Mindfulness and Overwhelmed Brains

Our brains can become overwhelmed when we have feelings of anger, worry, fear, sadness and pain. Even less dramatic feelings like the exhaustion of managing daily life can overwhelm the brain. Stressed Brains Stressed brains become very noisy – constantly checking for the next problem. Ruminating. Chattering. Worrying. Fretting about what comes next. Judging what […]

The Mindful Teen, by Dzung X. Vo, MD., FAAP

If you’re looking for a way to help your teen manage stress, anxiety and the conflicting, unsettled feelings that inevitably arise in adolescence, this is the book to give them. A growing body of scientific research is showing clear, measurable, positive effects that come from practicing mindfulness. Millions of Americans (and millions more around the […]

Jars of Joy

A mother, who is also trained in spiritual formation and is a Presbyterian ‘Stephen’ Minister, created a wonderfully thoughtful way to help her teenage daughter find meaning and move through some adolescent challenges. Pam Robertson wrote out a month’s worth of inspiring quotes on strips of paper, put them in a glass jar, and placed […]

New Research: Mindfulness Training Reduces Levels of Impulsivity and Aggressiveness in Adolescents

A study just published in the journal, Frontiers in Psychology (September 22, 2016), reports that mindfulness training significantly decreases aggressive and impulsive behavior in high school students. The results come from a carefully conducted study of experimental and control groups using pre-training and post-training measures. Subjects were boys and girls 12 – 19 years old […]

What is Mindfulness?

    Mindfulness is consciously paying attention to what is currently happening in the outside world and within. Just for a short while. It is a choice you make to train yourself to check in more often and be more available to events, interactions, and even emotions as they happen. Background We humans spend a […]