Mindfulness for Stress (MBSR/CT) 3rd March 2025 Staff

Cost: €395

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR/CT) 8-Week Programme

Dates: Monday evenings 3rd March -21st April.

Time: 7-9.15pm

Location: Classroom based

Eligible to attend: All health care & support staff in all settings & others interested

Aim:

The MBSR/CT 8-week programme enables those in health care and other areas to specifically explore stress and unhelpful thought patterns and to learn to respond to life stress in more helpful and more sustainable ways. It is the gold standard of mindfulness courses, with over four decades of research. The MBCT programme is recommended by the UK National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). NICE also recommends employers make mindfulness programmes available to all employees, to support mental wellbeing at work.

Many Health Professionals and others are experiencing anxiousness, overwhelm, exhaustion, acute and chronic illness and having ‘too much to do’ that relaxing is impossible.

The weekly evening classes are based on meditation practice (including some gentle movement practice), personal and group contemplation & reflection, and relevant theory when applicable. Commitment to 30 minutes of home practice daily for the 8 weeks (formal daily recorded meditation and informal practices) is required to build mindfulness skills. There is also a weekend Half Day of Practice during the course to allow for full experience and integration of skills.

Teacher:

Hilary Smyth is a Stress & Resilience (Mindfulness & Compassion)Teacher. She worked in the Health Service for 30 years and in Palliative Care for almost 20 years  in Nursing, Education, Research & Quality.  She is founder of ‘Kind Mind Ireland’ https://www.kindmindireland.com/  and teaches Mindfulness-based and Compassion- based courses within Healthcare and the wider community.  She is a registered member of the Mindfulness Teachers Association of Ireland (MTAI) and the British Association of Mindfulness Based Approaches for Cancer (BAMBA-Ca). Her particular areas of expertise include Mindfulness for Cancer and Compassion for Healthcare Communities. She is currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Counselling and Psychotherapy.

On completing this course participants will:

• • Experience the wandering mind, rumination, and auto-pilot through daily meditation practice. Be fully aware of the negative effects of these human tendencies.
  • Develop the knowledge and skills to focus and sustain attention in the here and now.
  • Appreciate and develop the Core Skills and attitudes of meditation practice: non-judging, patience, trust in self, non-striving, allowing, letting be, letting go, generosity, gratitude.
  • Be familiar with of the specific elements of every experience (thoughts, emotions & body sensations).
  • Be able to choose from several different anchors of support to steady the mind, and demonstrate skilful use of using same (breath, body, sounds etc).
  • Respond rather than react instinctively or habitually to stress and negative thought patterns, using the various practices (The Pause, The 3 step Anchoring Space etc).
  • Have specific knowledge of habitual stress reactions & The Chronic Stress Cycle.
  • Understand stress reaction Verses stress response, including basic physiology.
  • Experience turning towards stress skilfully, through guided support and reflection.
  • Demonstrate awareness of skilful communication and connection with others through practicing mindful listening and speaking exercises and reflection.
  • Contemplate and define personal choices for a mindful living including diet, eating, exercise, rest, sleep, interpersonal relationships, and connection with the world.

Evidence Base: Research on MBSR & MBCT programmes demonstrate positive psychological effects including increased wellbeing, and wide evidence of reduced negative symptoms (depression, anxiety). Participants also demonstrated decreased emotional reactivity to experiences and improved behavioral regulation¹. Meta-analytic reviews indicate that the programmes lead to significant improvements in physical and psychological functioning^2,3.

2 Empirical review https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3679190/

3 Meta-analysis stress 2010 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2848393/

4 Meta-analysis anxiety & depression 2012 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20350028/

Accreditation/CPD:   20 CEU (continuing education units) with An Bord Altranais & Cnáimhseachais na hÉireann (Nursing & Midwifery Board of Ireland, NMBI)