Beginning this week, freshmen at Middlesex will participate in a nine-week Mindfulness course. Mindfulness is about learning to direct our attention to our present moment experience (senses, thoughts, emotions) with open-minded curiosity and acceptance. Rather than worrying about what has happened or might happen, it trains us to respond skillfully to whatever is happening right now.
The Middlesex program is based on an evidence-based mindfulness curriculum named “.b”, which was developed by a UK-based organization called the Mindfulness In Schools Project. Over the nine weeks, students learn exercises to train their attention and develop a more still, clear, and concentrated mind. While Mindfulness practice has been at Middlesex for nearly four years, the ".b" program is in its second year, after a very successful first year, when 98% of freshmen recommended the course to others.
In addition to the freshmen course and upperclassmen introductory courses, Mindfulness instructor Doug Worthen MX'96 also teaches three Mindfulness courses to students and faculty who have completed the introductory level: Improving Your Practice, Mindfulness in Sports, and Relational Mindfulness.
Mindfulness was first introduced into medicine in 1979 by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn (parent of two Middlesex alumni), and now has become a mainstream influence in medicine, psychology, corporations, and education. The benefits include improvements in sleep, emotional regulation, and self-esteem, lowered anxiety, and reduced depression and ADHD. Some recent brain imaging research, including work by Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard University, shows that mindfulness practice positively alters the structures of the brain associated with learning, memory, empathy, and stress.