How Mindfulness Can Add To Your Well-Being with Diana Winston

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One thing that shows up in the research across the board is that people who practice mindfulness report being happier. What doesn't show up in the findings is that their lives automatically get better. They don't necessarily stop getting sick or stop having difficulties, or challenges, or losing their jobs. They lead normal lives, like all of us do. But, the quality of their mind and their ability to be happy in the face of it is different. What mindfulness does is to shift and change our attitude, and create a way of being in the world with more peace and balance instead of being at the mercy of these ups and downs of life. Winston says, "Mindfulness can change your relationship to life from being stuck in it to having a little bit of space around it. . . I like to use the definition of mindfulness as attending to the present moment and experiences with openness and curiosity." So, when we are in the midst of our lif, and we're lost in an experience that is painful or unpleasant, we can learn to have a little space and not be so caught by the problems. (hosted by Michael Toms)

Bio

Diana Winston is the Director of Mindfulness Education at the Mindfulness Awareness Research Center at UCLA, where she teaches mindfulness to the general public, health professionals, educators, and many others. Diana has been practicing mindfulness since 1989, including a year as a Buddhist nun. She has been teaching mindfulness nationally since 1998 and is a member of the Teacher's Council as Spirit Rock Meditation Center, in Northern California.

She is the author of:

• Wide Awake: A Buddhist Guide for Teens (Perigee 2003)
• Mindful Meditations (CD) (Airetight Records 2008)
• Fully Present: The Science, Art, and Practice of Mindfulness (coauthor with Susan Smalley, Ph.D.) (DaCapo Press 2010)

To learn more about the work of Diana Winston go to www.marc.ucla.edu.

Topics Explored in This Dialogue

• How Mindfulness changes your relationships to life
• What is the Mindfulness Awareness Research Center at UCLA
• What are the conditions that create a mental health
• How can mindfulness help us to stay focused
• How mindfulness changes the brain in good ways
• Why paying attention to the breath can be a foundational practice in Mindfulness
• What are some of the beneficial effects of practicing mindfulness both physically and mentally
• How mindfulness can help with chronic pain