Mechanisms Of Mindfulness - by Cassi Starc

COURSE

Mechanisms Of Mindfulness

With Cassi Starc

If you're like me, you like to know how things work. In fact, studies show knowing why we're doing something can help us stick to a new habit like meditation. By the end of this course, you will know what mindfulness is (and isn't). You will understand the latest research on the benefits of mindfulness for mental health, and you will know the key mechanisms which explain WHY and HOW mindfulness is so beneficial for our mind and body.

HappinessMotivationStressSecular MindfulnessMindfulness MeditationHealth & HappinessPerformanceStress & AnxietySecularMindfulness

Meet your Teacher

Cassi Starc
Victoria, BC, Canada

Cassi is a Registered Occupational Therapist and Certified Yoga Teacher. She works primarily in the areas of mental health and brain injury. Cassi has seen over and over how impactful mindfulness practices have been for mental health and cognitive function, and so she is passionate about sharing these empowering tools with a wider community. During this course, Cassi aims to distill the current research down into a few key easy-to-understand highlights because knowing how things work is so important to form and maintain new habits like a mindfulness practice. And of course, it's just nice to know how things work!

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5 Days

284 students

4.5 stars

7 min / day

Happiness

English

Lesson 1

What Is Mindfulness?

In this lesson, we will learn about what mindfulness truly is, and what is is not. We will be busting common myths and misconceptions that can set people up for a failure in their practice. We will go over key ingredients to any mindfulness practice, and we will break down what "counts" as a mindfulness practice. Having a solid understanding of what mindfulness is will be illuminating as you move through later lessons where we learn about the mechanisms of how mindfulness works to bring us better health.

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Lesson 2

Guided Meditation: 4 Key Ingredients

During this guided meditation, I will offer opportunities to engage with the four key ingredients of mindfulness introduced in the last module. You will come away from this practice having experientially learned the four key ingredients, rather than having just heard about them.

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Lesson 3

Research Highlights & The Default Mode Network

During this lesson, we will review the benefits of mindfulness from the research. We will then dive into the mechanisms of mindfulness at the brain level, highlighting the results from brain imaging studies and mapping out the areas of the brain as well as how they change with ongoing mindfulness practice.

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Lesson 4

From Fight Or Flight To Rest And Digest

During this lesson, we will continue with learning about the mechanisms of mindfulness. But this time, we will travel outside of the brain and into the autonomic nervous system to discuss how mindfulness tools can help "flip the switch" from Fight or Flight to Rest and Digest!

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Lesson 5

Guided Practice: A Mindful Moment

In lesson 1, you might remember I talked about Mindful Moments as an informal practice. Normally informal means it takes no extra time out of your day and there is no formal guidance, but if this is new to you it can be nice to practice with my voice in your ear. We will be using the everyday task of washing a dish or two. So save this final lesson for when you can access your sink, or - take a listen and reflect on how you might apply this same process to any other daily task.

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4.5 (6)

Recent Reviews

Liz

January 22, 2024

Straightforward, clean, informative, and effective. Thanks!

Dan

January 20, 2024

Really informative! Loved learning about the brain scan research, and I realized mindfulness isn't what I thought it was. My practice feels easier with this new way of looking at it.

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