Mindfulness Based Self Care (MBSC)

Mindfulness Based Self Care (MBSC)

Sunday, January 18, 2015

Mindfulness Based Self Care (MBSC)©

 

Nurse Navigators is bringing one of the best self-care practices available to Greenwood, South Carolina. Mindfulness meditation is sweeping the country as one of the most cost-effective and powerful ways of decreasing stress while increasing healing in a variety of medical conditions. It has recently been the central article for Sunday’s Parade Magazine (January 11, 2015) and was featured as a life changing health practice on 60 Minutes (December 14, 2014… http://www.cbsnews.com/news/mindfulness-anderson-cooper-60-minutes/ ).

 

Mindfulness meditation is used in medical centers to decrease stress, which supports and promotes healing, and in corporate board rooms to improve communication and organizational functioning. It is widely accepted across this country and internationally.

 

Mindfulness Based Self Care (MBSC) is a program designed by Nurse Navigators and adapted from the mindfulness principles developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn – creator of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) at the University of Massachusetts. The purpose of the course is to bring the benefits of mindfulness meditation to our community in a “user friendly package.” It is an evidence-based therapeutic modality shown to relieve anxiety, decrease pain, support sleep, improve memory, and promote healing.

 

MBSC consists of eight 1.5 hour sessions which include: an introduction to mindfulness, a discussion of the “present moment” concept, meditation styles such as “thought observing/thought labeling” and body scans, and suggestions for the development of intentional mindful living. Participants also experience eating meditation, compassion development through “loving kindness” meditation, moving yoga meditation, and walking meditation. Participants learn how thoughts affect the body’s resilience and immunity, discuss the role of the mind in reducing the negative effects of stress, and are able to identify the benefits of adding a mindfulness meditation practice to their self-care practices.

 

Nurse Navigators facilitates groups directly. These groups are the same format as the Mindfulness Based Cancer Survivorship (MBCS) which has been so positive in supporting cancer survivors through Greenville Health System (GHS).  Since the program was introduced at the Cancer Center’s Center for Integrative Oncology and Survivorship (CIOS), Nurse Navigators has received extremely positive comments from survivors taking the program. The program’s most significant impact has been to return a sense of power, mastery, and hope to a population experiencing loss of control over their bodies. One participant commented, “This is the only time that I am able to let go of my worry about my cancer.”