Mindfulness-Based Interventions

When listening is everything you ever wanted

On the opening page of Mark Nepos’s book Seven Thousand Ways to Listen, he quotes an epigraph by Abraham Heschel:

[We] will not perish for want of information; but only for want of appreciation . . . What we lack is not a will to believe but a will to wonder . . . Reverence is one of [our] answers to the presence of mystery . . .

Hurrying up so we can slow down!

Well of course that makes sense! We leave work and drive too fast to get home so we can finally relax.  Between patients we scribble notes in the file, run to the bathroom, and make a phone call while slurping caffeine so that after the next patient we can catch our breath. We inhale lunch without looking at it while we order holiday gifts on online because we don’t want to waste time just eating.

Mindfulness Interventions for Bipolar Depression

Bipolar disorder is a severe psychiatric illness characterized by episodes of depression as well as periods of elevated mood, known as mania. This condition, previously known as manic-depressive illness, causes considerable suffering and disability. Furthermore, bipolar depression is often difficult to treat and associated with anxiety symptoms and an increased risk of suicide. Thus, additional treatment approaches are needed. Interventions that target anxiety and suicide risk, in addition to depression, could be particularly useful.

Teaching Doctors to be Mindful

DoctorsAt the risk of blogging about a blogpost, we were excited to see this piece in the New York Times on our friend and colleague Dr. Mick Krasner's work with teaching mindfulness to physicians, with the ultimate goal of creating better doctors who communicate better, practice more effectively, are resilient and satisfied in their work and therefore, have an even more positive influence on our health and our society.