As the Mind & Life podcast reaches a major milestone with 1,000,000 downloads, I wanted to take a moment to share a few reflections about what I’ve been learning from the show. When we launched in April 2020, there were a lot of unknowns. We’d been preparing for months, and were excited to start sharing …
Continue reading “What We’re Learning from Contemplative Science on the Mind & Life Podcast”
As in many countries, more children in India—up to 11 percent—are growing up with attention deficit disorder, often combined with hyperactivity. This can lead to behavioral difficulties and academic challenges. While enhanced diagnosis and awareness of mental health issues partially explain these trends, researchers also point to the isolation students experienced during the Covid-19 pandemic …
Continue reading “Investigating Nature-based Contemplative Education”
For millennia, Indigenous cultures in Mesoamerica have relied on an agricultural system known as the milpa. Milpa involves the growing of corn, beans, and squash, often with other crops and trees. Together, they enter into a harmonious, symbiotic relationship. Strong corn stems support climbing beans. Bean plants transform nitrogen from the atmosphere into soil nutrients. …
The Board of Directors of the Mind & Life Institute has announced the selection of Suzanne Bond as the organization’s new president. A forward-thinking senior executive, Suzanne has over two decades of global experience working across non-profit, corporate, and public sector organizations. She succeeds Susan Bauer-Wu, who served as President of Mind & Life from …
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“The first thing that comes to mind when thinking of service,” says musician, contemplative researcher, and Mind & Life Steering Council member Grant Jones, “is giving yourself to move an organization in a more aligned, rooted, and actualized direction.” After years on the Mind & Life Steering Council, participation in the Global Majority Leadership and …
Continue reading “Grant Jones Honored with 2023 Mind & Life Service Award”
This blog post was originally published online with Psychology Today. The academic landscape poses formidable challenges for people of color, who often experience systemic racism and microaggressions within the competitive and predominantly white environments characterizing higher education. Such challenges and inequity have been found to contribute to higher rates of depression and anxiety among BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) students …
Continue reading “Nurturing Equity in Academia: It Involves Mindfulness, Mentorship, and Community”
For thousands of years, Indigenous cultures in America have engaged in sacred ceremonies and practices—singing, dancing, beadwork, prayer, basketmaking, drumming, running, and more—that nurture present moment awareness and a felt sense of interconnection. How can such practices be integrated into efforts to support the mental health and well-being of Native American youth today? With support …
Continue reading “Indigenizing Mindfulness: A Path Toward Well-being for Native American Youth”
In the northwestern United States, two interconnected upland wet meadows are surrounded by densely packed Douglas Firs, Western Red Cedars, Western Hemlocks, and other common evergreen flora of the southern Cascade mountain range. A group of youth take off from a nearby parking lot and are led through a restored grassland, the surrounding woods, and …
According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), more than 108 million people are forcibly displaced worldwide, the highest level on record. By 2050, this figure is expected to rise to 200 million—and potentially to over a billion—due to climate change and natural disasters. Such statistics belie the reality that each and every one …
Continue reading “The Global Refugee Crisis: How Can Mindfulness & Compassion Training Help?”
As a teenager in the 1990s, Abby Marsh experienced an accident that shaped the trajectory of her career. Traveling home late one night during a college break, Dr. Marsh swerved abruptly to avoid a dog that had run onto the freeway. Her car spun out of control—fishtailing and then skidding to a stop in the …
