Living fast and living BIG are often lionized on the silver screen, yet in the 21st century theater of high tech urban life, one could say stress steals the show as the protagonist in the dramas of work, family, relationships, poor health, job loss or transition.  Just “Google” the stats for stress in the U.S. and you’ll be blown away by the 2008 and more recent demographics of stress tipping the scales over the 50 percent mark in personal and work-related health profiles.  Taking a broad view, one would not be too hard pressed to call the rise in stress, “a cultural crisis.”

Speaking of Google, seems Larry and Serge are joining the ranks of “mindfulness” educators, that is, university medical and psychology clinicians across the U.S. and throughout Europe, sponsoring “mindfulness” meditation programs for managing stress reduction.  To this I say “Bravo” as the practice of mindfulness and other Buddhist meditations traditions have been transmitted across continents in the name of teaching “non-suffering.”   With the advent of science placing mindfulness meditation practice under the scrutiny of empirical study, the practice which originated in Ancient India and comes to the U.S. and Europe by way of Japan (Zen) and  Tibet (Vipassana), is finding a new audience — one that might otherwise dismiss Asian meditation practice as mystical “woogy woogy.”

For those of us who have been on the path of meditation for quite some time, it comes as no surprise to find science, especially neuroscience, delivering meditation into the hands of people, helping to calm brains, hearts, minds and nerves.  Mindfulness, after all, is an empirical and analytical method of tracking “insight’ and “attention” — cognitive or “executive” functions that have dominated the interests of neuroscientists for some time.

Below is an example of Google’s  attempt to empower its staff with information, this time, information that broaches the topic of quelling social anxiety and how to create a spacious mind with the help of mindfulness meditation.

The Google TechTalk Title? “The Cognitive Neuroscience of Mindfulness Meditation”

The Speaker? Philippe Goldin, research scientist and head of the Clinically Applied Affective Neuroscience group in the Department of Psychology at Stanford University.

Take home message? Consider the benefits of reducing stress through mindfulness practice.

Learn about mindfulness:  Experience it.  Read about it.  Talk to others.

For suggested readings, click here.

For suggestions on teaching clinics or centers in your city or country, click here.