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<p dir="ltr"><strong>Reflective questions (to consider while watching): </strong></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong></strong><span>What is your purpose for undertaking this module? </span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span>What do you hope that you will learn?</span></p>

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<h3>Transcript of Video - Structure of the module</h3>
<p>By A/Prof. Craig Hassed &amp; Dr. Richard Chambers</p>
<p>
Richard:
The module consists of a number of pre-class activities which we’ll ask you to do before the face to face session. These include completing some questionnaires, looking at stress and work engagement, and levels of mindfulness throughout the day. Watching some short videos and keeping in mind some reflective questions. These videos are designed to sort of outline some of the basic principles of what mindfulness is and we’ll then go into much more detail in the face to face session.

There are some pre-class readings as well and these are designed just to deepen your conceptual understanding of mindfulness and what some of the evidence for it is around wellbeing and performance, teaching and learning. And finally we’re just going to ask you to reflect upon how you might apply mindfulness both personally and professionally.

Craig:
So this is all a lead up to the face to face session and so that after you’ve done the initial activities… the pre-class activities, we’re going to be getting together in a room and we’ll be having a combination and interactive discussion and presentation fleshing out in more detail what you get introduced to prior to the class. And then we’ll be having an opportunity of practicing and applying some of the skills to start to have a sense of how we can use them. And then looking forward to what we’re going to do post-class so the kinds of activities you’ll be involved with in the post-class sessions, keeping a journal etc. so we’ll be outlining that as well, and also identifying where you can fine further resources.

Richard:
We’ve also designed the module so that you can take the learning from the face to face session out into your professional and personal life and really start to apply some of the practices and principles as an experiment really to see how it fits into your life. We’ll then be supporting you over the next 6 weeks helping you to establish a mindfulness mediation practice and to apply it in different ways, in different areas of your life. We’ll then come back together for a second face to face review session where we can look at what’s worked and what hasn’t and help you to understand the way that mindfulness can really be worked into your daily life.

Craig:
So we hope that you very much apply and explore, investigate, and actively involve yourself with questions and discussion particularly in the face to face sessions and the debrief. The more you put in the more you’re going to get out of this course.

Also Richard you might like to say a little bit about the research that people can be a part of if they would like to as well.

Richard:
Absolutely, so the questionnaires that we ask you to complete before and after the module are designed just to help you understand any changes to your own stress… as I said work engagement and mindfulness but we’re also conducting some research so if you’re interested we invite you to participate in that and we’ll use some of the findings in an evaluation… a more formal evaluation of the program.

Craig:
Yes, so you can opt into that if you want to. And of course it’s all anonymous and de-identified information but we can use that just to monitor how the program is helping people overall. So thank you and I look forward to seeing you at the face to face session.
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<p dir="ltr"><strong>Reflective questions: </strong></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong></strong><span>What does the research say about the benefits of mindfulness for </span></p>
<ul>
<li dir="ltr"><span>mental and physical health</span></li>
<li dir="ltr"><span>job performance</span></li>
<li dir="ltr"><span>communication and relationships and </span></li>
<li dir="ltr"><span>learning and teaching? </span></li>
</ul>
<p dir="ltr"><span>What does the brain science say?</span></p>
<p><span> </span></p>

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<h3>Transcript of Video - Introduction to research of mindfulness</h3>
<p>By A/Prof. Craig Hassed &amp; Dr. Richard Chambers</p>
<p>
Craig:
We’d like to introduce you to just a little bit of the research on mindfulness cause there’s been literally a expediential escalation in the amount of interest and research activities so we’re going to outline some of the key areas.  Of course we can’t go into the depth we might otherwise like but just to give you a bit of the sense of the scope of research and mindfulness activities.

Richard:
Quite a lot of the research has been done in the field of mental health and there are a huge number of studies now showing that mindfulness helps to reduce stress, anxiety, depression, to treat a range of problems with sleep, addiction, a growing number of areas.

One of the main areas that’s been mostly widely research is depression and mindfulness has been found to both be great for resilience, for preventing depression in the first place and also for reducing depressive symptoms but most importantly actually it’s been found to significantly reduce the rate of relapse and some studies show that people who learn mindfulness as part of their treatment become half as likely to get depressed again down the track.  One of the main mechanisms for that is just learning to recognise some of the depressive rumination and the patterns of thinking that can lead to decrease mood, that kind of thing, and just defusing from that or stepping out of those mental habits.

We’ll be providing a range of resources, readings and links to other information if you want to know more about this.

Craig:
The next thing to is the mind body relationship and how mindfulness can help us with our physical health.  Because mind and body are so intimately related when we’re activating the stress response… when we don’t need it, it produces a wear and tear on our systems that’s called Allostatic Load and that increases our risk of immune problems, cardiovascular problems, even the cortisol effects the thinning of the bones, but it damages the brain as well.  So what’s been found with mindfulness is it helps the switch off the inappropriate activation of that stress response and takes off a lot of the Allostatic Load.  So things have been found like improved immunity, so reduces inflammation for inflammatory problems, better immune defences.  It’s also associated with taking a lot of the stress of the cardiovascular system but interestingly the effects down to our DNA because we know a lot of stress actually accelerates the ageing on the level of the DNA and mindfulness is even been to actually start to improve genetic repair and slowdown that aging process so it seems to be associated with a lower risk of chronic illnesses we associate with aging.  So there’s a lot of physical health benefits as well and we’ll give you some links for those things to.

Richard:
There’s also a lot of evidence that mindfulness can enhance learning and the way that the brain works.  We’ll be saying more about this later.  But in general it helps to rewire the brain in ways that help the executive function which is the attention or control of the brain to operate more effectively and this has benefits for learning, the concentration.  We also increase in our mental flexibility. We become more aware of mindsets and biases to our thinking and less prone to them.  And we can also make much better decisions as we learn to be more present and to deal with the situation itself rather than being caught up in reactivity and stress responses.

Craig:
There are other effects also on the brain and we know that stress and distraction effect the brain in very unhelpful ways so the more distracted we are, the less we pay attention the more the memory circuits are off line, they get pruned back, the more we get stressed and reactive, the amygdala, the brain stress centre gets larger and more reactive, thins the grey matter and the cortex and the executive functioning areas as well.  We could go on with that but the important thing is not talking about the problem but the solution and research is showing more and more that mindfulness actually has the opposite of all of these effects, switching off default circuits, but also increasing grey matter thickness, that is adding on new brain cells even in the adult brain it quietens down the amygdala, the stress centre, and areas of the brain associated with attention and self-awareness and so on, the cingulate gyrus and the precuneus and so on, all of these things have been found to increase with mindfulness practice so it’s not just the person self-reporting that, the research is certainly suggesting that the brain changes in terms of its structure and its function.

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<p><span id="docs-internal-guid-6d23b91c-a922-5fc5-79d7-eec8986b7417"><strong>Reflective questions:</strong></span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span>What is mindfulness?</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span>What do the terms 'formal' and 'informal' practice refer to?</span></p>

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<h3>Transcript of Video - What is mindfulness?</h3>
<p>By A/Prof. Craig Hassed &amp; Dr. Richard Chambers</p>
<p>
Richard:
Mindfulness is actually very simple. It’s really just about being fully present and engaged in each moment of our lives and of course we all have moments of mindfulness throughout the day just doing things that we enjoy or things that naturally capture our attention but it’s also something that we can practice.

Craig:
Now there are a variety of way of practicing mindfulness. We’ll outline a few of these.

The formal practice of mindfulness meditation. The informal practice of mindfulness and the cognitive practices associated with mindfulness. So firstly just a few words about mindfulness mediation.

If you want to be more able to be mindful in day to day life as we’re going about our teaching. Our learning. Our eating. Our relating and communicating then we need to practice paying attention and that’s where the formal practice of mindfulness meditation comes in. That stereotypical notion of sitting in the chair, eyes closed, practicing paying attention. For example on the body scan moving the attention through various parts of the body or on the breath so just feeling the breath as it enters and leaves. There are varieties of practice but essentially the engage the senses. So engaging with the sense of touch or sense of hearing, any other sense could be used but as a gateway to the present moment. The body is present. The senses are always activating in the present moment but the mine is often somewhere else, some other place or time. So sitting in a chair practicing, paying attention, noticing where the attention is, gently bringing the attention back to wherever of nominated it to be, and then for the attention to stay there and if it goes off to gently bring it back again.

It’s very important as we practice mindfulness meditation we don’t put any pressure on ourselves. Expectations about how it’s meant to be or not meant to be. The more we judge and criticise the more we impose the pressure on the process and make it difficult for us. So entering into it in a very non-judgemental way. Just practicing and seeing it as an experiment, day by day, week by week it gets easier, we notice more often and it’s an easier practice.

There will be some guided practices that we’re going to provide as resources that you can use but this is just I guess a general introduction to mindfulness meditation and why it actually matters. But the next thing is what we do when we get out of the chair.

Richard:
So mindfulness really the foundation is the meditation practice but of course you know there’s no point in being mindful for 5 or 10 minutes a day and then spending the other 23 hours and 50 minutes of the day often distracted in default mode again and so when we get out of the chair what we can start to do is to actually practice being mindful in each moment of our lives and really this just involves bringing an attitude of engagement and curiosity and interest to everyday activities so these can include just the simplest things like cleaning our teeth, eating, travelling, communicating, studying or working, and really all we need to do is just start to focus and engage fully with whatever is happening in front of us.

Craig:
And as ever the senses of the gateway back to the present moment while we’re engaged in those activities.

And so the next part of course are the cognitive practices of mindfulness and I think that there are four major ones. The first one is perception but very often when we’re not mindful we’re perceiving stresses and dramas and sagas that aren’t even there. Could be 3 in the morning and present moment reality is a soft mattress pillow and a warm doona but in our mind we could be totally in a world of pain, the mind cooking up all sorts of what ifs and maybe’s about the future or the past. So the first thing to recognise is the vast majority of stress that we’re actually responding to are the ones that are taking place in our own heads. And also when we’re not mindful we often perceive things to be bigger than they are. We project a lot of attitude onto things that are even there. A mouse runs through the room, we might just see a mouse if we’re mindful or we might just see a monster if we project a whole lot of attitude onto it. And of course the I guess the next aspect of perception is that if we’re not mindful we don’t perceive what is there. There could be a snake there and we just don’t even see it. There could be an issue that needs responding to or some body language that somebody is taking place and we don’t even recognise what’s there to be noticed. So perception. So how can mindfulness help us with a more clear and accurate perception.

The next is letting go or non-attachment. So we often get attached to thought, like to hold an opinion, get attached to emotions, like in the grips of fear. Get attached to desires and expectations. Get attached to assumptions. Get attached to positions in life. But that attachment leaves an enormous amount of potential for anxiety, or stress, or anger or frustration so can we experience those things but with less attachment to them. Can we in our sense remember letting go or non-attachment. The thought may be there but if we’re not attached to it do we get so moved by it. If the emotions there, if we’re not attached to it, rather than trying to control it can we learn not to be controlled by it. This is simple but it’s not so easy.

The third of the cognitive aspects has to do with acceptance. Things happen in day to day life and we can bring an attitude of non-acceptance and reactivity to them and that may not only make us feel bad but it may actually jeopardise our ability to engage with a situation and respond better to it. So when things are happening even if we find them uncomfortable or don’t like them can an attitude of acceptance be fostered and accepting the situation, how it is. Can we then engage more constructively with it. So acceptance.

And the fourth one is presence of mind. So what does it mean to be in the present moment and what’s the effect of being not present which we could think of as absent minded. The mind in some other place, some other time. And if we for example find ourselves stressed or angry or distracted and so what’s the effect of noticing and just bringing ourselves back to the present moment. And just remembering of course that the senses are always the gateway back to the present moment.

So they’re the big four and we’re going to invite you to explore those and to apply them in your own life and to investigate where they’re not working so mindfully and what’s the effect of mindfulness on our understanding of those four big cognitive aspects of mindfulness.
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<p><span id="docs-internal-guid-6d23b91c-a922-5fc5-79d7-eec8986b7417"><strong>Reflective questions:</strong></span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span>How can mindfulness help improve our wellbeing?</span></p>

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<h3>Transcript of Video - Mindfulness and productivity</h3>
<p>By A/Prof. Craig Hassed &amp; Dr. Richard Chambers</p>

<p>
Richard:
Now Craig there’s a lot of evidence coming out that mindfulness can really significantly enhance work and study productivity, can you say something about that.

Craig:
Yes, well we don’t have to think about it for too long to realise that when we’re distracted and inattentive our performance goes down, there are a number of reasons for that. One has to do with the relationship between stress and performance so for example stress can be useful for lifting us out of apathy because when we’re apathetic and so relaxed we don’t even care we don’t actually engage with the things that need our attention so stress can be useful to lift us out of apathy and to get us going as it were. But if the stress keeps going up the performance starts to go down so we start to feel bad but we also start to perform poorly. And what’s happening in that situation is we find it very difficult to focus. The mind is… the attention is very scattered and we find it very hard to focus so our performance goes down, we don’t see what’s in front of us. So if we’re at the top of that stress performance curve and we want to go to a higher level of performance it’s not stress that takes us there, it’s focus. That is to be very mindful. So when the attention is most completely engaged in fact so totally present there’s no room for anxiety about the outcome or the future, then we not only feel more relaxed but relaxed fully engaged, fully present, and that’s actually the state of peak performance.

Richard:
It sounds a little bit like flow state or being in the zone.

Craig:
Yeah, people have used a lot of different terms for it like that and when you hear people describing those experiences of flow or zone they do not describe stress, but they describe being completely present with the process and the moment and of course the result looks after itself. It’s not like your result doesn’t matter but it looks after itself through focus, step by step through that process.

Richard:
But in a very relaxed almost effortless kind of way.

Craig:
Em, that’s one of the paradoxes that people say, and they could be in an outwardly stressful situation but they say I feel very calm and I was really enjoying it, I was really interested and engaged.

Richard:
The brain science also has found that mindfulness significantly rewires the prefrontal cortex which is the control panel of the brain, the hippocampus, we can even sprout new neurons there, so it’s strengthens the brain or strengthens what some of us call executive functioning.

Craig:
Executive functions are really our higher functions, they’re the last area of the brain to develop, most of those executive functions operate out of what’s called the prefrontal cortex so that’s the area of the brain just behind the forehead and the number one executive function is attention regulation because if we don’t get the attention right, the other ones doesn’t operate, so like working memory so the memory circuits, the hippocampus and so on, they’re off line if we’re not paying attention. We know that, if we don’t pay attention when we put down the car keys we can’t remember where the car keys are. But also other areas the brain associates with the processing information our ability to actually recognise bias so we step into a situation with an assumption that may have nothing to do with the actual merits of the situation but if we’re not mindful we just take that assumption to be real. We go on the basis of making decisions on the basis but if we mindful we recognise wait a second, we’re jumping to a conclusion, I haven’t even assessed the situation yet and we’re able to actually just recognise an assumption for what it is and not take it to be a fact so people very often make better decisions. People will say if I have a period of mindfulness prior to a significant or demanding day or situation or a meeting they’ll very often say the mind seems clearer. Make better decisions. I seem to prioritise more effortlessly and so on. And these are all examples of what it feels like when our executive function is working better.

Richard:
Also things like impulse in addition. You know to not eat that fourth piece of chocolate cake or not check your phone when you’re trying to finish a report, also an executive function.

Craig:
That’s right.

Richard:
And emotion regulation of course.

Craig:
Yes, the emotional regulation is a very important part of what it means to be mindful. To actually notice our emotional reactions, that’s a key part of what’s called self-awareness, to actually notice the emotional reactions. We might notice before stepping into a meeting that there’s a level of anger or resentment and to actually be aware or its presence gives us the opportunity to actually take that into account, to take care with how we might express ourselves in that meeting. But emotional regulation is not so much about trying to control or suppress the emotion, it’s the ability to be aware of it but through non-attachment to it, to be not so controlled by the emotion and that’s not necessarily very easy with very strong emotions, it requires a bit of practice and a bit of patience to be able to do that.

Richard:
Maybe practice it when we don’t need it, when the stakes are low, so that we can use it when we do.

Craig:
Yeah, if we practice it hundreds of times on little situations then it makes it easier to bring it to the big situations when they do occur.

Richard:
Yeah. Something else that can really help with productivity and performance is learning to uni-task. You know we live in this culture that really values and celebrates the idea of multitasking which when you come back to the brain I mean that’s an illusion in the first place isn’t it.

Craig:
Yes. Yes there’s this modern assumption that we can pay attention to multiple complex things at the same time, we now know that’s not true. What we’re actually doing is flirting our attention back and forth between those things so it’s sort of like a very rapid attention switching. We start to miss more information than we take in, that’s the attentional blink, the bits we miss as we switch, get longer and more frequent so we’re actually not necessarily conscious of how much we’re missing. But also when we’re multitasking the memory circuits are not working well. The stress is generally activated. We make more areas. Say on the roads for example talking on a mobile phone, more than four hundred percent is likely to have a motor vehicle accident so...

Richard:
...so it’s four times more likely to crash.

Craig:
More than, yeah. Texting while driving increases it… I’ve seen estimates anywhere between 23 fold increase risk and 164 fold increase…

Richard:
…up to 164 times more likely to crash.

Craig:
Yeah, so it very seriously impaired. So it really doesn’t help at all. And it based on the assumption I’ll get more done or have a fuller life. Unfortunately the opposite is the true. So if we want to actually get more done more efficiently and prove our memory and performance… our decision making then uni-tasking focusing efficiently on the one thing at any given moment needs our attention but if a more important priority comes along then switch our attention to that so that efficient attention switching is what we actually do when we’re focused, calm, and on top of our game.

Richard:
I saw one study that showed that if people stop an check an email or Facebook in the middle of a task it tasks an average of 64 seconds to get their attention fully back on what they were doing before and if you add that up over a 40 hour working week we actually waste 8 ½ hours so a whole day. So I guess if we’ve ever thought that we can do with an extra day in the week, there’s good news. We just have to stop multitasking.

Craig:
And I think we need to be conscious of the environments we create for ourselves, if we’re trying to get on with something complex, like an assignment, write a report, prepare for some significant event, then it helps if we just take our time to do that and remove all the unnecessary distractions. Turn the email off. Certainly not be on Facebook at the same time. You know put the answer phone on and stay in the flow of that task… short of an emergency happening that we need to address, and then at the completion of that task then go an engage with the next thing so how we compartmentalise time can minimise the impact of this constant disruption in the midst of complex tasks.

Richard:
That’s checking emails, that kind of thing.

Craig:
That’s right.
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<p><span id="docs-internal-guid-6d23b91c-a922-5fc5-79d7-eec8986b7417"><strong>Reflective questions:</strong></span></p>
<p>What is the relationship between stress and work/academic performance?</p>
<p><span id="docs-internal-guid-6d23b91c-a922-5fc5-79d7-eec8986b7417">What is the “default mode” of the brain and how does this cause problems?</span></p>
<p><span id="docs-internal-guid-6d23b91c-a922-5fc5-79d7-eec8986b7417"></span><span id="docs-internal-guid-6d23b91c-a922-5fc5-79d7-eec8986b7417">What is executive functioning and how does mindfulness enhance it?</span></p>

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<h3>Transcript of Video - Mindful education and teaching</h3>
<p>By A/Prof. Craig Hassed &amp; Dr. Richard Chambers</p>

<p>
Craig:
There’s an enormous amount of interest in the role of mindfulness in education these days. Not only are we doing our best to create a mindfulness university here at Monash University but also a lot of schools outside, a lot of teachers are introducing mindfulness into the curriculum so we thought we might explore why mindfulness seems to matter in education and learning, so Richard would you like to tell us a little bit about why mindfulness matters in learning firstly, for a student. Why would that be important to them?
Richard:
Well the ability to pay attention is in many ways the foundation of learning. You know teachers all over the land telling their kids pay attention but of course we don’t often teach them how to do that and so what mindfulness offers is a way of actually training the attention. At its most basic we’re training the attention to be one place at one time. To notice when it wanders off. To bring it back. So we can become much more engaged in the work that we’re doing. we can become much more aware of when the mind has wandered off so that we can bring it back and there’s a lot of research showing that that’s significantly improved grades. Helps with creativity. A whole range of different benefits.
Craig:
Yes, so what about the distractibility for a lot of students these days, is the world becoming a more distracted place and is that flowing over into a student’s experience?
Richard:
It certainly seems that the world is getting faster with more demands on our time. Of course digital technology is neither good or bad but it certainly can encourage at its worst distractibility and this sort of idea of trying to multitask which is actually an illusion anyway so yeah mindfulness offers a sort of antidote to that, while things are getting faster and more distracted we can actually learn within that too to focus on one thing at a time and to improve our own study.
Craig:
So when uni-tasking for a student for example does that enhance memory?
Richard:
Absolutely. There’s research that shows than when we start to uni-task, to focus on one thing at a time of course our attentional performance improves. Short term memory improves. Even long term memory. Even changes have been found in the hippocampus which is the long term memory area, that’s starts to grow new neurons and becomes much stronger.
Craig:
So learning how to deal with distraction, learning how to focus is very important as sort of a foundation. What about procrastination, a lot of students find themselves in terms of preparing for exams or assignments, procrastination is a major problem. How is mindfulness going to help with that?
Richard:
About 70% of university students would admit to being procrastinators and you’ve got to wonder about that other 30% whether they just haven’t got around to sort of noticing or acknowledging it yet but procrastination is a habit. I mean there are a lot of different reasons why people do procrastinate, stress, avoidance of the task, you know that kind of thing but also sometimes it’s just bad habits around studying and one of the things the mindfulness helps us to do is to start to notice the way our brain works. Start to notice the way… what our attention is focused on and so we develop self-awareness and we can just start to notice when we’re getting onto Facebook or when we’re making that fifth cup of tea, that kind of thing, and so we can start to make much wiser choices about how we distribute our attention. How we manage our time. And rather than waiting for stress to motivate us which is of course what a lot of students are doing you know week one of a semester or the start of a school term, whatever right, come week 12 suddenly oh my god the assignments due tomorrow, I’m doing all-nighter’s, and we can use stress and fear to motivate ourselves but it points us into a non-optimal learning stable where we’re flooded with stress hormones, scattered, unable to think clearly, and so mindfulness you know being focused, structuring our time properly, and just getting started on the task is a much better strategy.
Craig:
So being mindful is a kind of a form of non-engagement, inattention, avoidance.
Richard:
Yeah absolutely.
Craig:
And so in terms of attitudes to task and creativity can people be more creative if they’re more mindful?
Richard:
Absolutely. One of the things about creativity is it involves some degree in mind wondering but if we’re completely lost in that mind wondering and we’re worrying about things and dwelling on things and caught up in all of those normal mental habits, that can actually get in the way of creativity. I mean of course if our mind wanders off and we think up something you know novel and useful that can be very useful but it’s very easy for the mind just click over into getting caught up in worries and stresses and things that aren’t helpful so noticing that, bringing the mind back to the general sort of area that we’re focusing on, that’s a very useful thing.
Craig:
I sometimes like to think of when a person is talking about being creative that’s actually the mind engaging attentively, consciously, purposefully, but with a creative process. I often think that’s a form of mindfulness, not mind wandering in the sense of that habitual distraction when we’re going off task
Richard:
YAbsolutely yeah.
Craig:
I dare say that self-care is an important part of the student, being able to look after themselves and perform well in a sustainable way.
Richard:
Yeah. Well quite often particularly when we’re busy and stress we sort of lose touch with our body and often done notice. I mean how easy it just to not notice when you’re hungry. Not notice when you’re tired. You know rely on coffee and that kind of thing just to stay focused and present, and so one of the things that mindfulness helps us to do is to start tuning into our body from moment to moment and notice what some of our basic physical needs are, our emotional needs. Noticing the effect of not getting enough sleep. Of being stressed. Of being caught up in certain types of thinking that aren’t serving us. So it can certainly increase self-care.
Craig:
And from a learners perspective I guess one of the last things is that sometimes we can fixate so much on the detail we lose perspective and that seems to be one of the things that happen when we’re more mindful is got the big picture and the detail seems to fit in you know within the big picture in a lot more organised sort of way.
Richard:
Absolutely.
Craig:
Well let’s consider a little bit about mindful teaching for those who are in the roll of teachers of even in deed parents who are interested in helping their children to learn more effectively as well about mindful teaching.
So in what ways is mindfulness going to be important for a teacher who’s got to prepare for run, reflect on experiences in teaching?
Richard:
Mindfulness can be very helpful at all stages of the teaching process. Obviously when we’re preparing a class or preparing some slides for a lecture just to be in the present moment and paying attention. Obviously not making mistakes but also thinking about how the most effectively communicate. How to get the message across.
Craig:
And very often if we’re worrying about the future how is it going to go, living the event before its even happened, that often makes people very nervous or anxious prior to giving a class or a presentation.
Richard:
Well that’s the paradox of performance anxiety but the mind goes off into the future and starts to basically prepare itself for the worst possible outcome triggering a stress response, effecting the way the brains working and what we need to be doing in fact if focusing on the present moment and preparing ourselves for that eventuality.
Craig:
And then as much as we can to be present in the process of delivering the teaching.
Richard:
Absolutely. I mean of course effective communication comes from being in the present moment. Just being aware of what we’re saying as we’re saying it and noticing the way that message is received by the people that we’re communicating to and using that feedback.
Craig:
Yes. I dare say one of the things to that if we’re doing something or teaching something we’re very familiar with… as we say I could do it in my sleep, we may be doing it in our sleep, that is on automatic pilot and that would have to happen a lot with people who are very familiar with their content.
Richard:
Yes that’s right, and one of the things that mindfulness helps us to do is to notice when we’re in that automatic pilot so even if we’re in it, we have some awareness that we’re in it so we don’t just completely say the same thing or make the same mistake over and over again, we can snap out of it for a moment and maybe just pay attention to… as I said how the message is being received or to think a little bit more creatively about what we’re teaching.
Craig:
And then of course afterwards to reflect on experience of having just taught.
Richard:
Yeah, well very important to reflect on things that went well. Things that didn’t go well. And if we can remove added judgements and the idea right and wrong it can help us really look at things on face value and that can be a very useful thing to cultivate. To be able to look at things that didn’t go so well and rather than just getting caught up in self-criticism and judgement, to be able to pick out okay, what’s specifically didn’t work so well. What might we do next differently next time if we were to just pay a bit more attention.
Craig:
Which is very different to reliving that event. Why did this happen. Oh I wish this didn’t happen. Which of course just leads to a whole lot of rumination. Further distraction and then further apprehension about future events as well.
Richard:
Absolutely.
Craig:
Now also of course most effective teachers tend to be very interested and passionate about their content, how does that effect mindfulness and engagement?
Richard:
That’s the foundation of mindfulness, to be interested and curious, and of course that’s very contagious. I’m sure we’ve all had teachers over time who have just been really passionate about the area that they’re teaching that embody that attitude of real interesting curiosity and discovery…
Craig:
…so that has an effect on the learners engagement and attention.
Richard:
Of course, and just invites that same quality of attention to the learning process, rather than just reading slides off the board, you know that really disengaged, purely didactic kind of teaching.
Craig:
That’s the kind of teaching that a lot of big group teaching I guess rejected because if somebody is just stepping in and delivering material they don’t feel passionate about them, it doesn’t engage the students interest.
Richard:
No. And curiosity is a central quality of mindfulness. You know we can cultivate that in any moment, you know doing the informal practices of mindfulness as we travel or clean our teeth or study or communicate, we can be very curious and engaged and interested and it has a way of increasing the attention or engagement, and if we bring that to teaching and also to learning or course that makes it much more powerful.
Craig:
Alan Langer at Harvard University speaks a lot about the importance of doing things in novel ways, looking at the differences and things. How can that be bought into the teaching?
Richard:
Well again rather than just doing things the same way every single time, it can be very useful to wonder how else could we look at this and how does an apple really relate to an orange. You know if we start to really start notice different relationships, it just helps to link information semantically in the mind. Helps us to of course start to notice new things about very familiar topics or experiences and that can be a very powerful part of that learning experience.
Craig:
Yes, I’m conscious myself even if I’m giving a presentation the likes of which I might have given many, many times before I’m conscious of never saying it the same way twice. Contextualising it differently for this group. Bringing in different anecdotes that just occur in the moment. So for me to keep it fresh it seems to be very much being present to the unfolding of the session.
Richard:
Well it’s always a new audience and always a new moment so it would make sense to always do things just slightly differently, taking that into account.
Craig:
That’s right. And in terms of teaching mindfulness, is the role of modelling the most important thing?
Richard:
I would say that’s probably the most important aspect of mindful teaching. You know any time I give a presentation on mindfulness at least out of school at least one parent will ask me how do I get my kids to be more mindful. And the answer is to be more mindful with your kids and I think that can be extended to any area. I mean if a lecturer or if a teacher is there and actually embodying mindfulness, being present, engage, non-judgemental, really curious and interested, that just has ripple effects and can really rub off on other people. So that’s one of the best possible ways of teaching mindfully and so that’s why we encourage people actually to start to apply this stuff personally in their own lives and then just naturally organically find ways of letting that flow out into their teaching, their learning, that kind of thing.
Craig:
Cause if we’re not teaching mindfulness, we’re teaching un-mindfulness.
Richard:
That’s right.
Craig:
I try and console myself on many occasions that wherever possible I try and be an example of mindfulness and if I can’t be an example I’m the warning.

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<p><span id="docs-internal-guid-6d23b91c-a92e-f231-0f31-2162ba284afd">What are the specific applications of mindfulness for learning and teaching?</span></p>

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<h3>Transcript of Video - Mindful learning</h3>
<p>By A/Prof. Craig Hassed &amp; Dr. Richard Chambers</p>

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Richard:
As well as learning to pay attention Craig and of course developing self-awareness one of the things that we practice with mindfulness is an attitude or different attitudes around being friendly towards ourselves, empathetic, self-compassionate, that kind of thing.
Craig:
It’s a very important part of mindfulness cause people focus on the attention bit, I can’t stop my mind from wandering and then we get angry at ourselves and critical and of course that tends to make the problem even worse.  And so the attitude that we cultivate in mindfulness is certainly to practice paying attention, to practice coming back and being present, but to do that in a way that’s non-reactive, non-judgemental, accepting, self-compassionate.  Just accepting the fact that of our own humanity as it were and not having to beat ourselves up cause if we do practice beating ourselves up we certainly get very good at it but it’s not necessarily something that serves us very well.
One of the interesting things is that as we cultivate more self-compassion that sort of attitude of kindness to ourselves, it makes it a little bit easier to step out into our day to day life and to be a little bit more patient and tolerant to others as well.  So that compassion… self-compassion seems to flow on from what the research says into more compassion, empathy an altruistic sort of approach to others.  Of course if we get intentionally self-critical then it often has the opposite effect of feeling mean and angry at ourselves and that very often flows over and how do we react to other people as well.
Richard:
So mindfulness starts being about us but then naturally just starts to flow out, some of the qualities of attentiveness and compassion that we cultivate… you were saying just start to naturally effect the people around us in very positive ways.
Craig:
Yeah.  I think that’s one of the common misunderstandings about mindfulness and meditation more generally is oh that’s just about thinking about yourself, actually it’s the opposite of that.  We’re almost constantly thinking about ourselves and mindfulness is a way of unhooking from this internally orientated thinking and to actually turn out, to pay attention in a… how should we say, that compassionate kind of attitude and to be better able to engage with the world around us.  So it’s not about self-absorption, it’s actually this… I don’t know, self-centred kind of mental activity, there’s a lot of default mental activity actually is the opposite of what we want when we’re practicing being mindful.
Richard:
And also because of neuroplasticity you know we’ve got use it or lose it brains and so anything we practice and cultivate gets hardwired in and that can include things like attentiveness and self-awareness but also qualities like gentleness, friendliness, self-compassion, compassion for others, these kinds of things and we can literally… the research is showing build these things into our brain, practising their skills.
Craig:
Absolutely.  Because yes as you said whatever we practice, we’ll get good at.  Unfortunately we very often practice anger and frustration and reactivity and that starts to flow over.  And I know you’ve got a lot of interest in how this flows onto mental health and wellbeing and perhaps you can say a little bit more about that and how it helps people.  This sort of self-compassion and attitude in dealing with things like anxiety and depression.
Richard:
One of the things that really helps people the most is to develop a much more… like a friendly more compassion attitude with themselves.  Quite often when people are anxious or burning out at work there’s a real drivenness or self-criticism as a sort of a default setting for them and mindfulness can help us to notice that we’re caught up in that and that’s sort of a default setting but then to start reprograming that and just learning to… I mean we all experience discomfort, we all have suffering in our lives but quite often we then add an extra layer of suffering which is the self-criticism and the idea that somehow wrong for experiencing that or you know beating ourselves up about it and instead what we can start to do is first of all to notice the effect that that has which is to further inflame the problem, trigging the stress response, that kind of thing but also then to start practicing and cultivating very different attitudes.  Being present with ourselves, staying engaged, looking after our own needs, and being kind to ourselves.
Craig:
So much of the time we might be practising what we think is mindfulness or just in other ways in our day to day life thinking oh it’s about avoiding those uncomfortable experiences, emotions, etc. but it’s more from a mindfulness perspective not having to avoid them or stop experiencing them but to change the way that relate to when they’re there.
Richard:
What we’re talking about here is the opposite of avoidance and in fact the self-criticism, the judgement, the un-mindfulness that we get so caught up in, that can actually create patterns of avoidance.  I mean there’s some very interesting research that came out… a couple of studies now have found that students that fail a test and are then self-compassionate do better on the retest because the students who are…  and that’s sort of counter intuitive isn’t it, but the students who are self-critical and you know beating themselves up and using fear and that kind of thing to motivate themselves, they waste a lot of time caught up in that self-critical rumination, they’re activating the stress response, the task itself, the test becomes very unpleasant, takes on a very unpleasant kind of flavour and they avoid it more and the students who are self-compassionate realise that there’s a mistake that they’ve made… there’s something they need to do about it but they’re kind to themselves.  They calm down.  They activate the tender befriends circuit rather than the fight or flight circuit so they’re then much more able to focus on what they need to learn to do better on the retest and there’s less avoidance and therefore performance.
Craig:
And also similarly in studies it’s been found that if somebody has made a mistake in their life… makes a bad decision, they’re more likely to learn something from it and go forward, improve them better or maybe to aspire to better role models if they’re more able to be more able to be more self-compassionate.  We get very self-critical.  We very often look at a more negative kind of role models thinking that’s what we’re destined for. And it’s interesting to look at environments being medical trained for example and that very often people would say their experience of learning in those situations is through stress and pressure and humiliation and fear and so on and of course the mental health and the profession tend to be very poor.  The levels of burnout are very high and of course the rates of errors are very significant and that kind of assumption of whether that’s the correct way to teach  and that’s the way that people best learn is not necessarily true at all.  A little bit of pressure or stress sometimes can lift a person out of apathy when they really need to do that but it’s not stress that drives the person ultimately to perform well, it’s engagement and interest then I think that that self-compassionate attitude is the thing that helps us to learn best from our mistakes.

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