

STOP SMOKING MEDITATION FREE
“You just practice saying certain phrases over and over: may you be happy, may you be healthy, may you be free from inner and outer harm, may you live with ease.” Trainees are also taught various kinds of meditation, including one called loving kindness meditation. Mindfulness training is the clinic’s version of that path, in which people are given exercises which Brewer summed up by the acronym SOBER: Stop Observe the body, emotions and thoughts Breathe and notice your breath Expand your awareness to other phenomena and Respond in a healthy way. The third truth is that we can overcome those desires and the fourth is to follow the Buddhist path to enlightenment. The first is that life is suffering, and the second is that we cause our own suffering through our ignorance and attachments to our desires. That includes suffering.īuddhism is based on the Four Noble Truths. “Where Buddhism comes in, it says everything is impermanent,” that life is change, Brewer said. The experienced Buddhist knows that anger and other stresses will go away.

“That adds this huge element of openness - when you know how something works there’s much more freedom to not react to it.” The knowledge that the addict is not a slave to the drug enables him or her to resist the urge more easily each time. Every time they ride that wave, they get better at riding it.” Every time you react to them you get crushed by them. “The secret is, your anger’s going to go away anyway, if you can just ride that wave,” even though you fear that you’re going to wipe out in the surf, Brewer said. Brewer compares it to surfing the wave represents a feeling like anger we wipe out to get rid of the feeling. What the clinic’s training does is help the addict break the cycle of turning to a drug to relieve the seemingly unbearable feelings created by stresses such as loneliness or anger. “Those habits inform how we approach each new situation.” “Everybody forms habits based on their prior experiences,” Brewer said. “First, it’s maintaining your attention on the present moment, and the second is you’re bringing to that a nonjudgmental attitude of acceptance and curiosity.”Īddicts use their drug or substance of choice to relieve stress and tension, Brewer said, and that behavior becomes habitual. “Mindfulness has a two-component definition for the scientific community,” Brewer said. What he teaches is mindfulness, a concept rooted in Buddhism. Brewer has conducted studies with alcoholics and cocaine addicts and now is beginning research to help people quit smoking.īrewer is medical director of the Yale Therapeutic Neuroscience Clinic, based at the Veterans Affairs medical center.

WEST HAVEN - A Yale psychiatrist is bringing together neuroscience and Buddhist practices to help people overcome their addictions.ĭr. Yale Psychiatrist Uses Buddhist Concept to Help Smokers Quit I hope you enjoy the article and do leave your thoughts in the comments section below. This is excellent news because it proves what I have known since I was a young boy, which is that Buddhism is very effective to inspire transformation in people. More recently, I came across this article that shows how Buddhism can also help people quit smoking. And what’s amazing is that they have noticed positive changes in their students’ behaviour as a result. Schools are infusing Buddhism into its students’ daily lives by having meditation classes and substituting detention with meditation sessions. I am happy to see how, more and more, Buddhism is being applied and used in so many diverse platforms and industries these days. Animals, Vegetarianism & Environment 514.
