Wildmind.org is a website that has so much to offer! It was
started by a Buddhist practitioner and teacher known as Bodhipaksa. The website
provides meditation guides, information about mindfulness and meditation, and links
to helpful blogs, posts, and books. Wildmind.org suggests using the programs
they offer on their site such as the posture workshop, the mindfulness of
breathing, and mantra meditation. Bodhipaksa defines mindfulness as “the gentle
effort to be continuously present with experience.”
Something that I learned from this website is that being mindful and being aware are two different terms. You can be aware of how you are acting but to be mindful means to notice how we are feeling and being purposeful in our actions and reactions. I also learned a new word. “Equanimity” is the stillness and balance of mind. Bodhipaksa states that when practicing mindfulness, you are aware that there are unpleasant and pleasant experiences in life, but emotionally, you would treat them the same. This website gave me more clarity on what mindfulness was and broadened my understanding of this topic.
Mindful.org is the website for a non-profit organization called
Mindful. This website is a collection
of information for anyone interested in the method of mindfulness. It provides
news articles, mindful meditation guides, videos, mindfulness research,
podcasts, personal stories, and advice for those who are working to implement
mindfulness into their daily lives. The organization defines mindfulness as “the basic human ability to be fully
present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or
overwhelmed by what’s going on around us.” It states that waking the “inner
workings of our mental, emotional, and physical processes” is the goal of mindfulness.
This is a great resource for anyone looking to incorporate mindfulness into their routines. While looking through their site I found a video featuring Jon Kabat-Zinn, the founder of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program, and found out that though mindfulness different areas of your brain can light up. Lateral areas are more lit up during mindfulness than when we are just on autopilot. The most useful information on this website are the compiled research article that it provides on the benefits of mindfulness on mental health, physical health, relationships, kids, work, and over all wellbeing. One link in particular took me to an article on why schools in England are teaching mindfulness. This article written by Jamie Bristow introduces a new study being done by the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families along with the University College London. They will be looking at children from 370 schools that take part in mindfulness exercises. The goal of this study is to see the effectiveness of different approaches to determine the best ways to foster student’s mental health and wellbeing. Through this article, I found out that half of all mental illnesses begin by the age of fourteen, which is something that I had never heard before. Through research, they hope to provide the best approach to meeting the needs of students with mental health issues. This website was a great resource in finding the benefits of mindfulness through research based methods.
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