Meditation as a Medicine
MONDAY, 30 JULY 2007
Upon hearing and adapting a Tao Te Ching quote that says, “there is no need to look outside your window, for everything you need to know is inside you,” one man turns meditation from exercise to a way of curing people.
52-year-old Bob Stahl first learned this quote when he entered College in Vermont. He took the quote to his heart and began looking inside as he find his way outside to California.
Stahl shared his Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction Program with the local medical community particularly to hospitals from Santa Cruz to San Jose. Later on, it was adapted in the El Camino Hospital in Mountain View, O'Connor Hospital in San Jose, Community Hospital of Monterey, Dominican Hospital, and the Santa Cruz Medical Clinic.
In 1990, Stahl taught meditation at the Cabrillo College Stroke Center, which was the first program of such kind in California. The program was based on the methods of Jon Kabat-Zinn, (Ph.D., University of Massachusetts Medical Center) where Stahl was trained.
The training runs for eight weeks wherein the participant is encouraged to take an active role in the management of his health. By actively paying attention to his own breathing, he will be able to better manage the pain, stress, fear, anger, anxiety, and depression that he experiences at home and in the workplace. Meditation classes meet weekly for 2 1/2 hours and there is also an all-day session on the sixth week. The participants are asked to practice mindfulness meditation for 30-45 minutes a day with instructional CDs provided to them.
As of now, there are more than 200 medical centers in the United States that have similar stress reduction programs. Most of the reported practitioners of the mindfulness meditation attest to its success.
Source:
www.santacruzsentinel.com
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