DR. MIKE DOW MEDITATES

Dr. Mike is passionate about learning. One of the areas he's explored over the years as he seeks to maintain his own personal equilibrium and to share new information with others is MINDFUL MEDITATION. Before you bolt away from this page with a belief that mediation is something best done by men in robes in the mountains of some foreign land --- or by people who have too much time on their hands - STOP and PAUSE for a moment. THERE! You've just completed your first exercise in Mindful Meditation.

Mindful Meditation, which Dr, Mike has studied at UCLA's Semel Institute and the Mindful Awareness Research Center, requires only that you be present for your own life in this moment. So, when you pause and reflect on what is really going on, rather than worry about what might happen in the future or ruminate about what has already happened in the past - you are on the road to practicing Mindful Meditation.

Let's define the word practice so we are clear about its meaning: Practice is the act of rehearsing a behavior over and over, or engaging in an activity again and again, for the purpose of improving or mastering it, as in the phrase "practice makes perfect". It stands to reason that putting together a number of these single moments of meditative reflection will enhance one's ability to incorporate the message of mindfulness into our daily life.

Mindful Meditation not only promotes a feeling of well-being, it also changes the body's chemistry to promote greater physical health. Dr. Mike says, "Mindful Meditation has been clinically proven in hospital-based studies across the country. It has been shown to be an effective treatment for a variety of disorders, some of which western medicine has previously thought of as biologically or physically- based disease. Mindfulness is effective for: addiction, anxiety, ADD/ADHD, depression, eating disorders, HIV, personality disorders, and skin disorders (to name a few). This is helping us to realize that integrative and mind-body treatment not only works - it's essential!"