Mindful Strategies for a Hurried World

Come and listen to Dr. Kim Dwyer with Dwyer Psychological Services speak on mindfulness and stress.

This one hour presentation will introduce participants to the concept of mindfulness. We will begin with examining the stress response and how anxiety impacts our brain, our bodies, and our behavior, manifesting through sympathetic nervous system (SNS) arousal. After exploring why SNS response’s focus on safety is evolutionarily appropriate but not necessarily helpful for the modern world’s stressors, we will introduce the concept of mindfulness. We’ll explore how mindfulness is helpful to return attention to the present moment, exiting internal narratives about anticipated future outcomes or unhelpful forays into the past. Participants will be instructed in the use of some formal mindfulness strategies and common misconceptions about mindfulness will be addressed. An introduction to the more advanced strategies of mindfulness of thoughts and emotions will be provided, and resources for continued learning will be made available.