MBSR Programme
MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction) 8 Week Course
The course includes:
• 8 x 2.5 hour classes
• A full Day of Mindfulness (from 10.30am – 4.00pm)
• CDs / Audio links and workbook to support your practice
Course Information:
“The challenge of mindfulness is to realise that “this is it.” Right now is my life. The question is, what is my relationship to it going to be? . . Is there any waking moment of your life that would not be richer and more alive for you if you were more fully awake while it was happening?”
– Jon Kabat Zinn
Practicing mindfulness helps us to develop inner resources such as clarity and stability which we can draw on through the ups and downs of life. It can ‘wake us up’ to aspects of our everyday experience which we miss when we are constantly lost in our thoughts. It allows us to be present for the good times, and it gives us awareness of what supports or interventions might be needed when times are tough. With practice we become better equipped to be present to life as it is, and to respond with more kindness and wisdom to whatever comes along.
The eight-week programme of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction was developed by Dr Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts Medical Centre in 1979. The course is suitable for those with prior meditation experience and those who have none. It introduces participants to different forms of mindfulness practice including sitting meditation, body awareness and gentle mindful movement. The classes also include explorations of how stress manifests in our lives. As the emphasis is on bringing mindful awareness into everyday life, a commitment to home daily practice of thirty to forty minutes is required. Research has shown that committed participation in an eight-week mindfulness course can have lasting positive effects on health and well-being.
The course includes:
• 8 x 2.5 hour classes
• A full Day of Mindfulness (from 10.30am – 4.00pm)
• CDs / Audio links and workbook to support your practice
Over the eight weeks of the program, the practices help you to:
• become familiar with the workings of your mind, including the ways we avoid or get caught up in difficulties.
• notice the times when you are at risk of getting caught in old habits of mind that re-activate downward mood spirals or rachet up anxiety levels.
• explore ways of releasing yourself from those old habits and enter a different way of being.
• get in touch with a different way of knowing yourself and the world.
• notice small beauties and pleasures in the world around you instead of living in your head.
• be kind to yourself instead of wishing things were different all the time, or driving yourself to meet impossible goals.
• find a way so you don’t have to battle with yourself all the time.
• accept yourself as you are, rather than judging yourself all the time.
• be able to exercise greater choice in life.
Effects of developing mindfulness include;
• Lasting decreases in physical and psychological symptoms
• An increased ability to relax
• Reductions in pain levels and an enhanced ability to cope with pain that may not go
away
• Greater energy and enthusiasm for life
• Improved self-esteem
• An ability to cope more effectively with both short and long-term stressful situations.
• Enhanced interpersonal relationships
• Increased ability to manage anxiety and depression and/or low mood
• Reduced tension
• Better sleep
• Greater sense of meaning and purpose in life’