10 Ways Mindfulness Is Driving Real Change

Barry Boyce, editor of Mindful magazine, has written an excellent article describing ways that mindfulness practice is helping us in these anxious and divisive times. My own experiences and those of my clients affirm his observations that mindfulness is "being used to cultivate a more deeply connected, content, and compassionate world." Here are the 10 ways that Mr. Boyce observes, with links for further reading, if you're as intrigued as I am:

1. In hospitals and doctors’ offices, mindfulness training is making doctors better listeners, lowering their stress, and improving patients’ health with methods that complement traditional medicine.
2. In classrooms, teachers are using mindfulness methods to foster learning environments with more emotional intelligence—teaching the whole student, mind and body together.
3. First responders and soldiers are using mindfulness techniques to become more resilient, and trauma sufferers are using it to heal.
4. In businesses in sector after sector, mindfulness and awareness—and yes, kindness and compassion—are increasing job performance and satisfaction.
5. Neuroscientists and other researchers are putting mindfulness under the microscope, and learning more each day about what we’re capable of when our minds are more in tune.
6. Tech innovators find that a little bit of mindfulness gives them the space to look at the bigger picture and try to solve real problems, not just create more distraction.
7. Lawyers and judges are using mindfulness to avoid the burnout that leads to increased conflict and bad decision-making.
8. Teen mindfulness programs are helping young people navigate the perils and pitfalls that come with starting out in life, empowering them to find their own sense of purpose.
9. Marginalized youth are getting chances they might not have had without the opportunity to learn mindfulness skills that synchronize their bodies and minds.
10. Politicians and public servants at the municipal, state, and federal level—in many different countries—are seeing how mindfulness can bring civility and clarity in the midst of chaotic, challenging times.

Mindfully yours,

Dr. Pamm