About the Mindfulness Course
The Mindfulness Course integrates traditional meditation techniques with elements of cognitive behavioural therapy, yoga, chi gung, and research into brain physiology and the effects of stress on the body.
The first half of the course mainly focuses on teaching skills that develop awareness of body sensations, feelings and thoughts, in the second half of the course we learn to apply these skills to our lives, including times of stress and difficulty.
The course involves a number of seated, lying, movement based and experiential practices and opportunities to talk about your experiences of these. Everything is invitational, practices can be adapted to meet individual needs, including any physical limitationsgroup members to take care of themselves. This is not a therapy group so you will not be expected to share details of your personal life, but being prepared to share some of your experiences of the practices will be helpful.
Participants on a Mindfulness course are encouraged to ‘try out’ mindfulness for the duration of the programme, even if they have doubts about whether the practice can offer them anything useful. Fully engaging in the course will enable you to make a decision about whether you want this approach to be an on-going part of your life.
As part of the course you are strongly encouraged to aim for approximately 30 minutes of daily practice between classes in order to gain maximum benefits. You do not need any extra equipment in order to do this. Carving out this time within our busy lives can itself be a very real challenge but is an essential part of really giving mindfulness a go.
Research has shown that outcomes from taking a Mindfulness course are directly related to the amount of home practice participants manage to do (and interestingly not at all correlated to enthusiasm/belief in the approach!)