Staff Well Being

Shared Practice of Mindfulness – Staff and Students

Now during the pandemic of COVID, we live in a difficult time where our normal living, social and working environments have changed. This is a time where we can find ourselves taken by our thoughts and may have feelings of difficult emotions such as stress, worry, loneliness and uncertainly uncertainty. In order to take care of ourselves during this time, mindfulness is a practice that help alleviate stress and difficult emotions. A Shared Practice of Mindfulness is now available to staff and students.

For staff and students this is available as a live audio on Tuesdays and Fridays at 8.15am.

Join online at: https://eu.bbcollab.com/guest/8864f09cd69a47329006d5fb1f2527e2

For those of you that cannot make this time, the twice weekly shared practice is available as recordings. (more info below)

What is Mindfulness?

 Mindfulness a practice that teaches us to fully present and engaged in each moment of our lives. We all have moments in our day where we all fully absorbed and present in what we are doing , e.g. fully engaged in a project at work, reading a book and getting lost in its story, or watching a good film. It is one thing to be in the moment when we are doing something that we enjoy and something else to be present when we faced with a stressful and difficult situation. In these moments our mind can become flooded with thoughts.  This can result in worry, negative self-criticism, judgements and unhelpful reactions. In those moments mindfulness can be a helpful practice.  We notice that our mind has wandered off from the present moment. Then we gently and patiently direct our attention back to the present moment. This practice also over time helps us notice when our mind has wandered off and in turn cultivates an attitude in which we pay attention to the present moment, as our life unfolds . Although we are often unaware of our train of thoughts, it has a profound effect on how we live our lives, as well on our mental and emotional health. With mindfulness we become better at paying attention, being more focused, more self-aware and less reactive. 

What Mindfulness can do for you?

• Stress
• Anxiety
• High blood pressure
• Chronic pain
• Sleeping disorders
• Heart Disease 

• Concentration
• Quality of life
• Creativity

 Who am I?

Dr. Eva Flynn works as a lecturer in the Discipline of General Practice in the College of Medicine, Nursing and Life Sciences at NUI Galway since 2012. She also works clinically as a general practitioner. She lectures in undergraduate and postgraduate education. Since 2017, Eva has facilitated the delivery of an 8 weeks module in Mindfulness to fourth year medical students, the Mindfulness Special Study Module with Thubten Gelong. Eva is also a teacher of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction and was trained with the Institute of Mindfulness Based Approaches in Germany. She delivers the 8 weeks programme of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction to medical students within the School of Medicine.  Eva is a member of the Mindful Way@NUI Galway initiative and delivers regular mindfulness shared practice on campus.

Shared Practice Recordings

For those of you that cannot make the live online Shared Practice of Mindfulness during the week, here you will find the recordings of these sessions. These are uploaded weekly. You can now give yourself this time and listen at a time that is more suitable to you. 

To access these recordings please click here. (Please be aware you will need to login with your staff email and password to access) 

Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction

Since 2019, the School of Medicine at NUIG has offered the programme of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, MBSR to medical students. Dr Eva Flynn from the Discipline of General Practice will be delivering the next programme of MBSR from September 2020 within the School of Medicine.    

Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction was developed by Dr Jon Kabat-Zinn at the Centre for Mindfulness in Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. This is now widely accepted as a useful programme to help bring mindfulness into daily life, with the main purpose of reducing stress and promoting wellbeing. This programme is aimed at the wellbeing of medical students, to learn to deal with stress in helpful ways and, in turn, may improve academic performance. The COVID emergency has created considerable change and uncertainly and this MBSR programme will offer guidance and build skills on dealing with stress, thoughts, patterns and common automatic unhelpful reactions. The 8 weeks programme consists of a weekly session of two and a half hours in duration and will take place on a week day evening. The will also be a one day retreat within the 8 weeks programme. 

Individuals that complete the MBSR programme report lasting benefits. This includes enabling participants to see things differently, deal with mental and physical tension and increase confidence and resilience. Here are some of the responses from the students that too 

" over the past 8 weeks I’ve grown to be kind to myself and enjoy my own company   

"I feel like it has truly been a great addition to my life and definitely contributing to betterment of my mental state especially during stressful times

This programme is being offered to all years within the School of Medicine, with a limited intake of 15 students. There is no fee for this programme, but it will require commitment to attend the weekly and one day retreat. If you are interested in this programme and wish to see if it is suitable for you please contact Dr Eva Flynn at eva.flynn@nuigalway.ie 

Mental health disclosure

This resource is not designed to be therapeutic for significant health problems so if you have any concerns in this regard then it is recommended that you speak to a suitably qualified health practitioner.