Working with Mindfulness: Research and Practice of Mindful Techniques in Organizations

Sept. 25, 2012 - PRLog -- Northampton, MA – Mirabai Bush, co-founder of The Contemplative Mind in Society and a key adviser to Google’s Search Inside Yourself curriculum, hosts a free, one-hour webinar series called Working with Mindfulness: Research and Practice of Mindful Techniques in Organizations. Presented by publisher More Than Sound (www.morethansound.net), the first webcast features a discussion with Aetna’s Dr. Kyra Bobinet, President of Senior Care Solutions, about the creation and positive research findings of Aetna’s award-winning Mindfulness at WorkTM mind-body stress management program. The discussion will also include a Twitter-generated Q&A (using the #workingwithmindfulness feed) and a short, guided mindfulness exercise led by Mirabai Bush. Access to the streaming video will be available on www.morethansound.net shortly after the live webcast.

Participants of the Working with Mindfulness webinar series will learn more about the benefits of mindfulness practices in the workplace and ways to introduce them to their organization’s teams. Topics for the first installment of the series will also include:

- Dr. Bobinet’s best practices learned from developing and leading Aetna’s clinical efficacy studies with the company’s mind-body stress reduction programs;
- Discussion of Aetna’s “Mind-Body Stress Reduction in the Workplace” clinical trial, and the study results that were published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology;
- Mirabai Bush’s experience with developing the curriculum for Google’s Search Inside Yourself course, including participant reports of reduced stress, increased productivity, and more creative problem solving after taking the course.

“Most people today are asked to improve performance at work with fewer resources and tighter deadlines, all while dealing with equally stressed co-workers and clients,” said Mirabai Bush, author of the CD Working with Mindfulness. “This combination leads to employee burnout and harms organizations. While people may not have control over stressors at work, mindfulness-based exercises are a scientifically proven, natural way to manage one’s responses to them. This series will allow my colleagues from various industries and disciplines to share their insights of how to bring these practical techniques into the workplace.”

Future webcasts include a discussion with Mirabai Bush and Richard Davidson, Ph.D., director of The Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience and author of The Emotional Life of Your Brain (November 14, 2012) and Emotional Intelligence author Daniel Goleman, tentatively scheduled for December 2012.

About Dr. Kyra Bobinet
Dr. Kyra Bobinet is the President of Senior Care Solutions, a start-up in Aetna’s incubator, Emerging Businesses.  In this role, Dr. Bobinet is building a family caregiving suite of products, designed to help alleviate the stress of caring for a loved one.  Prior to this role, Dr. Bobinet was Aetna’s Medical Director of Health and Wellness Innovation for over 2 years, designing and leading clinical efficacy studies in areas such as mind-body stress reduction and metabolic syndrome, as well as designing novel health strategies and programs. Dr. Bobinet received her Masters in Public Health at Harvard University, and is a graduate of the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine. As her first start-up, Dr. Bobinet founded an award winning non-profit for at-risk, detained youth that lowered recidivism in chronic offender youth from 80% to 25%. Dr. Bobinet serves on the Board of Directors for the Mind Body Awareness Project in Oakland, CA, raises two teenagers, and enjoys surfing, mind-body and neurosciences, and nature.

About Aetna
Aetna is one of the nation's leading diversified health care benefits companies, serving approximately 36.7 million people with information and resources to help them make better informed decisions about their health care. Aetna offers a broad range of traditional, voluntary and consumer-directed health insurance products and related services, including medical, pharmacy, dental, behavioral health, group life and disability plans, and medical management capabilities, Medicaid health care management services and health information technology services. Our customers include employer groups, individuals, college students, part-time and hourly workers, health plans, health care providers, governmental units, government-sponsored plans, labor groups and expatriates. For more information, see www.aetna.com.

About Mirabai Bush
Mirabai Bush was a co-founder of the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society and served as Executive Director until 2008. Under her direction, The Center developed its programs in education, law, business, and activism and its network of thousands of people integrating contemplative practice and perspective into their lives and work. Before entering the foundation world, Mirabai was the first professional woman to work on the Saturn-Apollo moonflight at Cape Canaveral. She later co-founded and directed Illuminations, Inc. in Cambridge, MA. Her innovative business approaches, based on mindfulness practice, were reported in Newsweek, Inc., Fortune, and the Boston Business Journal. She is co-author, with Ram Dass, of Compassion in Action: Setting Out on the Path of Service (Random House). Her latest audio work, Working with Mindfulness (More Than Sound), offers guided mindfulness exercises for the workplace to help reduce stress, increase productivity, and encourage creative problem solving.

About More Than Sound
More Than Sound collaborates with today’s leading thinkers to produce original audio and video content, podcasts, online trainings and books that spark and support personal growth. Our informational and inspirational work is centered on emotional intelligence, leadership, and mindfulness. (www.morethansound.net)

Contact Mike Sjostedt at 413-587-0818 or mike@morethansound.net for more information. Visit www.morethansound.net to learn more about More Than Sound.

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