Background. Complementary and integrative health approaches such as yoga provide support for psychosocial health. We explored the effects of group-based yoga classes offered through an integrative medicine center at a comprehensive cancer center. Methods. Patients and caregivers had access to two yoga group classes: a lower intensity (YLow) or higher intensity (YHigh) class. Participants completed the Edmonton Symptom Assessment System (ESAS; scale 0-10, 10 most severe) immediately before and after the class. ESAS subscales analyzed included global (GDS; score 0-90), physical (PHS; 0-60), and psychological distress (PSS; 0-20). Data were analyzed examining pre-yoga and post-yoga symptom scores using paired t-tests and between types of classes using ANOVAs. Results. From July 18, 2016, to August 8, 2017, 282 unique participants (205 patients, 77 caregivers; 85% female; ages 20-79 years) attended one or more yoga groups (mean 2.3). For all participants, we observed clinically significant reduction/improvement in GDS, PHS, and PSS scores and in symptoms (ESAS decrease >= 1; means) of anxiety, fatigue, well-being, depression, appetite, drowsiness, and sleep. Clinically significant improvement for both patients and caregivers was observed for anxiety, depression, fatigue, well-being, and all ESAS subscales. Comparing yoga groups, YLow contributed to greater improvement in sleep versus YHigh (-1.33 vs -0.50, P = .054). Improvement in fatigue for YLow was the greatest mean change (YLow -2.12). Conclusion. A single yoga group class resulted in clinically meaningful improvement of multiple self-reported symptoms. Further research is needed to better understand how yoga class content, intensity, and duration can affect outcomes.
Zotero Collections:
- Practices Specific to Tibetan Buddhism,
- Tibetan Buddhism,
- Buddhist Contemplation by Tradition,
- Contemplation by Tradition,
- Practices of Buddhist Contemplation,
- Generation phase (utpattikrama, kyerim),
- Great Seal (Mahamudra, Chakchen),
- Great Perfection (Dzokchen),
- Perfection phase (nispannakrama, dzokrim),
- Deity yoga (devata-yoga, lhé nenjor),
- Buddhist Contemplation
Cover; Title; Contents; Acknowledgements; Foreword by His Holiness the Dalai Lama; Introduction by Dr Pema Dorjee; Part One: Encounters with Extraordinary Physicians of Tibet; 1. The Rainbow Festival; 2. The Blue-Faced God: the Medicine Buddha; 3. The Whispering Pulse; 4. The Sacred Consultation; 5. Waiting for the Dalai Lama; 6. Reflections on an Aeroplane; 7. From Death to Birth with the Rinpoche; 8. The Medicine Buddha Empowerment Ceremony; Part Two: The Basic Concepts of Tibetan Buddhist Medicine; Introduction to Part Two; 9. The Mind - the Root of All Suffering. 10. The Three Humours, the Seven Constituents and the Three Wastes11. rLung - the Mobile Energy of Life; 12. Tripa - the Sun at the Centre of our System; 13. Badkan - the Lunar Liquid of the Body; 14. The Two Principal Causes of Disease: Lifestyle and Diet; 15. Tibetan Medicine as a Reflection of Nature; 16. The Study of Tibetan Medicine through the Four Tantras; 17. Diagnosis and Treatment According to Tibetan Medicine; 18. Maintaining Health through Tibetan Medicine; Conclusion; Glossary; Bibliography; Resources; Copyright. Janet Jones and Terence Moore tell of their inspiring personal experiences with Tibetan practitioners. They unfold the holistic approach of Tibetan medicine, which aims to heal the whole person, treating spiritual, mental, physical and emotional diseases, often with miraculous results. Dr Pema Dorjee gives a practical description of the workings of the medical system, offering explanations and examples designed to help the modern reader to understand and apply the healing principles of Tibetan medicine in every day life. There is also a spiritual dimension to these practices: the ancient text.
As universities begin to consider sustainability as a core value in education, there is a need to contemplate the role of transformative learning in higher education. Are current models of university education capable of facilitating action to promote ecological literacy and social change? This article outlines three models of group learning (cooperative, collaborative, and transformative) for use in higher education learning environments. It also examines the possibility (the potential benefits, drawbacks, and implications) of shifting university education from the current model toward a model for transformative learning and sustainability. Ultimately, this article raises a number of questions for academics to consider, including the possible outcomes and implications for implementing transformative education in university curriculum.
As universities begin to consider sustainability as a core value in education, there is a need to contemplate the role of transformative learning in higher education. Are current models of university education capable of facilitating action to promote ecological literacy and social change? This article outlines three models of group learning (cooperative, collaborative, and transformative) for use in higher education learning environments. It also examines the possibility (the potential benefits, drawbacks, and implications) of shifting university education from the current model toward a model for transformative learning and sustainability. Ultimately, this article raises a number of questions for academics to consider, including the possible outcomes and implications for implementing transformative education in university curriculum.
This book deploys the categories of science and religion as heuristics to investigate the processes by which Tibetan medicine forged a certain distance between itself and the ways of knowing associated with ideals of human perfection and supernatural realms. Focusing on academic medicine in Tibet, it explores how medical learning fostered a probative attitude to religious authority and takes into account the important role played by Buddhism in the development of Asian and global civilization. By discussing how medical learning grew to maturity within the great institutions of Tibetan Buddhism, the book highlights the disjunctions—and conjunctions—between scientific and religious approaches to knowledge. It also considers moments when learned physicians set aside revealed scripture in favor of what they observed in the natural world. More importantly, it reveals the methodological self-consciousness that allowed certain leading medical theorists to intentionally mix disparate streams of thought and practice. In the process, they confronted, in unprecedented ways, the possibility that the Buddha's dispensation did not encompass everything that needed to be known for human well-being.
Yoga is an art that emphasizes a calm, happy state of being. Yoga helps to harmonize your feelings to achieve a more balanced way of living. Each of the poses described has an animal or familiar object linked to the feeling it expresses. In addition, there's an affirmation about the feeling being released. For example, as you assume the pose of the polar bear, you say, "I feel balanced and grounded," just as a polar bear stands firmly on a patch of ice. Come celebrate yoga with the kids in this book as they demonstrate twenty poses from the Butterfly to the Opossum.
This study is an investigation of embodiment. It is informed by the experiences and understandings of health, healing, violence and oppression among 15 young South Asian women living in Toronto, Canada. Their articulation of the importance of, and difficulties associated with, health and healing in contexts of social inequity contribute to understandings of embodiment as co-constituted by sentient and social experience. In my reading of their contributions, embodied learning -- that is, an ongoing attunement to sentient-social embodiment -- is a counter hegemonic healing strategy that they use. Their experiences and insights support the increasingly accepted claim that social inequity is a primary determinant of health that disproportionately disadvantages subordinated people. Furthermore, participants affirm that recovery and resistance to violence and oppression and its consequences must address sentient-social components of embodiment simultaneously. In this study, Yoga teachings provide a framework and practice to investigate embodiment and embodied learning. Following 12 Yoga workshops addressing health, healing, violence and oppression, I conducted individual interviews with 15 workshop participants, 3 Yoga teachers and 2 counsellor / social workers. Participants discuss Yoga as a resource for addressing mental, physical, emotional and spiritual consequences of violence and oppression. They resist New Age interpretations of Yoga in terms of individualism and cultural appropriation; they also challenge both New Age and Western biomedicine for a lack of attention to the consequences of social inequity for health and healing. This study considers embodied learning as an important healing resource and form of resistance to violence and oppression. Scholarship addressing embodiment in sociology, health research, anti-racism, feminism, anti-colonialism, decolonization and Indigenous knowledges are drawn upon to contextualize the interviews. This study offers insights relevant to health promotion and adult education discourse and policy through a careful consideration of the embodied strategies used by the participants in their nuanced negotiations of social inequity and pursuits of health and healing.
Zotero Collections:
Zotero Collections:
- Literature Specific to Tibetan Buddhism,
- Tibetan Buddhism,
- Buddhist Contemplation by Applied Subject,
- Buddhist Contemplation by Tradition,
- Contemplation by Tradition,
- Treasure literature (gter ma),
- Tantric communities,
- Biography related to Buddhist Contemplation,
- Community and Buddhist Contemplation,
- Literature of Buddhist Contemplation,
- Great Perfection (Dzokchen),
- Buddhist Contemplation
This essay studies the representation of women and gender in the unprecedented, elaborately detailed medical paintings created by Desi Sangye Gyatso at the end of the seventeenth century in Lhasa, Tibet. It compares die textual version of die information rendered in the paintings with their visual translation. The study discovers a rather complex and mixed picture. It finds that the more systematic portrayals of human anatomy betray a deep androcentrism, withimages of female bodies either marginalised or entirely absent. However, other less standard parts of the set diat depict a wide swathe of daily life on the Tibetan plateau show much more diversity in gender conception. A far greater number of females are depicted there. Women are still shown almost exclusively in gender-specific roles and are virtually never deployed to stand for a gender-neutral medical condition, which is always represented either by a default male figure or a gender-ambiguous one. And yet some of these less standard depictions show either gender egalitarianism, or indeed show little gender differentiation at all, even with respect to attire and bodily features such as breasts and hair. Some images even suggest that gender differentiation was not an important issue, at least some of the time. Yet still other portions of die less standard vignettes do display strict gender distinction and also indicate die greater importance of male medical issues and the inferior status of die female body. In sum, the medical paintings suggest that a wide range of gender conceptions operated not only in Tibetan medicine but also across society more broadly, and these were neither consistent nor fixed.
OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to determine the efficacy of 3 nonhormonal therapies for the improvement of menopause-related quality of life in women with vasomotor symptoms. STUDY DESIGN: We conducted a 12-week 3 x 2 randomized, controlled, factorial design trial. Peri-and postmenopausal women, 40-62 years old, were assigned randomly to yoga (n = 107), exercise (n = 106), or usual activity (n = 142) and also assigned randomly to a double-blind comparison of omega-3 (n = 177) or placebo (n = 178) capsules. We performed the following interventions: (1) weekly 90-minute yoga classes with daily at-home practice, (2) individualized facility-based aerobic exercise training 3 times/week, and (3) 0.615 g omega-3 supplement, 3 times/day. The outcomes were assessed with the following scores: Menopausal Quality of Life Questionnaire (MENQOL) total and domain (vasomotor symptoms, psychosocial, physical and sexual). RESULTS: Among 355 randomly assigned women who average age was 54.7 years, 338 women (95%) completed 12-week assessments. Mean baseline vasomotor symptoms frequency was 7.6/day, and the mean baseline total MENQOL score was 3.8 (range, 1-8 from better to worse) with no between-group differences. For yoga compared to usual activity, baseline to 12-week improvements were seen for MENQOL total -0.3 (95% confidence interval, -0.6 to 0; P = .02), vasomotor symptom domain (P = .02), and sexuality domain (P = .03) scores. For women who underwent exercise and omega-3 therapy compared with control subjects, improvements in baseline to 12-week total MENQOL scores were not observed. Exercise showed benefit in the MENQOL physical domain score at 12 weeks (P = .02). CONCLUSION: All women become menopausal, and many of them seek medical advice on ways to improve quality of life; little evidence-based information exists. We found that, among healthy sedentary menopausal women, yoga appears to improve menopausal quality of life; the clinical significance of our finding is uncertain because of the modest effect.
Mindfulness has been a focus of psychological research and practice in recent decades. Yet, there is limited research on the relationship between mindfulness and vocational decision-making. This study’s purpose was to examine the role of mindfulness in a career context by investigating the relationships among mindfulness, decisionmaking style, negative career thoughts, and vocational identity. The sample included 258 undergraduate students (204 women, 54 men) at a large southeastern U.S. university. Mindfulness was significantly (p < .01) associated with fewer negative career thoughts, external and thinking-based decision-making styles, and higher vocational identity. Multiple regression procedures found that mindfulness, coupled with decision-making style, accounted for 31% of the variance in negative career thoughts and 22% of the variance in vocational identity. These findings suggest that more holistic career counseling interventions could incorporate mindfulness techniques to help reduce anxiety and negative thoughts while increasing self-clarity and problem-solving skills. Future research could include more diverse samples, additional constructs (e.g., choice volition, self-efficacy), and a pretest–posttest design to examine the efficacy of mindfulness-based career interventions.
Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) is an effective treatment for chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS; sometimes known as myalgic encephalomyelitis). However, only a minority of patients fully recover after CBT; thus, methods for improving treatment outcomes are required. This pilot study concerned a mindfulness‐based cognitive therapy (MBCT) intervention adapted for people with CFS who were still experiencing excessive fatigue after CBT. The study aimed to investigate the acceptability of this new intervention and the feasibility of conducting a larger‐scale randomized trial in the future. Preliminary efficacy analyses were also undertaken. Participants were randomly allocated to MBCT or waiting list. Sixteen MBCT participants and 19 waiting‐list participants completed the study, with the intervention being delivered in two separate groups. Acceptability, engagement and participant‐rated helpfulness of the intervention were high. Analysis of covariance controlling for pre‐treatment scores indicated that, at post‐treatment, MBCT participants reported lower levels of fatigue (the primary clinical outcome) than the waiting‐list group. Similarly, there were significant group differences in fatigue at 2‐month follow‐up, and when the MBCT group was followed up to 6 months post‐treatment, these improvements were maintained. The MBCT group also had superior outcomes on measures of impairment, depressed mood, catastrophic thinking about fatigue, all‐or‐nothing behavioural responses, unhelpful beliefs about emotions, mindfulness and self‐compassion. In conclusion, MBCT is a promising and acceptable additional intervention for people still experiencing excessive fatigue after CBT for CFS, which should be investigated in a larger randomized controlled trial.
Objective: To update and expand The North American Menopause Society's evidence-based position on nonhormonal management of menopause-associated vasomotor symptoms (VMS), previously a portion of the position statement on the management of VMS. Methods: NAMS enlisted clinical and research experts in the field and a reference librarian to identify and review available evidence. Five different electronic search engines were used to cull relevant literature. Using the literature, experts created a document for final approval by the NAMS Board of Trustees. Results: Nonhormonal management of VMS is an important consideration when hormone therapy is not an option, either because of medical contraindications or a woman's personal choice. Nonhormonal therapies include lifestyle changes, mind-body techniques, dietary management and supplements, prescription therapies, and others. The costs, time, and effort involved as well as adverse effects, lack of long-term studies, and potential interactions with medications all need to be carefully weighed against potential effectiveness during decision making. Conclusions: Clinicians need to be well informed about the level of evidence available for the wide array of nonhormonal management options currently available to midlife women to help prevent underuse of effective therapies or use of inappropriate or ineffective therapies. Recommended: Cognitive-behavioral therapy and, to a lesser extent, clinical hypnosis have been shown to be effective in reducing VMS. Paroxetine salt is the only nonhormonal medication approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for the management of VMS, although other selective serotonin reuptake/norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors, gabapentinoids, and clonidine show evidence of efficacy. Recommend with caution: Some therapies that may be beneficial for alleviating VMS are weight loss, mindfulness-based stress reduction, the S-equol derivatives of soy isoflavones, and stellate ganglion block, but additional studies of these therapies are warranted. Do not recommend at this time: There are negative, insufficient, or inconclusive data suggesting the following should not be recommended as proven therapies for managing VMS: cooling techniques, avoidance of triggers, exercise, yoga, paced respiration, relaxation, over-the-counter supplements and herbal therapies, acupuncture, calibration of neural oscillations, and chiropractic interventions. Incorporating the available evidence into clinical practice will help ensure that women receive evidence-based recommendations along with appropriate cautions for appropriate and timely management of VMS.
Argues that a category of performance called citizenship behavior is important in organizations and not easily explained by the same incentives that induce entry, conformity to contractual role prescriptions, or high production. Data were collected from 422 employees and their supervisors from 58 departments of 2 banks to examine the nature and predictors of citizenship behavior. Results suggest that citizenship behavior includes at least 2 dimensions: altruism, or helping specific persons, and generalized compliance, a more impersonal form of conscientious citizenship. Job satisfaction, as a measure of chronic mood state, showed a direct predictive path to altruism but not generalized compliance. Rural background had direct effects on both dimensions of citizenship behavior. The predictive power of other variables (e.g., leader supportiveness as assessed independently by co-workers and extraversion and neuroticism as assessed by the Maudsley Personality Inventory) varied across the 2 dimensions of citizenship behavior. (31 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
<p><strong>Creator's Description</strong>: this essay surveys the sources for the lifestory of Ye shes mtsho rgyal, also known as Mkhar chen bza'. It considers references to such a figure in works from <em>Chronicle of Ba (Sba bzhed)</em>, <em>Rnying ma bka' ma</em> materials on Vajrakīla traditions, Nyang ral's life of Padmasambhava, and other Rnying ma sources, down to the well-known biography from the Treasures of Stag sham, as well as a recent Bon po version of her life. It also considers what historical works do not mention her, and raises the question of whether she was a historical person or not. The heart of the essay provides detailed information on an important but little-known long biography of Ye shes mtsho rgyal from the fourteenth century by Dri med kun dga' snying po, a work that is interestingly different from Stag sham's story but also clearly was a source for him. Among other things, this version of the story makes no mention of any connection of Ye shes mtsho rgyal to the king Khri srong lde btsan. Another intriguing suggestion concerns references to her by Gu ru chos dbang, which hint that yet an older rendition of her lifestory might have been preserved in his collected works which has either been lost or is still to come to light. The essay considers the development of the role of Ye shes mtsho rgyal as a female consort and especially the seemingly feminist figuration of her by Stag sham. It also serves to illustrate the complex process of hagiographical development known also for so many other saints in Tibetan religious literature.</p>
Background: It is recommended that Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) instructors should undertake MBCT themselves before teaching others. Aim: To investigate the impact of MBCT (modified for stress not depression) on trainee clinical psychologists. Method: Twenty trainees completed questionnaires pre- and post-MBCT. Results: There was a significant decrease in rumination, and increases in self-compassion and mindfulness. More frequent home practice was associated with larger decreases in stress, anxiety and rumination, and larger increases in empathic concern. Only first-year trainees showed a significant decrease in stress. Content analysis of written responses indicated that the most commonly reported effects were increased acceptance of thoughts/feelings (70%), increased understanding of what it is like to be a client (60%), greater awareness of thoughts/feelings/behaviours/bodily sensations (55%) and increased understanding of oneself and one's patterns of responding (55%). Participants reported increased metacognitive awareness and decentring in relation to negative thoughts. Eighty-five percent reported an impact on their clinical work by the end of the course. Conclusions: Trainee psychologists undergoing MBCT experienced many of the psychological processes/effects that they may eventually be helping to cultivate in clients using mindfulness interventions, and also benefits in their general clinical work.
<p>Presidential address by Janet Gyatso to the Tenth Seminar of the International Association of Tibetan Studies (IATS) held in Oxford, England in 2003. (Than Garson 2005-09-22)</p>
Purpose Previous research incorporating yoga (YG) into radiotherapy (XRT) for women with breast cancer finds improved quality of life (QOL). However, shortcomings in this research limit the findings. Patients and Methods Patients with stages 0 to III breast cancer were recruited before starting XRT and were randomly assigned to YG (n = 53) or stretching (ST; n = 56) three times a week for 6 weeks during XRT or waitlist (WL; n = 54) control. Self-report measures of QOL (Medical Outcomes Study 36-item short-form survey; primary outcomes), fatigue, depression, and sleep quality, and five saliva samples per day for 3 consecutive days were collected at baseline, end of treatment, and 1, 3, and 6 months later. Results The YG group had significantly greater increases in physical component scale scores compared with the WL group at 1 and 3 months after XRT (P = .01 and P = .01). At 1, 3, and 6 months, the YG group had greater increases in physical functioning compared with both ST and WL groups (P < .05), with ST and WL differences at only 3 months (P < .02). The group differences were similar for general health reports. By the end of XRT, the YG and ST groups also had a reduction in fatigue (P < .05). There were no group differences for mental health and sleep quality. Cortisol slope was steepest for the YG group compared with the ST and WL groups at the end (P = .023 and P = .008) and 1 month after XRT (P = .05 and P = .04). Conclusion YG improved QOL and physiological changes associated with XRT beyond the benefits of simple ST exercises, and these benefits appear to have long-term durability.
Purpose Previous research incorporating yoga (YG) into radiotherapy (XRT) for women with breast cancer finds improved quality of life (QOL). However, shortcomings in this research limit the findings. Patients and Methods Patients with stages 0 to III breast cancer were recruited before starting XRT and were randomly assigned to YG (n = 53) or stretching (ST; n = 56) three times a week for 6 weeks during XRT or waitlist (WL; n = 54) control. Self-report measures of QOL (Medical Outcomes Study 36-item short-form survey; primary outcomes), fatigue, depression, and sleep quality, and five saliva samples per day for 3 consecutive days were collected at baseline, end of treatment, and 1, 3, and 6 months later. Results The YG group had significantly greater increases in physical component scale scores compared with the WL group at 1 and 3 months after XRT (P = .01 and P = .01). At 1, 3, and 6 months, the YG group had greater increases in physical functioning compared with both ST and WL groups (P < .05), with ST and WL differences at only 3 months (P < .02). The group differences were similar for general health reports. By the end of XRT, the YG and ST groups also had a reduction in fatigue (P < .05). There were no group differences for mental health and sleep quality. Cortisol slope was steepest for the YG group compared with the ST and WL groups at the end (P = .023 and P = .008) and 1 month after XRT (P = .05 and P = .04). Conclusion YG improved QOL and physiological changes associated with XRT beyond the benefits of simple ST exercises, and these benefits appear to have long-term durability.
Do novice teachers effectively use teaching strategies they learn in a preservice course? This study examines how five novice intermediate (Grades 7-10) English language arts teachers implemented reader response journals, an instructional activity they learned about in their preservice English methods course. During interviews, they shared the challenges they encountered when using this instructional strategy for the first time. While using reader response journals in their classrooms, novice teachers provided student encouragement, thoughtful reflection on their approach, modification as needed, and a consistent positive attitude even in the face of challenges. Study findings indicated that the theory and practice acquired in their preservice course was beneficial to them, and that gaining confidence in themselves as teachers through further practice and experiences would enhance their effective use of this classroom strategy.
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