The study included 118 adults with recurring episodes of depression who had previously participated in Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy. Each was assigned to either a treatment-as-usual waitlist group, or a mindfulness plus treatment-as-usual group. The treatment-as-usual group received medication and/or psychotherapy, but not any form of compassion-focused intervention. They were given the opportunity to attend mindfulness classes after the first mindfulness group completed their program. The mindfulness group attended eight bi-weekly sessions for two-and-a-half hours in groups of 8-10 people....

Watch: For more on Compassion and Loving Kindness practice, visit our special page on Mindful.org. For more on mindfulness in education, see our Education pages, or read posts by Mindful’s education blogger, Tish Jennings.

She also talks about how the CARE for Teachers program is making a difference for so many educators. The video is about 22 minutes long. To learn more on this topic, visit Tish Jennings’s blog posts “On Education” here on Mindful org, as well as the stories in our Education section. To see another video—created by students—about the value of mindfulness in education, click here. Jennings was a speaker at the recent Creating a Mindful Society conference....

Click here to watch the video. Did you miss the first installment in this series? No problem—click here. You may also want to check out Sillito’s audio piece, The Science of Silence, which not only presents the science of mindfulness, but also refers to how even the U.S. Marines are using it in their Mindfulness-based Mind Fitness Training program. (Also see Elizabeth Stanley give a presentation about the program here, at the Creating a Mindful Society conference livestream....

“It means to be honest about what’s in my head and heart, but in a way that’s mutually respectful and productive.”@willingham2271 “My definition of authenticity is to be who you are, no matter where you are or who you are with. Truly yourself at all times.”– Marlene F. “Staying true to yourself <3” @m0rethan.fitness “I think it’s when you’re unfiltered. You’re truly yourself. And you are living into your core values....

I learned that I regularly get into an intense rush when I’m doing something I don’t want to do. I clench my jaw, I tense my muscles, I breathe wrong, and I enslave my mind to an imagined ticking clock, as if I were the TV character Jack Bauer, from 24, who has to single-handedly save the entire world before the clock strikes midnight. A few weeks ago I finally decided I could not continue to ignore the half-decade’s worth of extra stuff that had accumulated in the basement....

In a time of trumping rivals and compulsively keeping up with the joneses, to be patient suggests coming in second, or perhaps dead last. Patience is not overt—it does not put a person on display. There’s little in terms of a Tony Robbins-styled inner “power” to it. In a word, patience can seem “weak.” The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines patient as “able to remain calm and not become annoyed when waiting for a long time or when dealing with problems or difficult people....

As romantic as that goal may sound, not everyone shares it. With economic, social, and health changes leading to much longer lifespans—and more control over fertility and childbearing—our attitudes towards monogamy have changed significantly. Divorce has become commonplace, and many people have embraced serial monogamy, forming one relationship at a time, falling in love and splitting up, and then doing it all over again. But there’s an alternative: polyamory, a form of consensual non-monogamy that emphasizes emotional and sexual intimacy with multiple partners simultaneously, ideally with the knowledge of all parties involved....

But science works with statistics and probabilities, usually regarding groups, so that what happens for 80% of the population, for example, doesn’t translate into an 80% chance that you will experience it. Statistics can be misleading. If you roll a die five times and each time it comes up as a 5, when you roll that die again, what are the chances you will get another 5? The same as all the other times: 1 in 6....

“Somewhere around the end of the 20th century, busyness became not just a way of life but a badge of honor,” Brigid Schulte writes in The Washington Post this week. The article is aptly titled: “Why being too busy makes us feel good.” Schulte speaks with Ann Burnett, a communications professor at North Dakota State University, who studied “the rise of American busyness” through holiday letters she’s collected dating back to the 1960s....

And now, of course, we’re said to be involved in the great Battle Against COVID-19. I wonder whether COVID-19 can be effectively resisted in this way. So far our most effective means of reducing suffering have been to stay home, be quiet, and spend time with those closest. Stillness has been our best defense. Concern for public health has compelled billions of people to reduce their mobility, reduce their incomes, and make many other sacrifices for the common good....

“Texting is one of the many things people do to get rid of anxious energy or other negative feelings,” psychologist Leora Trub explains. “When you’re angry, it can be really tempting to send a spiteful message, even if you know it could make things worse. When you’re anxious about a new friend or love interest getting in touch, you may find yourself getting trigger happy with the phone, hoping for some reassurance....

“Mindfulness is not a panacea for everything,” says Dr. Chris Willard. “Thinking it can ‘fix’ you or the people around you can set you up for disappointment.” It’s also important to exercise caution when very intense feelings are a part of your experience, suggests Dr. Richard Davidson. If emotions are really extreme—if you’re feeling overwhelmed or unable to self-regulate— mindfulness can make things worse and introduce harm, Davidson says. “That’s why in any contemplative tradition, there are many kinds of practices using different emphases at different points in time....

Arugula is peppery, assertive, and wild; iceberg is crunchy and polite. Arugula is rich in vitamin C and potassium, while iceberg has little nutritional value, containing mostly water. Despite this, iceberg is the most popular lettuce in the United States, while arugula was little known in North America until recently. Which, aside from painting a rather puritan picture of the American palate, is just a damn shame. Arugula—or salad rocket, as it’s known in much of the English-speaking world—is one of the meanest, tastiest greens there is....

“When I went to the leadership team meeting to brief them on the issue, I emphasized the financial impact of stress in the workplace,” she says. Costikyan didn’t just talk about the potential money Harvard might spend on mental health issues, she looked at what national numbers suggested about the levels of stress in their community, and how that might affect productivity and employee retention. When she dug deeper, she found that there could be many employees under considerable stress and who were not quite working up to their potential....

Sitting on the floor practicing meditation and learning along with 125 other health care providers that week, I developed a deep appreciation for how the MBSR course helped people access inner resources of strength, resilience, and well-being. And in one flashing moment, I knew what I needed—or, more accurately, felt compelled—to do: bring this way of teaching mindful awareness to expectant couples. In 1998, after teaching the MBSR course for several years, I began morphing it into the Mindfulness-Based Childbirth and Parenting (MBCP) program, which is currently offered at the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Medical Center....

In an email, Ryan says: “These bipartisan sessions offer congressional staffers the same opportunity that major corporations, the military, schools, veterans, hospitals, and winning professional sports teams offer their own organizations to make better decisions. This is the same approach many CEOs use, including Rupert Murdoch, have used to increase the success and productivity of their companies.” To read the news story, click here. For more on Congressman Tim Ryan and his involvement with mindfulness, you might want to check out the June issue of Mindful magazine....

Yep. All the while, I was editing this beautiful October issue of Mindful magazine. I’m coming clean with my lack of self-care because I want you to know that I understand how easy it is to de-prioritize your own care. Even when we know what we need in order to show up as our best selves, the practice and routines of care can be the first things to go when life gets crazy—which is right when we need them most....