times before. I felt like I was being schooled on existence. A teacher entity that seemed to have some sort of almost condescending power over me was trying to convince me that they constructed our reality completely

Researcher Jordi Riba is monitoring brain activity in depressed people after using ayahuasca and found that the drug actually changes activity in the brain.

One study with 17 depressed volunteers showed a decrease in activity in areas of the brain which tend to be overactive in conditions such as depression and anxiety.

Boris Johnson pulls out of Russia visit following chemical attack in Syria

Russia says it was on the 'verge of a military clash' with the US after Syria strike

Ed Miliband lipsynced to A-ha's Take On Me and dressed as Kanye West

David Nutt, the director of the neuropsychopharmacology unit at Imperial College London, says that people struggling with depression or addiction are locked into patterns by their brains control centres.

Nutt says, Psychedelics disrupt that process so people can escape.

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Taking hallucinogenic drugs 'has similar effects to meditation on the ... - Metro

The Mindfulness & Wellbeing Project is a component of the Transforming Surge Capacity project, led by Action Aid as part of a portfolio of projects organized by the Start Network, and funded by DfID.

The well-being of aid workers has become a hot topic of discussion in recent years, but it seems much of the talk has yet to translate into meaningful actions.

During a meeting with colleagues at the START Networkfive years ago, Action Against HungerPartnerships Program Manager Hitendra Solanki suggested the idea of introducing mindfulness meditation in the humanitarian sector as a means to prevent stress, which can lead to burnout, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Solanki was referring to a practice in which individuals cultivate a sense of awareness about their own thoughts, emotions and bodily sensations. With time, meditation can help practitioners better relate to these thoughts and emotions and catch early signs of stress before they worsen.

It means you can be aware of things building up before they get out of control or in a more acute stage. If you can catch the subtle signs of stress tensing up in your body, feeling tight or sick in your stomach at the earliest indications of that, it means that you then have the ability to take steps to mitigate it [from] getting into a full blown panic attack for example, or stress accumulating until youre physically sick or youre mentally ill, he told Devex during a visit in Manila early this year, where he conducted a mindfulness meditation training to a group of aid workers, psychology students and personnel at the Ateneo de Manila University.

The practice has its roots in Buddhism, but Jon Kabat-Zinn, a professor of medicine at the University of Massachusetts, developed a program called Mindfulness-Based Stress Reductionthat draws on the scientific evidence of the impact of self-awareness on peoples mental well-being.

79 percent of 754 aid workers admitted to experiencing mental health issues.

Several universities, such as Oxford and Bangor in the U.K., offer courses on MBSR and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, which is focused on helping individuals overcome depression. But there remains limited understanding in the humanitarian sector of what it is, what its not and what its potential benefits are.

The majority of Solankis colleagues to whom he initially proposed the idea rolled their eyes and associated the practice with hippie culture, he admitted.

But the U.K. Department for International Developmentagreed to fund the project a component of the Transforming Surge Capacity projectunder the START Network for three years through its Disasters Emergency Preparedness Program. This allowed Solanki to introduce the practice on a wider scale in the nonprofit sector. Since 2015, the project has engaged an estimated 180 individuals both in person and through audio- and video-based trainings in Pakistan, the Philippines and Thailand. Now Solanki wants to get the evidence base for the practices feasibility, outcomes and impact.

Mindfulness as a practice is not new; a number of high-profile individuals, such as Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan, Huffington Post co-founder and former Editor-in-Chief Arianna Huffington, and CNN Senior Correspondent Anderson Cooper have all embraced the practice.

But most of the available literature that looked into its impact on a larger scale for those who underwent the training has been limited in the corporate sector, where mindfulness has received considerable attention and interest from companies such as Google, Intel and General Mills.

Inspired by the practice, Google launched SIY, or Search Inside Yourself, in 2007, a program spearheaded by one of its engineers, Chade Meng Tan. The program has since rolled out of Google and is now a nonprofit, but it remains a popular training program at the tech giant. An estimated 2,000 Google employees have already gone through the course, and a number of them at least anecdotally have reported changes in their focus, relations and how they handle the pressures of working in such a demanding, fast-paced setting, according to a 2012 article in The New York Times.

Getting that evidence base is what Solanki hopes to achieve in the projects third year, but there have been setbacks and challenges, he said. Plans for an app that participants can use to input data about their experience in practicing mindfulness fell through. Aid workers availability has also put a strain on his evidence-gathering efforts.

How do you bring in an experiential training that takes time to develop in a sector where everything needs to be done immediately? he said. Most people in the sector dont even have time to go for a 5-day training course because they could be pulled away into an emergency. Even when you can afford a time, a person will still be busy worrying about getting back to their inbox because the work is building up.

MBSR developed by Kabat-Zinn was for eight weeks, but to accommodate aid workers erratic schedules, Solanki had to develop a course fit for a five-day, one-day or even half-day trainings where he introduces the basics of mindfulness meditation. This allows aid workers to have a feel for the practice, which is helpful for them to decide later on whether theyd want to continue and deepen their understanding of how mindfulness works and how it can benefit them.

But another challenge is that not everyone is open to the idea, either out of lack of interest or deep-seated preconceptions on meditation being linked to religious pursuits. Some think meditation is about reaching a certain state of bliss, or being freed of negative thoughts. There remain individuals who, after an eight-week course on MBSR, still dont quite get it, said Solanki.

Just imagine youre sitting there, saying OK, I want to achieve a state where there are no thoughts. So every time a thought comes into your head, as it will inevitably do as that is the nature of the mind, youre going to be sitting there getting more and more frustrated and stressed because, oh God, Im thinking again, he said.

The aid sector does not currently have a system in place to get a full picture of how much work-related stress is affecting aid workers mental health and performance. But the few statistics available that tried to capture a segment of the aid worker population revealed worrying numbers.

A Guardian survey in 2015revealed 79 percent of 754 aid workers admitted to experiencing mental health issues: anxiety, depression, panic attacks and post traumatic stress disorder. Approximately 20 percent of international staff from Europe and the U.S. that are part of moderate-to-large-sized NGOs also reported clinically significant levels of depression following deployment, based on researchconducted by the Centers for Disease Controland The Antares Foundation, a Dutch nonprofit providing staff care and psychosocial support to development and humanitarian organizations. Almost 12 percent also reported high anxiety three to six months after returning from mission. National staff from Jordan, Uganda and Sri Lanka who took part in a similar survey also reported significant levels of mental challenges: More than half of the close to 1,000 national staff showed significant levels of depression, while half showed significant signs of anxiety. About one-quarter showed symptoms of PTSD.

We can call it an absolute disaster or crisis if you want to, because thats exactly what it is, Solanki said.

The problem is that most aid workers would rather not talk about it, for fear of judgment and potentially losing their jobs, and aid organizations dont have an overarching policy to deal with their staff members well-being, including consultants on short-term contracts.

This is reflected in an online surveySolanki conducted in October 2016 among some members of the U.K.s START Network. It was meant as a general well-being survey to get a glimpse of aid organizations well-being practices, and consisted of two sets of questions, one for aid agencies human resources, one for aid agencies staff. But it revealed some trends in the sector: Despite increasing calls for organizations to put in place policies that ensure their staff members well-being, very few organizations allocate sufficient budget and have distinct policies in place for this purpose.

Eleven out of 19 aid agencies that took part in the survey apportion little of their budget for staff well-being and support a fraction of the 10 percent allocated for training purposes. Much of that support is focused on security and first-aid training prior to deployment, and only 38 percent of 184 aid workers answered yes to a survey question on whether they received specific training on self-care and stress management revealing differences in how well-being advocates and aid organizations define and understand the scope of well-being.

The survey didnt have data on how many of its participants have or are experiencing some form of stress, anxiety or depression, which several statistics suggest are pervasive in the sector. But the survey did reveal aid workers perceptions on mental health, from how comfortable they were in discussing it with different members of their organizations to what impact they thought opening up would have on their work and their colleagues perception of their abilities. Forty percent of 177 aid workers said they would feel reasonably comfortable discussing their mental health concerns with their line managers, but the numbers are not as high when it comes to discussing with colleagues (36.72 percent of 177), human resources (30.34 percent of 178), staff welfare (29.76 percent of 168) and occupational health service (23.35 percent of 167).

Out of 172 aid workers, 44 percent also felt discussing their mental health needs would have a somewhat adverse impact on their promotions and deployment opportunities.

Theres lack of foresight, understanding and consistency from one agency to another on well-being, Solanki said. Not only are there no policies realistically in place, we dont even know whos going to manage those policies, and theres hardly any money or resourcing even if youre able to put those things in place.

Some aid workers are aware of the practice. Alessandra Pigni, a humanitarian psychologist and author of The Idealists Survival Kit, a book that tackles the reality of burnout in the humanitarian sector, is a mindfulness practitioner herself.

But while most of the literature on mindfulness leans on the positive, Pigni cautions its no panacea. While she herself does mindfulness meditation and has introduced the practice with aid workers from different backgrounds in the Palestinian territories, it is not and cannot be the only answer to assuring aid workers well-being in the field or in the office.

We need a more systemic approach to deal with staff care; it cannot just be a training here and a counseling session there.

I remember a line manager took the time to write to me because she could see the benefits of [mindfulness meditation] in her staff [and] meditation helped me and helps many others, but the real mindfulness here is to tune in with what works for you and do it regularly, almost as a ritual, she told Devex.

In addition, addressing ones own health and well-being is just one part of the equation, she said. Burnout, based on research, is born and breeds in toxic workplaces where staff are overworked and still have to deal with tons of paperwork, red-tape, micromanagers and few incentives, in an environment that lacks care, respect, personal and professional growth, she explained.

Can you beat that on your own with mindfulness? Well, yes if you decide to challenge it and maybe walk away. No, if self-care becomes a crutch to make it to your next R&R, she said. We need a more systemic approach to deal with staff care; it cannot just be a training here and a counseling session there.

Solanki agrees the practice is no panacea for all ills, but he is eager to get more aid organizations and their staff to at least try mindfulness meditation and see for themselves how it can be useful for them in managing stress.

Were doing our best here to really explore how this could help aid workers, to see how it could be utilized by aid workers to try and improve not only their well-being in the sector, but also ultimately, if they have a sense of well-being, then they convey that to the people they are helping as well to improve their well-being, he said.

Solanki plans to conduct a larger survey later in the year to further explore the issue of well-being. Among the focus of that survey is understanding from human resources the barriers keeping organizations from having strong well-being policies and functions, and how open they are in talking about these issues outside the confines of their organizations.

While some are careful of airing their issues in public for fear of attracting negative attention, there are those who may just be looking for guidance and inspiration on how to put in place a proper well-being policy and support that fully meets and matches staff needs.

I want to explore how we can have a safe space where everybody can just sit down and discuss openly of the problems theyre having and document them and address them as a sector, Solanki said.

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Mindfulness meditation: Can this practice help mitigate aid worker stress? - Devex