Learn how mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) can help relax your body, calm your mind and spirit, and reduce overall stress. Our meditation techniques are ideal for women and men coping with chronic anxiety, illness, and pain.

1. Mindfulness Based Stress
Reduction
Presented by:
Nicole Swain, LPC, NCC,
ACS, ACT

2. Origin
• Conceived by Jon Kabat – Zinn, PhD
• First MBSR Center started in 1979
University of Massachusetts
• Based in Easter Philosophy of “Paying
attention with purpose”

3. Evidence Based
• Three decades of research
demonstrates clinically relevant
reductions in both physical symptoms
and psychological distress for those
who have training in mindfulness and
MBSR

4. Integration
• MBSR is not offered as an alternative to
traditional medical and psychological
treatments but as a complement to
these approaches

5. Premise
• More right with people than wrong
• Cultivating awareness of the mind and
body in the here and now
• Non – judgmental
• Practice allows choice

6. Entering the mainstream
• People with chronic
 Stress
 Illness
 Pain

7. Goals
• Allows insight into habitual ways of
thinking, feeling and behaving
• Cultivate non-judgmental awareness
• Learning to related directly to your life
(Respond vs. React)
• Alleviates the experience of suffering

8. The mind’s two modes
• Rehearsing
 About the future
• Rehashing
 What has already occurred in the past

9. Negative Self Talk
• Natural way a person talks to
themselves internally
• Tend to be biased towards the negative
• People tend to mindlessly buy into them
• Tend to exacerbate physical and
psychological stress and pain

10. Habitual Styles of Thinking
• Catastrophizing
• Discounting the positive
• Mind reading
• Being the eternal expert
• Shoulds
• Blaming

11. Wandering Mind
• The mind will inevitably wander
• Practicing mindfulness formally & informally
address negative self talk and habitual styles
of thinking
• Non- judgmental awareness gives a person
the opportunity and ability to choose to look
at situations and thoughts as events rather
than facts

12. Paradigm Shift in Being
8 Attitudes of Mindfulness:
• Beginner’s Mind
• Non-judgment
• Acknowledgement
• Non-striving

13. Attitudes of Mindfulness con’t
• Equanimity
• Letting Be
• Self reliance
• Self compassion

14. Mindfulness is
• “Simply observing, watching and
examining. You are not a judge but a
scientist”
• Letting it be (awareness)
vs.
Letting it go (acceptance)

15. Two forms of practice
• Formal: taking time each day to
intentionally sit, stand or lie down and
focus on the breath, bodily sensations,
sounds , other senses, thoughts and
emotions

16. Types of Meditation
• Concentration meditation: goal is to
focus on a concept, image or mantra
whereby the person becomes deeply
absorbed with the object of focus

17. Types of meditation con’t
• Insight meditation: goal is to bring full
attention to the body and mind in the
present moment without trying to
manipulate the experience
* Mindfulness meditations in MBSR are
considered insight meditations

18. Meditations in MBSR
• Mindful check – in
• Breathing meditation
• Sitting meditation
• Body Scan
• Stress & Anxiety meditation
• Loving – Kindness meditation
• Mindful lying & standing Yoga

19. Two forms of practice con’t
• Informal: bringing mindful awareness to
daily activities such as eating, chores,
exercising, relating to others and
basically any action

20. Informal: Weaving into everyday
• Upon awaking in bed
• As you bathe
• In living with others (home, work, etc.)
• Walking
• Doing tasks at work or home
• Eating
• Mindful Check – in

21. Informal Example
• STOP
• S = Stop
• T = Take a breath
• O = Observe
• P = Proceed

22. Formal Example
• 15 minutes Mindful Breathing Meditation

23. Resources
• Mindfulnesscds.com
• The Miracle of Mindfulness
 By Thich Nhat Hanh
• Full Catastrophe Living
 By Jon Kabat - Zinn
• The Mindful Way through Depression
 By Mark Williams, John Teasdale, Zindel Segal & Jon Kabat - Zinn
• The Mindful Way through Anxiety
 By Susan Orsillo & Lizabeth Roemer

24. Q & A
• Questions and Answers…………….

25. SMG MBSR Group
* Runs on a rotating basis.
* Summit Medical Group’s Behavioral
Health & Cognitive Therapy Center
654 Springfield Ave
Berkeley Heights, NJ 07922
908-277-8900