New Thinking in Medicine – Meditation Heals

In our crazy busy modern world Dr. Jon Kabat-ZInn Professor of Medicine Emeritus and founding director of the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School reminds us that the way we practice medicine is changing. That there is something about being human that we have been ignoring at our peril. While still a very popular modus operands, busy-ness promotes distraction and disconnect – from our minds, from our bodies, from each other.

Current medical dogma tells us that once damaged or lost, brain neurons are gone forever and it’s downhill from there. However NeuroScience (which includes the effects of meditation on healing) is now showing us that we can activate regions of the brain that ordinarily just are never trained and that our bodies produce functional neurons until we die. Those new neurons are driven by physical attending – or attention. So some activity that focuses our attention is instrumental in our recovery. Of course meditation is fundamental to creating an attentive space, but once we know the basics of mediation we can apply them to other activities as well –  which means anything can be meditative – walking, cooking, gardening, swimming.

Here is a great video I stumbled upon while I was playing around on YouTube. Jon Kabat Zinn giving a talk to the staff at Google. It’s a snowy day – make a cup of tea and give Jon your attention and practice the attention that will help you reach beyond dogma to the great new thinking coming from the great minds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nwwKbM_vJc