MBSR Conference II

Morning Meditation

Saki Santorelli led about 200 people in a sitting, walking and heart meditation. We were encouraged to make a heart connection with another in the room. My partner was a man who I have met several time at past conferences and as we touched each other's heart, the feeling of vulnerability and compassion was deeply felt.


Long Term Impact of Mindfulness-Based Self-Care

John Christopher and colleagues presented a study on the long-term effects of an graduate course in self care that included the teaching of a variety of mindfulness based practices. The course was described as a 15-week credit course that explored both ancient and contemporary methods of therapy and self-care; including MBSR, Qigong, Vipassana meditation etc. The students were required to a) practice meditation, b) keep an experiential journal and c) give a brief reasearch presentation.

Interviewing graduates of the program the researchers found that ex-students had brought many of the practices into their work with their clients along a number of important dimensions including greate attention, emotional regulation and self-care. Some of the practices used in the course can be found at www.montana.edu/wwwcc/docs/selfhelp.html


Keynote Address I

Margaret Chesney presented a compelling argument for prevention versus treatment in health care. The central thesis of her presentation was that the sole focus on pathology has meant that the medicine has spent considerable resources on trying to erradicate disease, rather than indentify and promote means to enhance the health of citizens.

Chesney offered a graphic example of this myopic vision. When faced with data that suggested that children in North America were increasingly becoming obese, her medical policy colleagues tried to hammer out a solution the problem. There solution was to turn to drugs that lowered lipids in the blood, which were deemed to be the culprit in the health-related problems that ensued from obesity. Chesney was shocked that none of her colleagues mentioned a national campaign of fitness, diet education and other preventitive measures that would have addessed the root causes of obesity.

Chesney demonstrated that positive psychology - the search for ways of enhancing health were likley to prevent about 70% of the premature deaths that now occur. One of the main mechanisms of positive health identified was positive affect. Postive affect leads to increase likelihood of engaging in healthy behaviour and and better physiological/immune responses.

Chesney recruited us all as advocates in the fight to include positive and preventitive measures in public health policy.

Keynote II

Richie Davidson presented his data on contemplative neuroscience. This requires a much more comprehensive review than I can provide here and now. Instead here are some pictures of the people wh havebeen influential in showing how we can actively shape our own brains through contemplative practice.

MBSR Conference

The Body Scan and Alpha Waves

Research at Harvard by Catherine Kerr suggests that students enrolled in an 8-week MBSR course had different brain-waves patterns than those who did not meditate after 3 weeks when they had been using a technique called the body scan. The participants showed a greater degree of separation between brain waves indicating attend versus don't attend. These results indicate that meditation practitioners get better at attending to and shifting there attention away from differaent parts of the body. This may be mportat because it show the degree to which we are able to excercise active management of our perception of events, a stated goal of the MBSR curriculum.

Mindfulness Training and Working Memory Capacity

Amishi Jha, from the University of Pennsylvania has been conducting research that demonstrates gains in working memory capacity by those who have particpated in mindfuless training. Working memory is important for execution of both "cold" cognitive tasks, those that are accomplished without emotional content, such as attention orienting and "hot" cognitive tasks such as the down-regulation of emotions. What this means is that mindlfulness training appears to be helpful in coping with stressful events by increasing the capacity of the working memory which is important in allowing trainees greater cognitive and affective control.

Some of Jha's research is quite controversial because her subjects have been soldiers heading to the Iraq war. There was concern that mindfulness was being used to train better soldiers and some questioned the ethics of this practice since it runs contrary to much of the Buddhist teachings that is dedicated to the reduction of suffering. Jha tried to justify her decision to work with this group on the basis that it may reduce the suffering of the soldiers returning and help them make better decisions when in the field. In light of the amount of suffering that this war has inflicted on the citizenry in Iraq, this argument seems a bit hollow.

Mindfulness Taining and Symptom Reduction in Social Anxiety Disorder

Phillipe Goldin has completed a study in which MBSR and CBT were compared with wellness training and a wait list control to determine what the mechanism of action for symptom reduction in people with social anxiey. Using fMRI technology the study indicated that MBSR resulted in greater activation in two brain areas; the amygdila involved with decreased emotional reactivity, and the cortical regions involved with cognitive regulation. CBT involved these two areas and additionally the language centres. While MBSR was successful in reducing symptoms, CBT emerged as the most effective treatmen strategy, likley because of the activation of the language centeres (self-talk).


Evening Keynote: Saki Santorelli

Saki gave a moving tribute to Jon in is tour through the history of the Center for Mindfulness. He concluded his address with a benediction that implored all of us to help him keep his vow to promote mindful practices in medicine, education, social work and leadership in our communities and in the world.

MBSR: An evening with Jon Kabat-Zinn

By simply bringing our attention to the breath we arrived to this moment in our experience, in our lives. And with the skill of a maestro, Jon asked people to stand if first. they had taken MBSR training at the centre. Second, if they were researchers or clinicians who had been trained in MBSR. And finally, if they were from other countries. As each group was recognized in turn there grew a profound sense of inteconnection in the room.

There was a deep sense of hope that through our cultivation of the bloom of the present we could change how we respond to the many challenges. We could limit the negative effects of the three causes of unwise action, greed, hate and ignorance. All that is required is to live more fully in the analogue world.

30th Annual MBSR Science Conference

• In the next few days Worcester MA will be the nexus of current research in mindfulness for the treatment of human medical and psychological afflictions. Give that this year represents the 30th anniversary of the Center for Mindfulness at UMass started by Jon Kabat-Zinn, it promises to be memorable. I started attending this conference about 5 years ago and it represents the highlight of my academic year.

What makes the conference unique? There are a few things that stand out for me over the years:

• Early morning meditation led by either Jon or Saki
• The quiet dignified respect that permeates the place
• The presence of so many respected researchers in the field
• Science blended artfully with practice
• And most of all the recognition that what we are learning offers one major source of hope for the planet

Stay tuned for updates from the conference in future blogs!

Barry

Out of the Cold

It is starting to get colder as November imposes its dreary clime on the landscape. And as a reponse to the need that exists, even in middle class university town, local churches open their doors to those who are homeless.

I arrived on Friday night at the First United Church in uptown Waterloo, Ontario to do my over night shift as a volunteer. I was greeted in a curt, but polite manner, by Howie (not his real name) and told to sign in. Howie is a no-nonsense guy, with a gruff exterior and a heart of gold. He tells me that he's been doing this work for ten years and it shows. He knows all the men and women who come through the doors, tired, cold, strung-out and looking for a place to crash for the night. I'm struck by Howie's straight-forward compassion, and his caring for the people who find themselves under his charge for the night.

Throughout the night we greet any new comers by readying a bed for them, preparing a bit of food if they are hungry and finding them some dry clothes in the mountain of donations that litter the hallway. In all we greet 40-50 people - Howie tells me this is a light evening. Some nights last year there were close to 100 folks huddled together in church halls across the twin-cities of Kitchener and Waterloo. When the program began ten years ago they would get around 10 people.

Howie tells me that most people in our community haven't a clue that we have a housing and homelessness problem. He says that some people, when considering the plight of those on the street, still believe that the homeless want to live the way they do. He observes, "nobody wants to live this way, there is always a story why they ended up here." And most of the stories include major losses and disadvantages that the majority of us have had the good fortune to dodge.

Most of the people are in bed and laying down when I arrived, so I didn't get much of a chance to talk to the guests. The ones that I did meet, however, almost to a person, presented with the signs of chronic mental illness. Among the disorders, addictions play a substantial role. The lack of services within the community has it these people hard; low employability, poor access to health services, the lack of affordable housing and the harshness of the northern climate have all conspired to make living on the streets the only viable means of surviving. Howie tells me,"these people know all the tricks; wandering around drunk and a nuisance can, if you're lucky, get you a night in a warm cell and a meal in the morning - you survive another night."

And that's what the Out of the Cold program tries to do - prevent people dieing on our streets. (Homeless will inevitably cut people's lives short - see http://www.streethealth.ca/Downloads/Streethealth0508.pdf for details). But these people need so much more, they need access to services that will help them deal with the problems that give rise to homelessness in the first place. (One such attempt at providing these services can be found at http://www.supportivehousingofwaterloo.org/)

Support me in my personal campaign for SickKids

Friends:

I'm emailing you today to tell you about the Friends of SickKids Campaign.

As some of you may know, as a young child I was born with a congenital heart defect. As young parents my folks were faced with the terrible dilemma that I would die before I reached school age. My dad was 26 and mom 23 when they came to Canada so that I could receive the life saving operation that allowed me to live a complete and meaningful life. My campaign is dedicated to the memory of Bill Mustard - a true Canadian hero, to whom I literally owe my life.

SickKids continues to be a place of remarkable hope for children and their families. It is where the sickest children go. This remarkable place treats children with aggressive cancers, the worst burns, those awaiting heart transplants, and more. The kind of life-saving care that happens at SickKids only happens at a few special places in the world.

That's why I volunteered to tell as many people as I can about SickKids. I hope you'll support me in my personal campaign to raise much needed funds to continue the good work of folks like Bill Mustard. It is ONLY because of committed supporters - people like you and me - that SickKids is a premier children's hospital in Canada - and one of the top three in the world.

To support me in my campaign, please click on the link below:

http://my.e2rm.com/personalPage.aspx?SID=1972031

When you make your donation online, you will receive a tax receipt directly from SickKids within 24 hours for the amount of your donation. Please give what you can, as soon as you can. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Barry Cull

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Waterloo Mindfulness

At the urging of Ross Clark, I arranged a meeting at my place for the inaugural meeting of Waterloo (Ontario) Mindfulness group. We discussed some of the ways in which a group could provide a community, a means to network and a way to further ongoing training needs. These ideas will likely be more fully developed as the group continues to meet.

Our group blog is at www.lotusneuron.com/watblog

Barry Cull