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Mindfulness

Awareness: What is happening right now?

Acceptance: This IS happening, like it or not

Responding: Consciously, skillfully, wisely, compassionately (and knowing when we aren't)

Mindfulness is a way of being in our lives as they are right now. Often we are not. We're anxiously anticipating the future, chronically stuck in the past or on "automatic pilot." Cultivating the ability to actually live this moment fully, whatever it holds, opens us to possibilities of relating to what is happening in ways that create less suffering for ourselves and those around us.

Research shows that some of the possibilities people discover through the practice of mindfulness include:

• Ability to respond to stress more effectively
• Decreased pain levels and better ability to cope with pain or illness that may not go away
• Ability to make choices with greater clarity and awareness
• Increased sense of well-being and appreciation for life
• More

Mindfulness comes from an ancient meditation practice. Mindfulness-Based Programs are taught in a non-religious way and focus on integrating mindfulness into the realities of daily living. The Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program began at UI Hospitals and Clinics in 1996. It is modeled on the program founded by Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD, at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in 1979.

These programs are for people who want to be active participants in caring for themselves and are willing to commit to the challenges of daily practices that will help them to draw on their own internal resources. Participation can be a complement to conventional medical care.

What Can It Help?

• Anxiety and panic
• Chronic pain/illness
• Depression
• Inappropriate expressions of anger, chronic fearfulness
• High blood pressure
• Sleep disruption
• Stress
• More

Program Note: Special programs are available for individuals affected by this summer's floods.

The Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program is for people with stress, chronic pain or illness, anxiety or situational depression.

Registration information for Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program

The Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy Program is a depression relapse prevention program for people who have had at least two to three episodes of major depression and are in at least partial remission. An individual intake session is required. Contact Bev Klug at 319-384-7553.

UI Hospitals and Clinics
200 Hawkins Drive
Iowa City, IA 52242

In the interest of your health, UI Hospitals and Clinics buildings and campus are non-smoking environments.