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Greetings!
The past month has been a whirlwind of connection and the creation of wonderful new friendships as news about the life-enhancing potential of mindfulness spreads throughout the community. Check out the articles below on September's week of Living MindFULLY events, as well as exciting new research about mindfulness, health, and life. The next Free Talks on Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) are scheduled for June 8th at the Brooks Executive Suites, 9990 Coconut Rd., Bonita Springs. To reserve your space, click here. The next 8-week MBSR course is scheduled for August 9th - October 5th. Options are a morning class on Tuesdays or an evening class on Wednesdays. Attend one of the Free MBSR Talks and receive a $50 discount on the course tuition. To learn more about MBSR, click here. Restorative Yoga for Stress Relief continues on Thursdays from 5:45 - 6:45 PM. Space is limited. Click here to register for the next class. An Evening Hour of Mindfulness will begin on Tuesday, June 7th at 5:45 PM and continue through June. If you're curious about what mindfulness is all about, consider attending. The first class is free. Thereafter, tuition is $10.Click here to register for the next class. There are still a few spaces left in the Restorative Yoga and Massage Workshop scheduled for Sunday, June 12th from 1-4 PM. Click here to register. The next workshop is scheduled for Saturday, June 25th. Registration for these workshops is limited to 12 participants. If you have a friend, family member, or colleague interested in mindfulness, health, and well-being, click on the link below to forward this newsletter. Sincerely, |
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Living Mindful Moments There is no creature that does not have a radiance. Be it greenness of seed, blossom or beauty, it could not be creation without it. To be a creature is to be brilliant, beautiful, and on fire. ~ Hildegard von Bingen |
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Save the Date: Living MindFULLY
County, businesses, & non-profits collaborate on September Week of Mindful Living Events
From September 16-22 plan on enjoying a plethora of fun and educational mindfulness activities made possible by the power of connection and the growing mindfulness network which includes ALL aspects of our lives. Integrative Mindfulness will join Hearts' Path to Mindful Living, Inc., Lee County Parks & Recreation, Renaissance Montessori School, Lee Memorial Health System, the Lee County Alliance of the Arts, and dozens of volunteers to organize and sponsor the first
Living MindFULLY Week in Lee County. Events and activities in the planning stages include workshops and speakers on gardening as meditation, mindful movement, a "Mindful Walk for Peace", an official "Day of Kindness", mindfulness for health and stress-reduction, mindfulness and sustainability, mindful parenting, and art as meditative practice. If you would like to get involved, volunteers are welcome and needed. Please call John Kiseda of Lee County Parks & Rec at (239) 432-2163 or e-mail him at kisedajb@leegov.com.
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The POWER of Meditation
Exciting new study shows a meditation practice protects our DNA from the effects of chronic stress
Did you know that chronic stress is so damaging to our health that it actually affects our chromosomes and is correlated with an increased rate of aging in our cells and thus our bodies? Telomeres are the end tips of our chromosomes, little caps that protect our DNA. Telomeres are critical to cell division, and get a bit shorter every time a cell divides. Studies involving people with very stressful lives, such as mothers of special-needs children and spouses of dementia sufferers-showed extreme wear and tear on their telomeres. But an enzyme called telomerase maintains and repairs the telomeres, prolonging the life of our cells. How can we increase our telomerase and slow the "unraveling" of our telomeres? Meditation. As reported in his blog at TheVisualMD.com, Deepak Chopra, M.D. reports on an exciting 2010 study which showed that people in an intensive meditation practice had greater telomerase activity in their immune cells than those who did not meditate. Scientists are working to gather even more information about how mindful awareness and other stress reduction techniques can help us live longer and more healthfully. Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction is an 8-week immersion course in mindfulness meditation and an excellent way to learn to meditate and develop your own meditation practice for life.
Click here to read the entire article and to see a visualization of chromosomes and telomeres.
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What can Mindfulness Do for Me?
Study shows 8-week MBSR training increases sense of "here and now"
Are you constantly rushing to get to the next moment, rather than experiencing the moment you're in? Do you regularly find yourself mentally rehashing a situation from the past as if you were experiencing it all over again? What does all this rushing and rehashing add up to? Answer: your life. What if you could learn to experience and savor your life as you live it? What would such a change mean for your state of mind, your health, your relationships, your creativity? An 8-week course in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) can enable you to make just this shift. As reported in Canada's The Globe and Mail, a 2010 study found that non-meditators who had eight weeks of MBSR training were more likely than a control group to access the brain region that provides a bodily sense of the "here and now" as opposed to the region associated with worry. In 2007, using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) Farb, et. al. reported findings supporting the intriguing hypothesis that mindfulness training is correlated with a measurably strengthened capacity to disengage the default "narrative" mode of self-reference, allowing for a present-centered "experiential" focus. In other words, mindfulness training enables you to actually experience your life, rather than merely an ongoing story in your head about your life. Which sounds better to you?
Click here to register for the next Free MBSR Talk.
Download the full Globe article here
Download the full Farb article here
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