Mindfulness in US Marine Corps

 
Lets start with an interesting finding: Studies at Harvard and elsewhere, have shown that after just eight weeks of training in Contemplative Techniques like Mindfulness, there is a significant increase in brain grey matter concentration in areas associated with sustained attention, emotional regulation and perspective taking. Such training also increases activity in the left prefrontal cortex – a predictor of happiness and well-being. And it boosts your immune response, helping to defend against illness.
Now towards yet another example of Mind-Body-Soul orientation in an extremely vital & critical establishment: USA Marine Corps
  • USA Marine Corps is an amphibious warfare capability. Extremely extremely high demands of spontaneous decision making, life-death situations, etc while being in almost 24/7 enemy zones.
  • They have been getting world’s cutting-edge training in mind fitness, analytical skills, decision making, mind-body co-ordination, creative thinking etc.
  • They felt the need for a technique that would help them meet demands of “active-risky-duty” better and also post-event mind-body reconciliations.
  • Elizabeth Stanley was brought in to develop and implement a Mindfulness technique for performance enhancement and also stress management.
Elizabeth A. Stanley, Ph.D.  is the Founder-President of the Mind Fitness Training Institute and an associate professor of security studies at Georgetown University. Drawing on her military experience, research expertise and mindfulness training, Liz created Mindfulness-based Mind Fitness Training.  Liz served as a U.S. Army military intelligence officer in Korea, Germany, and on deployments in the Balkans, leaving service with the rank of Captain.  She has extensive experience with mind fitness techniques, including long-term periods of intensive practice in the United States and Burma (Myanmar).  Liz has completed teacher training in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and has co-taught with MBSR’s creator, Jon Kabat-Zinn.

A study carried out in the US Marine Corps found that those Marines who trained in mindfulness experienced improved mood and working memory. Under pressure, they were more capable of  complex thought and problem solving and they had better control of their emotions. Mindfulness training reduces the functional impairments associated with high-stress challenges that demand high levels of cognitive control, self-awareness, situational awareness and emotional regulation.
US Marine Adopting Mindfulness despite Already Worldclass Programs


It is also important to highlight that this program is implemented despite implementation of wide ranging “Stillness” oriented combat programs like Martial Arts.

In 2001, the Marine Corps initiated an internally designed martial arts program, called Marine Corps Martial Arts Program (MCMAP) consists of
- punches and kicks from Taekwondo and Karate,
- opponent weight transfer from Jujitsu,
- ground grappling involving joint locking techniques and chokes from Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu,
- a mix of knife and baton/stick fighting derived from Eskrima,
- elbow strikes and kick boxing from Muay Thai.

In all of the above, the relevant imports of mind “stillness” and “flow experience” was also embedded in some ways. Despite this, a new mindfulness program has been introduced.
 
Now to some Daily Tiny Act:

“Deliberately look for New in the Old. Start for looking for something new (Visual/Smell/Sound/Taste/Touch in the tools you use daily)”
 
Snippets

Indian Ancient Wisdom Tradition has a mention of “Adbhuta Rasa” (Wonderment Emotion). It had two imports. One of them is to deliberately looking for wonderment. One method of this way of looking for wonderment could be deriving mere visual/smell/sound/taste/touch (Panch Tanmatras) novelty itself in the same old things.

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