Stress is a major health issue these days. It seems that constant contact with the media in your smartphone, Twitter or by text message or respond to your e-mail, constant contact with family friends and strangers is causing more stress than a fax or television commercial could never do. These communication devices plague us at home, at work, on the road, and for many, they sleep next to us. In fact, the more you read about the stress the more you realize how widespread it really is.

Almost everyone in the medical field, be it a family doctor or a podiatrist, is concerned about the impact of too much unhealthy stress can have on their patients. It seems that stress is an important factor, even for children in primary school who care about good grades or be in the good graces of a friend or get travel baseball team.

I recently received a letter which was a local hospital by teaching courses on stress reduction based on mindfulness. The concept of attention has been around for some time. I remember reading on stress reduction based on consciousness in the 80 and 90. At that time he was seen as a way of learning to relate directly to what happens in your life so you can take charge of your life. It was seen as a way to do something for yourself that nobody else can do for you. It was a matter of paying attention to what was the cause of stress so you can manage better if it is dealing with your loss of employment, the fact that you have breast cancer or your marriage is being collapse. The concept is that by being aware that you can consciously and systematically learning to respond to your own stress, pain, illness and the challenges and demands of everyday life

Some call it a new area of ​​interest where medicine and psychology merge but those of us who have long been aware of the mind-body connection simply see the concept as another how to make the connection. I always thought that attention would be nice to work with adults who have an attention disorder, because basically what it is training the mind through some exercises to stay more focused on this rather than letting the mind ruminate about the past and agonize about the future.

In other words being mindful, being in the present is another way of approaching reducing stress. If we learn to stay in the present we are likely to feel more at peace about where we are. Mindful stress reduction works for many especially those who must deal with serious illnesses. It also works for many people who are becoming ill because of their stress. There are many meditation techniques and practitioners tend to apply their own descriptions and emphasis when teaching. The terms don’t really matter because all of meditation involves arriving at a peaceful, a calm state of mind.

A hospital with an Integrative Medicine department, patients who want to decrease their stress level and their blood pressure often engage in mindfulness based stress reduction. So do cancer patients who are trying to keep a more positive attitude as well as boost their immune function. The hospital found that participants in this program were able to reduce their sleep disturbances. There were also significant reductions I stress, fatigue and negative mood.

Medical research repeatedly demonstrates that the power of the mind really does influence the body. When you think, for example, your brain is firing various neurotransmitters and other neural activity. This is the same neural network that is responsible for all your physical activities such as walking and breathing. By learning to actively calm your mind you figure out how to be your own best ally in the mind and thought response reaction you have to what is taking place around you and play a support role rather than staying oblivious to the role you’re playing.

For example, cancer patients need to learn positive self talk and practice meditation or yoga to help them feel grateful for all they do have instead of always being fearful and feeling lost. The point is most of our thinking is habitual and we have been conditioned to think this way or that whether we have been diagnosed with breast cancer or have not found a job in 10 months. Once we understand the trap our thinking has become, then we can focus on whatever energy it takes to focus on promoting our own health.The thought behind the mindfulness philosophy is that once we learn to stay in the present we develop the ability to experience life in richer ways.