Attention lawyers: A method for strengthening and sharpening your warrior mind

Sometimes I hear lawyers respond to the thought of meditating with a concern that doing so will put out the fire in the belly. I tell them mindfulness will focus the fire, not smother it. Here's some research that will help make my point.

In "Mind Fitness and Mental Armor: Training the Mind to Improve Operational Effectiveness and Build Warrior Resilience" [PDF] [Note: article no longer available - read more here] (to be published in Joint Force Quarterly) you can read about military personnel engaging in mindfulness training. This article by Elizabeth Stanley and Amishi Jha is excellent and I highly recommend it to you.

From the Conclusions:

New research into neuroplasticity and clinical studies of the effects of mind fitness training show that humans can modify neural pathways and strengthen skills with mental training to allow them to make better decisions. Today, stress is commonly understood to mean external events or circumstances, and as a result, we tend to think of stress as something external to us. However, as originally conceived, stress is a perceived, internal response. Mind fitness training can immunize against stress by permitting more adaptive responses to and interpretation of stressors, providing a type of “mental armor.” ...

In addition to its beneficial effect on stress, mind fitness training can help to optimize warrior performance by cultivating ... competencies in mental agility, emotion regulation, attention and situational awareness. In other words, mind fitness training could provide greater cognitive and psychological resources for soldiers to act ethically and effectively in today’s morally ambiguous and emotionally-challenging operational environment.

Anyone still not using some mindfulness practice?

Related article: "‘Warrior mind training’ helps troops stay calm" (msnbc). Excerpt:

Warriors have long used meditation to improve concentration and relaxation — dating back more than 1,000 years to the techniques of the samurai. Here at coastal Camp Lejeune, 100 miles inland at the Army’s Fort Bragg and at several bases in California, the practice now comes with a name: Warrior Mind Training.

Comments

[arizona bankruptcy attorney]

I find strength in faith. It's not always perfect or steady but I come back to it when life seems a struggle and try to keep it going when things are going well.