Week 1: Why Mindfulness
Weekly practices
Each week there will be reading assignments, exercises, and mindfulness practices. After looking through the reading and exercises, please try to do the mindfulness practices at least once a day.
Most weeks, there will be a 45 minute mindfulness practice that is standard for the MBSR program. However, there is also an option for a shorter practice. Please use the longest practice you can fit into your schedule. But more importantly, please do a mindfulness practice daily. Audios for the daily practice can be found on the Homework page for each week.
Each week there will also be somatic and nervous system regulation practices that should be practiced daily. We recommend you try all the different practices and continue practicing with the ones that work best for you.
This week will begin with the Body Scan Meditation. It will be the core practice of this course. There is more information on the coming pages about the Body Scan, but you can start by watching the video here. The two nervous system regulation practices are both breathing exercises.
There will also be optional readings in Jon Kabat-Zinn’s book, “Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness”
You can either view the information here on line, or download the Week 1 lesson pages