Member-only story
Training your mind in 3 easy steps
You get to decide what you think about
It’s all the rage. Except “rages” usually only last a year or so. You will take my point when you find your fidget spinner in the junk drawer next summer along with your adult coloring book that you got bored with after page 2.
Mindfulness has been around for 2600 years, probably longer. Your grandparents never heard of it because until a few years ago it was buried in exotic places like Tibet, Japan, and Indonesia. In the 1970s Jon Kabat-Zinn learned mindfulness meditation and in 1979 opened the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. His main technique was mindfulness-based stress reduction. When interest spread in Kabat-Zinn’s work, other people in the mental health field began to research its use for other purposes. This led to mindfulness based cognitive therapy which successfully treats depression, anxiety and other mood disorders. There is also huge evidence for its use in improving productivity, creativity and peace of mind.
Of course it still has a certain hippie cachet. California and New York are bellybutton deep in mindfulness classes, seminars, and workshops. But it is no longer the exclusive domain of gluten-free vegans.
