What is mindfulness?
According to the UC Berkleley Greater Good Science Center, mindfulness, "means maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment, through a gentle, nurturing lens."
Although the concept of mindfulness originates within Buddhism, the more secular usage of the term entered into the US in the late 1970s with the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn at UMass.
Basically, mindfulness is a way of slowing your body and mind down by becoming aware of the present moment. Breathe in and out slowly. Notice your senses. What do you see, smell, or hear in the present moment?
Mindfulness, including specific practices like mindfulness meditation, is a popular ways to cope with racing thoughts, anxiety, and stress. When you are feeling sad about something in the past or anxious about the future, take a moment to focus on the present moment.
Photo by Lesly Juarez on Unsplash
It is normal for your mind to wander when trying to meditate or focus on the present moment. In instances like this, you might find a so-called "anchor" helpful to ground your thoughts. What is an anchor in mindfulness meditation? An anchor could be counting your breaths in and out, or it could be as simple as focusing on a ray of sunlight streaming into your dorm room, or the beautiful colors of a maple leaf in the fall.
Photo by Zeynep Sumer on Unsplash Photo by Dave Smith on Unsplash
As late Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh wrote in his book, Peace is Every Step, "We are very good at preparing to live, but not very good at living. We know how to sacrifice ten years for a diploma, and we are willing to work very hard to get a job, a house, and so on. But we have difficulty remembering that we are alive in the present moment, the only moment there is for us to be alive. Every breath we take, every step we make, can be filled with peace, joy, and serenity. We only need to be awake, alive in the present moment."
So the next time you are stressed out, try to walk slowly, focusing on each step. What does your body feel? How do your feel feel as they touch the earth?
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Again, do not worry if your mind wanders when you try to focus on the present. Practice non-judgement of your thoughts and mind. You are human and deserve compassion. Being compassionate and non-judgemental towards yourself is called "self-compassion." If you find yourself being too judgemental of yourself, you may find Dr. Kristen Neff's book useful: Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself.
Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by ISBN: 0061733520Publication Date: 2015-06-23 Harper CollinsSelf-Compassion: Stop Beating Yourself Up and Leave Insecurity Behind offers expert advice on how to limit self-criticism and offset its negative effects, enabling you to achieve your highest potential and a more contented, fulfilled life. More and more, psychologists are turning away from an emphasis on self-esteem and moving toward self-compassion in the treatment of their patients--and Dr. Neff's extraordinary book offers exercises and action plans for dealing with every emotionally debilitating struggle, be it parenting, weight loss, or any of the numerous trials of everyday living.
The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook: A Proven Way to Accept Yourself, Build Inner Strength, and Thrive by ISBN: 9781462526789Publication Date: 2018-08-29Title recommended by UConn SHaW staff. Are you kinder to others than you are to yourself? More than a thousand research studies show the benefits of being a supportive friend to yourself, especially in times of need. This science-based workbook offers a step-by-step approach to breaking free of harsh self-judgments and impossible standards in order to cultivate emotional well-being.
- Mindfulness Sessions and Resources from UConn SHaWUConn Student Health & Wellness offers many drop-in mindfulness sessions in the Student Union
- UConn Mindfulness Club Contact InformationJoin the Mindfulness club!
- Mindful.orgResources on Mindfuless
- Foundations of Mindfulness Course on CourseraOffered by Rice University on Coursera, free to audit
- Mindfulness : youth voices (Kelty Mental Health Resource Centre)A video about the power of mindfulness from our Academic Video Online database. A video from the series, "Reaching Teens: Strength-Based Communication Strategies to Build Resilience and Support Healthy Adolescent Development" series produced by the American Academy of Pediatrics
Digital Library Books on Mindfulness
The Mindful Twenty-Something: life skills to handle stress ... & everything else by ISBN: 9781626254909Publication Date: 2016-12-01In The Mindful Twenty-Something, the cofounder of the extremely popular Koru Mindfulness program developed at Duke University presents a unique, evidence-based approach to help you make important life decisions with clarity and confidence. As a twenty-something, you may feel like you are being pulled in dozen different directions. With the daily tumult, busyness, and major life changes you experience as a young adult, you may also be particularly vulnerable to stress and its negative effects. Emerging adulthood, which occurs between the ages of 18 and 29, is a developmental stage of life when you're faced with important decisions about school, relationships, sex, your career, and more. With so much going on, you need a guide to help you navigate with less stress and more ease. .
You Are Here: Discovering the Magic of the Present Moment by ISBN: 9781590308387Publication Date: 2010-12-21In this book Thich Nhat Hanh, the renowned Zen monk, author, and meditation master, distills the essence of Buddhist thought and practice, emphasizing the power of mindfulness to transform our lives. Mindfulness is not an evasion or an escape, he explains. It means being here, present, and totally alive. It is true freedom and without this freedom, there is no happiness. Based on a retreat that Thich Nhat Hanh led, this book offers a range of simple, effective practices for cultivating mindfulness, including awareness of breathing and walking, deep listening, and skillful speech. You Are Here also offers guidance on healing emotional pain and manifesting real love and compassion in our relationships with others.
The Inner Work of Racial Justice:healing ourselves and transforming our communities through mindfulness by ISBN: 9780593083925Publication Date: 2019-09-17An essential mindfulness-based approach to increase our mental and emotional capacity to heal from injustices done against us Law professor and mindfulness practitioner Rhonda Magee shows that the work of racial justice begins with ourselves.
Making Space: creating a home meditation practice by ISBN: 9781937006006Publication Date: 2011-11-03Find peace and calm amid the busyness of your life with this new book by Thich Nhat Hanh. Designed to be both inspiration and guidebook for those new to mindfulness practice, Making Space offers easy-to-follow instructions for setting up a breathing room, listening to a bell, sitting, breathing, and walking meditations, and cooking and eating a meal in mindfulness.
Bodyfulness : somatic practices for presence, empowerment, and waking up in this life by ISBN: 9780834841697Publication Date: 2018 ShambhalaAs a foundation for a contemplative life, the body can both literally and metaphorically help us wake up. Breathing, sensing, and moving-the ways we know our body-carry tremendous contemplative potential, and yet, we so often move through our days unaware of or in conflict with our physical selves. In Bodyfulness, renowned somatic counselor Christine Caldwell offers a practical guide for living an embodied contemplative life, embracing whatever body we are in. Each chapter offers insights and practices that help us recover our lost physical wisdom-to integrate our bodies with mindfulness, to deal with emotions, and to develop attuned relationships. Bodyfulness inspires us to reclaim a body-centered contemplative life and challenges us to harness our potential to effect social and personal transformation in this body now.
The Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for Stress Reduction by ISBN: 9781684031290Publication Date: 2018-07-01Stress is a part of life--but it doesn't have to take over your life. With this guide, you'll develop the skills needed to help you manage difficult emotions, cultivate self-compassion, adopt positive physical and emotional habits, build resilience, and connect with your true values. Everyone experiences stress. From the moment we wake up in the morning to the moment we finally settle into bed at night, our days are packed with stressful moments--some big and some small--that can quickly add up and feel overwhelming. Unfortunately, you can't escape stress. But you can change the way you relate to it. This important workbook will show you how.
The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion by ISBN: 9781606232897Publication Date: 2009-04-28Title recommended by UConn SHaW staff. "Buck up." "Stop feeling sorry for yourself." "Don't ruin everything." When you are anxious, sad, angry, or lonely, do you hear this self-critical voice? What would happen if, instead of fighting difficult emotions, we accepted them? Over his decades of experience as a therapist and mindfulness meditation practitioner, Dr. Christopher Germer has learned a paradoxical lesson: We all want to avoid pain, but letting it in--and responding compassionately to our own imperfections, without judgment or self-blame--are essential steps on the path to healing. This wise and eloquent book illuminates the power of self-compassion and offers creative, scientifically grounded strategies for putting it into action. Free audio downloads of the meditation exercises are available at the author's website: www.chrisgermer.com.
Mindfulness: An Eight Week Plan for Finding Peace in A Frantic World by ISBN: 9781609611989Publication Date: 2011-10-25This book offers a set of simple yet powerful practices that can be incorporated into daily life to help break the cycle of anxiety, stress, unhappiness, and exhaustion. It promotes the kind of happiness and peace that gets into your bones. It seeps into everything you do and helps you meet the worst that life throws at you with new courage. The book is based on Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). MBCT revolves around a straightforward form of mindfulness meditation which takes just a few minutes a day for the full benefits to be revealed.
Breath: the New Science of a Lost Art by ISBN: 0735213631Publication Date: 2020-05-26No matter what you eat, how much you exercise, how skinny or young or wise you are, none of it matters if you're not breathing properly. There is nothing more essential to our health and well-being than breathing: take air in, let it out, repeat twenty-five thousand times a day. Yet, as a species, humans have lost the ability to breathe correctly, with grave consequences. Journalist James Nestor travels the world to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. The answers aren't found in pulmonology labs, as we might expect, but in the muddy digs of ancient burial sites, secret Soviet facilities, New Jersey choir schools, and the smoggy streets of São Paulo. Nestor tracks down men and women exploring the hidden science behind ancient breathing practices like Pranayama, Sudarshan Kriya, and Tummo and teams up with pulmonary tinkerers to scientifically test long-held beliefs about how we breathe.
Practicing the Power of Now by Call Number: Ebook on orderISBN: 9781577311959Publication Date: 2001-09-25Through meditations and simple techniques, Eckhart shows us how to quiet our thoughts, see the world in the present moment, and find a path to "a life of grace, ease, and lightness."
Mindfulness as Medicine: A Story of Healing Body & Spirit by ISBN: 1937006956Author of the critically acclaimed Healing: A Woman's Journey from Doctor to Nun, Sister Dang Nghiem is a Buddhist nun, a motivational speaker, and an inspiration for anyone who has ever dealt with severe illness or chronic pain. Dang Nghiem came to the U.S. from Vietnam with her younger brother in 1985. She earned two undergraduate degrees, graduated from medical school and was a practicing doctor at UCSF Medical Center before she became a Zen Buddhist nun in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh.
Don't Tell Me to Relax: Emotional Resilience in the Age of Rage, Feels, and Freak-Outs by ISBN: 9781611808407Publication Date: 2020-08-25"How can I practice acceptance when what I see all around me is unacceptable?" "How can I 'let go' when the headlines that trigger me are constant?" "How do I get involved without burning myself out?" For empathetic people who don't want to ignore the challenges of living in a politically divisive time and don't want to have our minds commandeered by the media, the challenge of living with mindful equanimity is a daily struggle. How do we walk through the fire of these times without getting scorched? With his signature warm, funny, street-wise style, author Ralph De La Rosa gives us a handbook for mindful living in contentious times.
A Sense of Wonder
Sometimes it can be helpful to take a walk in nature in order to stay in the present. Observing nature, whether it be trees, flowers, animals, birds, or the weather, can help us stay present and mindful.
Monterey, CA by Lance Anderson on Unsplash
Phosphorescence A Memoir of Finding Joy When Your World Goes Dark by ISBN: 9780593236925Publication Date: 2021 Random HousePhosphorescence is a natural phenomenon that allows some creatures to give off light amidst darkness. Inspired by their simple beauty, Julia Baird writes about the things that lit her way through her darkest moments and explores how others can nurture their inner light by embracing new habits and adopting a phosphorescent outlook on life.
World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments by ISBN: 9781571313652Publication Date: 2020-09-08From poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil comes a debut work of nonfiction--a collection of essays about the natural world, and the way its inhabitants can teach, support, and inspire us. As a child, Nezhukumatathil called many places home: the grounds of a Kansas mental institution, where her Filipina mother was a doctor; the open skies and tall mountains of Arizona, where she hiked with her Indian father; and the chillier climes of western New York and Ohio. But no matter where she was transplanted--no matter how awkward the fit or forbidding the landscape--she was able to turn to our world's fierce and funny creatures for guidance. Even in the strange and the unlovely, Nezhukumatathil finds beauty and kinship. For it is this way with wonder: it requires that we are curious enough to look past the distractions in order to fully appreciate the world's gifts.
The Book of Delights by ISBN: 9781616207922Publication Date: 2019-02-12The winner of the NBCC Award for Poetry offers up The first nonfiction book from award-winning poet Ross Gay is a record of the small joys we often overlook in our busy lives. Among Gay's funny, poetic, philosophical delights: a friend's unabashed use of air quotes, cradling a tomato seedling aboard an airplane, the silent nod of acknowledgment between the only two black people in a room. But Gay never dismisses the complexities, even the terrors, of living in America as a black man or the ecological and psychic violence of our consumer culture or the loss of those he loves. More than anything other subject, though, Gay celebrates the beauty of the natural world--his garden, the flowers peeking out of the sidewalk, the hypnotic movements of a praying mantis. The Book of Delights is about our shared bonds, and the rewards that come from a life closely observed. These remarkable pieces serve as a powerful and necessary reminder that we can, and should, stake out a space in our lives for delight.
Forest Bathing: The Rejuvenating Practice of Shinrin Yoku by ISBN: 9781462921300Publication Date: 2020Forest Bathing explains the traditional Japanese concepts that help readers understand and share in the benefits of the Japanese approach to forest bathing—a cornerstone of healing and health care in Japan. These concepts include:
Yugen: Our living experience of the world around us that is so profound as to be beyond expression
Komorebi: The interplay of leaves and sunlight
Wabi sabi: Rejoicing in imperfection and impermanence
Meditation Video
Rodney Yee, yoga teacher affiliated with Gaiam, here offers a morning meditation:
Below is a mindful breathing exercise video.
Physical Books
These titles may be requested for pickup. Click request under the record.
Black People Breathe: a mindfulness guide to racial healing by ISBN: 9781984860996Publication Date: 2023-03-14A thoughtful, inclusive, and vividly illustrated guide to help Black people-and all people of color-heal from racial trauma using vital tools from an expert in mindfulness, meditation, and breathwork.
Total Meditation: Practices in Living the Awakened Life by ISBN: 1984825313Publication Date: 2020-09-22The definitive book of meditation that will help you achieve new dimensions of stress-free living For the past thirty years, Deepak Chopra has been at the forefront of the meditation revolution in the West. Total Meditation offers a complete exploration and reinterpretation of the physical, mental, emotional, relational, and spiritual benefits that this practice can bring. Deepak guides readers on how to wake up to new levels of awareness that will ultimately cultivate a clear vision, heal suffering in your mind and body, and help recover who you really are.
Mindful of Race: Transforming Racism from the Inside Out by ISBN: 9781683640813Publication Date: 2018-06-01Title recommended by SHaW Staff. "Racism is a heart disease," writes Ruth King, "and it's curable." Exploring a crucial topic seldom addressed in meditation instruction, this revered teacher takes to her pen to shine a compassionate, provocative, and practical light into a deeply neglected and world-changing domain profoundly relevant to all of us.
