Page 4 - Mindfulness
P. 4
COAL
CURIOUSITY OPENNESS ACCEPTANCE LOVE
In the last five to six years there has been much reference made to mindfulness. Mindfulness has been almost a universal goal for as long as human beings existed. Every major culture and religion have their own version of mindfulness. But what is it and is it something we can apply at any time in our-fast paced society?
Hassed and Chambers describe mindfulness as “a mental discipline aimed at training attention.....simply
by training our attention to be in the present, the default mode of the brain starts to become less prevalent. The parts of the brain associated with worrying, dwelling, catastrophizing and judging become less active.” Siegel describes it as the “harnessing of neural circuitry”. What we now know is that the ability to be mindful can improve many facets of our health. Improvements to the immune system, general physical well-being, reduced reliance on drugs and improvements in energy levels from better sleep patterns.
WHAT IS MINDFULNESS?
Daniel Siegel has developed a great acronym to describe the elements that are associated with mindfulness: curiousity, openness, acceptance, love (COAL)
