Practical Mindfulness: A Physician's No-Nonsense Guide to Meditation for Beginners (Mindful Breathing, Gift For Anxiety)

by Greg Sazima MD

Overview

Stressed Out in These Uncertain Times? You Can Adapt. Here’s How.

“An insightful and demystifying look at mindfulness practice.” —Kirkus Reviews

2021 INDIES Gold Winner Body, Mind & Spirit

Breathe in and out through the stressors of life with this accessible meditation guide. Learn the life-changing benefits of mindfulness to navigate these uncertain times.

Training exercises that work. Practical Mindfulness approaches mindfulness and meditation from a hands-on, how-to, irreverent perspective–appealing to all readers curious about meditation, and health care and education professionals looking to learn and teach the fundamentals of meditation to their patients and students. Applying Dr. Sazima’s training routines, we can all learn better coping methods and less burnout, in the midst of all that is happening.

An accessible approach to finding “home.” We all search for that safe, comfortable feeling of peace of mind–our inner “home.” When we face challenges–from a tough day at work to a life-threatening health problem–we can realize with blinding clarity there is no sustainable outside solution. Without a more developed interior awareness, we can suffer stress, anxiety, and depression. This guide is the solution to reclaiming your peaceful place in every moment.

Meditation training from an expert. Dr. Sazima is a board-certified psychiatrist, an educator of family doctors-in-training at Stanford’s Family Medicine Residency, and an experienced meditator and meditation teacher. He is also a survivor of a rare bone cancer who has used the powerful practice of meditation to navigate his own medical crisis. Now, he is on a “pay it forward” mission to show us why and how meditation works, in an accessible and entertaining way.

We can adapt – Practical Mindfulness shows us how. Readers of books such Think Like A Monk, Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, or 10% Happier will love Practical Mindfulness.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781642504378
Publisher:	Mango
Publication date:	01/19/2021
Pages:	312
Sales rank:	416,503
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Greg Sazima, MD, is a board-certified psychiatrist, educator, and author, based in Northern California. In addition to a busy psychotherapy practice, he serves as Senior Behavioral Faculty at the Stanford/O'Connor Family Medicine Residency program in San Jose. Practical Mindfulness is his first Mango book, a no-nonsense guide to introductory meditation. He has been a practitioner and teacher of mindfulness meditation for many years, creating curricula for both adults and children. Dr. Sazima has written on mental health issues for newspapers and periodicals, including the Sacramento Bee and the Philadelphia Inquirer. His serves on the boards of directors of Capital Public Radio, Northern California's NPR network, and Snowline Hospice, a nonprofit palliative care provider in the Sacramento/Sierra Foothills region.

Table of Contents

Preface 17

Introduction: Just Take a Breath Already, Will Ya? 25

Part I

Chapter 1 We Can Always Change Our Minds 43

Chapter 2 First, We'll Need a Map 57

Chapter 3 You'd Better Sit Down for This: A Few Preparatory Words on, uh, Sitting 71

Chapter 4 Sitting: The Setup 85

Chapter 5 All Right, Let's Start Already 95

Chapter 6 Lost and Found 113

Part II

Chapter 7 Another Map: Your Mind, the Operating System(s)

Chapter 8 Back to the Cushion: Body and Heart 151

Chapter 9 Emotions Practices: Just Dropping In 173

Chapter 10 "I Think" Becomes, "There's That Thought" 189

Chapter 11 It's a Bee-you-tee-ful Day for Meditation! 203

Chapter 12 The Mind Hacker's Toolkit, for Those Special Moments 211

Part III

Chapter 13 It's All Home: Deeper Awareness 245

Chapter 14 Into the Deep End: Vibe Practices 253

Chapter 15 Home Again, Home Again: Some Final Words on Mindfulness 277

Epilogue: Practically Finished 287

Appendix

See Om, Do Om, Teach Om: Spreading the Goodness 289

References 301

Acknowledgments 305

About the Author 311

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"As a psychiatrist, I regularly recommend mindfulness meditation because I know I am supposed to, but I always felt intimidated when I would try it myself. Dr. Sazima’s humor and humanity make this practical guide just the right place to start, or jumpstart, your own mindfulness practice. Practical Mindfulness is the one book I recommend to my patients, even when they don’t believe they want to start meditating." - Lisa Goldstein, MD - Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist, Philadelphia, PA

Editorial Reviews

2021-04-22
A beginner’s guide to the basics of meditation.

Debut author Sazima’s work as a practicing psychiatrist in San Jose, California, often brought him into contact with people who wanted to be “collaborators in their treatment.” He and his colleagues noticed that several patients seemed stuck in a cycle of poor health. However, after the author established a class on the basics of breath control and meditation, some patients quickly showed improvement, he says. Sazima goes on to recommend these same methods to his readers, offering a series of painless, jargon-free introductions to their basic tenets. His overviews present clear instructions and explanations, as when he urges the reader to concentrate, during meditation sessions, on the simple beating of one’s heart: “The stilling of activity to allow witness of the heart beating,” he writes, “can itself bring great calm, even literally allowing that beat to gently rock the body at rest.” In addition to these general approaches, Sazima also provides a steady thread of simple encouragements aimed specifically at beginners who might be frustrated by minimal initial progress: “The overall trajectory for just about everybody…is of overall improvement.” The combination of Sazima’s expertise and upbeat spirit make his book an inviting reading experience. It also uses helpful photos, graphs, and illustrations to make its points, and Sazima makes the inspired decision to often adopt a carefree, joking tone; he knows that his subject may be intimidating to newcomers, and his occasional wisecracks (such as the chapter title “You’d Better Sit Down for This: A Few Preparatory Words on, uh, Sitting”) effectively work to defuse that reaction. At the same time, he makes it clear throughout his book that the key enemy of meditation is distraction and that regaining the power to focus is of great value.

An insightful and demystifying look at mindfulness practice.

Kirkus Reviews