WELCOME to my blog...

D O N 'T W O R R Y , B E H A P P Y !

Have a beautiful day and be H A P P Y !


Sunday, December 16, 2007

Brahmavihara-Love for TEENS


Brahmavihara
: Falling IN Love
(Kajang Teenage Camp, 2007)

How to teach teenagers about LOVE: A Buddhist Perspective

Sunday, December 2, 2007

MINDFUL-Gym™ - Mindfulness Affirmation...


MINDFUL-Gym™

Programming...


What is Positive Affirmation?

MINDFUL-Gym Affirmation - Powerpoint slide show:

MINDFUL-Gym Affirmation - Script:

MINDFUL-Gym Affirmation - Audio file:



Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Longevity



It's not how long we live that matters
But HOW we live...

Mindfulness Photos

Mindfulness Hymns


Happiness is here and now...

Happiness is here and now,
I have dropped my worries,
Nowhere to go, nothing to do,
No longer in a hurry.

Happiness is here and now,
I have dropped my worries,
Somewhere to go, something to do,
But not in a hurry.

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Hypnotherapy & Past Life Regression Therapy

If you are interested to go for hypnotherapy or past life regression therapy, I would like to recommend to you a friend of mine, Dr. Selina Chew who is a certified hypnotherapist and past life regression therapist. For further information: http://life-inspirations.com/Index.htm

Saturday, September 22, 2007

The Last Lecture...



"It's now about how you achieve our dreams, it's about how you live your lives. If you live you life the right way, the KAMMA will take care of itself, the dreams will come to you"

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS)


DASS - FAQ

DASS - 42 item questionaire

DASS - 21 item questionaire

DASS
- Scoring template

DASS - Psychometric property & score interpretation

Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy For Depression

Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy For Depression

This book is available in HUKM library

Book Review by Dr. Stone - Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression: A New Approach to Preventing Relapse is both a book and a manual for the prevention of depressive relapse among individuals who have recovered from an episode of major depression.

The book is divided into three sections. Part 1 identifies the scope of the problem of depression and depressive relapses. The authors detail how they came to incorporate mindfulness—the core of Buddhist meditative practices—into their vision of cognitive therapy. Marsha Linehan provided them with a model in dialectical behavior therapy and led them to Jon Kabat-Zinn's work at the University of Massachusetts. He had developed a group treatment around mindfulness practice for people with chronic pain. Kabat-Zinn's definition of mindfulness—"paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally"—forms the conceptual foundation of their treatment (1
).

Part 2 is a manual for providing mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) for the prevention of depressive relapse. It is an eight-session group treatment. Each chapter covers one session in great detail, including transcripts to use during the session. These chapters include sample discussions, patient handouts, and homework sheets (which come complete with the publisher's permission to use them).

Sessions 1 through 4 focus on learning the fundamental concepts and skills of mindfulness practice: paying attention, focusing one's mind, and understanding the connection between wandering thoughts and negative thoughts. This last skill may be critical to the prevention of depressive relapse.

Sessions 5 through 8 teach people how to deal with mood shifts in a mindful way. The role of acceptance in mindfulness practice is introduced in session 5. Participants learn how to notice thoughts and their impact on physical and emotional experiences, accept these thoughts and experiences, and use this information to develop a different relationship to thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations: "The core skill that the MBCT program aims to teach is the ability ... to recognize and disengage from mind states characterized by self-perpetuating patterns of ruminative, negative thoughts.... In order to do this, participants have to learn how to disengage from one mode of mind and enter another, incompatible mode of mind.... This involves moving from a focus on content to a focus on process."

Part 3 reports on a randomized controlled trial of the treatment and a discussion of the findings. The trial included 145 patients who had experienced at least two previous episodes of major depression and had recovered. The two conditions were treatment as usual or eight sessions of MBCT. The participants were followed for 60 weeks. Participants with a history of three or more episodes of depression showed a statistically significant response to MBCT. In fact, the more previous episodes, the greater the response.

Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression is both readable and practical. An effective, brief group treatment for preventing depressive relapse is welcome news for patients, clinicians, and managed care companies alike.

Footnotes:

Dr. Stone is affiliated with the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester and with the Carson Center for Human Services in Westfield, Massachusetts.

Reference:
1.Kabat-Zinn J: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life. New York, Hyperion, 1994

Psychiatr Serv 56:1165-1166,
September 2005doi: 10.1176/appi.ps.56.9.1165
© 2005 American Psychiatric Association

What is MINDFULNESS?

Mindfulness In Plain English by
Ven. Dr. Henepola Gunaratana



Mindfulness: A Proposed Operational Definition
http://www.personal.kent.edu/~dfresco/mindfulness/Bishop_et_al.pdf

Monday, September 10, 2007

Depression SCREENING

More on Mindfulness...


MEASURING Mindfulness

DBT for Borderline Personality Disorder



Zen Principles and Mindfulness Practice in Dialectical Behavior Therapy - Clive J. Robins, Duke University. Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT; Linehan, 1993a) was developed as a treatment for borderline personality disorder (BPD). It involves a dialectical synthesis of the change-oriented strategies of cognitive-behavioral therapy with more acceptance-oriented principles and strategies adapted primarily from client-centered therapy and from Zen. In this paper, I note both similarities and contrasts between cogniitive-behavioral therapy and Zen. I then highlight the role of Zen principles in DBT's assumptions about patients, theory of BPD, selection of treatment targets, and treatment strategies. Finally, the article describes the value of mindfulness practice for patients with BPD, how mindfulness skills are taught to patients in DBT, and benefits of mindfulness practice for therapists..............

Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)

Professor Dr. Jon Kabat Zinn


Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) was originally developed by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center to improve the quality of life of those living with anxiety, pain and illness. Centuries-old meditation techniques are demystified and are integrated into an eight-week program where participants learn to heighten their awareness and to live more fully, moment to moment. http://www.mbsrbc.ca/pages/about.htm

Meta-analysis of MBSR & Health Benefits.
Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) is astructured group program that employs mindfulness meditation to alleviate suffering associated with physical, psychosomatic and psychiatric disorders. The program, nonreligious and nonesoteric, is based upon a systematic procedure to develop enhanced awareness of moment-to-moment experience of perceptible mental processes. The approach assumes that greater awareness will provide more veridical perception, reduce negative affect and improve vitality and coping. In the last two decades, a number of research reports appeared that seem to support many of these claims. We performed a comprehensive review and meta-analysis of published and unpublished studies of health-related studies related to MBSR. http://pckar39022.googlepages.com/MBSR_metanalysis.pdf

Mindfulness In Clinical Practice.
The practice of mindfulness is increasingly being integrated into contemporary clinical psychology. Based in Buddhist philosophy and subsequently integrated into Western health care in the contexts of psychotherapy and stress management, mindfulness meditation is evolving as a systematic clinical intervention. This article describes stress-reduction applications of mindfulness meditation predominantly in medical settings, as originally conceived and developed by Kabat-Zinn and colleagues. It describes process factors associated with the time-limited, group-based format favored by this model, and presents in tabular form results of both early and more recent outcome studies. http://pckar39022.googlepages.com/Mindfulnessmeditationinclinicalpract.pdf

Understanding MENTAL ILLNESS


Schizophrenia

Depression

Bipolar Disorder

Anxiety Disorders

Friday, September 7, 2007

The Art Of Anger Management


The Art Of Anger Management:
A Buddhist Psychospiritual Approach

This talk was delivered in Nalanda Buddhist Society (NBS), Serdang in 2005. It's my attempt to intergrate anger management principles that I have learned from Buddhist and contemporary psychotherapy


Reincarnation, Medicine & Psychiatry



Division of Personality Studies,
Department of Pychiatric Medicine,
University of Virginia, USA

The phenomena of claimed memories of previous lives: possible interpretations and importance - Medical Hypothesis, 2000 54(4): 652-659

Summary: Several disorders or abnormalities observed in medicine and psychology are not explicable (or not fully explicable) by genetics and environmental influences, either alone or together. These include phobias and philias observed in early infancy, unusual play in childhood, homosexuality, gender identity disorder, a child’s idea of having parents other than its own, differences in temperament manifested soon after birth, unusual birthmarks and their correspondence with wounds on a deceased person, unusual birth defects, and differences (physical and behavioral) between monozygotic twins. The hypothesis of previous lives can contribute to the further understanding of these phenomena. For full text journal paper, click on 'Professor Dr. Ian Stevenson"

Dr. Ian Stevenson's research homepage:

Sunday, September 2, 2007

Antidote for DEPRESSION

Contentment As An Antidote For Depression
This audio CD on the role of contentment in dealing with depression is available from Brickfields Maha Vihara (BMV)

For downloading:
Track 1
For downloading: Track 2

Depression: A Buddhist Perspective

Depression: National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)


Friday, August 31, 2007

Sayings of the BUDDHA...

DON'T WORRY, BE HEALTHY - Vol III


How to care for the sick? How to live long and healthy? How does karma affect health? How to deal with pain? How to counsel the dying? How to confront death? How to meditate for health? How to heal with compassion? How to eat for healthy mind and body? How to be mentally healthy? How does chanting affect health? How to deal with addiction?
DWBHealthy - Book 1,2 & 3 - Full

DON'T WORRY, BE HEALTHY - Vol II


How to care for the sick? How to live long and healthy? How does karma affect health? How to deal with pain? How to counsel the dying? How to confront death? How to meditate for health? How to heal with compassion? How to eat for healthy mind and body? How to be mentally healthy? How does chanting affect health? How to deal with addiction?
DWBHealthy - Book 1,2 & 3 - Full

DON'T WORRY, BE HEALTHY - Vol I


How to care for the sick? How to live long and healthy? How does karma affect health? How to deal with pain? How to counsel the dying? How to confront death? How to meditate for health? How to heal with compassion? How to eat for healthy mind and body? How to be mentally healthy? How does chanting affect health? How to deal with addiction?
DWBHealthy - Book 1, 2 & 3 - Full

Thursday, August 30, 2007

My BOOK - No WORRY-Lah, Be HAPPY !


NO WORRY-LAH, Be HAPPY ! -
A Medical Student's Motivational & Inspirational Guide

This is a compilation of stories, quotations, poems, similes, cartoons and articles that I used to motivate and inspire myself when I was a medical student. As a mental health professional now, I would like to share the treasures with the community as a way to promote mental health. May you be well, happy and peaceful after consuming the nutritious mental food found in this book. This book can be downloaded at DWLBH.

An online sequel to this book can be found HERE.