EP 02: New Mindfulness Research and Resources

Description

Resources Mentioned

About MindfulText Perspectives

Transcript

James Pann 0:00
Even if it's just for like one or two minutes a day, and you do it regularly, I think you'll find all sorts of benefits. And it's hard to know what those benefits will be.

Mark Montalban
Personally, when I am getting a little bit burnt out, I noticed myself practicing meditation more for example. And that's when I really found the value of meditating

James Pann
You could do mindfulness meditation, there's other forms of meditation to, then also you can increase your, your, your present moment awareness, right, in a non judgmental way. And informal ways to doesn't just have to be like a sitting meditation or mindfulness programs have been studied with an academic institutions just a bit, but not delivered online, and exactly like what we're doing.

Mark Montalban 1:12
Welcome, everyone, my name is Mark Montalban. I'm your host for this mindful text perspectives podcast. I'm here with James Pann. James Pann is an associate professor, program evaluator and psychologist who specializes in evaluating health, human service and educational programs. He's also an avid mindfulness and meditation practitioner. So we're excited to have him here on our show. James, tell us a little bit about yourself and your work.

James Pann
Well I'm a professor, I teach at Nova Southeastern University, work with graduate students, undergraduate students, on all sorts of projects, and also teaching various classes, mostly my areas and program evaluation, which means the process, the approach of helping organizations determine how well their programs are doing, what the value of those programs are, and how to make those programs better, as initiatives, whatever they might be. And so we mean, when I say programs, I mean, it could be like, after school programs to like a court program or something that's an initiative that's going on in a jail, it doesn't really matter. I'm interested more in the method and, and working with organizations that help help people in in all sorts of settings. So I do that. And also, I'm interested also in mindfulness and we've been doing a study that we're working on your part of as well - MindfulText is a part of and interested in where the two kind of meet - valuation, my discipline, and mindfulness interventions. So writing a paper on that I've also blog posts coming up on that that will all share with with you all. And that's a that's my background. I'm a psychologist, I started off as a psychologist and started evaluating programs at the beginning of my career and didn't realize that that's what I was doing. But my first programs that I worked with were outdoor kind of programs like Outward Bound New York City, Outward Bound North Carolina, Outward Bound was  the furthest my dissertation, the first organizations that I tried to help with what they were doing. And so I, I stayed with that. And rather than go more like in the counseling, realm that a lot of psychologists will do a lot of counseling clinical psychologists will have a counseling psychologist, I went more on on a different route, which is towards the evaluation discipline. And that's what I've been doing since then. So I teach evaluation, I teach research, methods, statistics, that kind of stuff.

Mark Montalban
We kind of met serendipitously over LinkedIn, but we connected pretty quickly and started to work together in an interesting way. Where we were integrating MindfulText, which is basically an SMS texting program into the mindfulness class that you were helping lead at NSU.

James Pann
Yeah, we connected over LinkedIn through the magic of the LinkedIn algorithm, or whatever it was, I don't remember. And then we talked and I really found it to be interesting what you all were doing. And at the time, I didn't know that we would be able to work together in some way. It wasn't immediate, that pretty soon after, like after COVID started we are our group wanted to figure out a way to help as many students as possible people from the University. So we had to do it in a way that we felt like would be very accessible. So we started a program called the SRAT programs. So stress reduction and attention training program. And so we started that and as we were kind of, getting going with that, we thought, Well, first of all, it's going to have to be online, it's going to have to be something that is accessible, that's doable. And so we wanted to take something that that's sort of shorter, more doable than, Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, which is kind of considered to be like one of the standard in mindfulness programs. And so we we created something that it's, you know, an hour a week, it requires daily practice, but a shorter daily practice, 20 minutes, something like that, depending on the week on the week, daily practice. And it was offered online, and then also supported by the text messages that were provided by MindfulText. And so we brought that all together in a way to kind of support our students when he was gonna be a stressful time and our faculty and our staff to join, you ran for four cohorts. And we want to run some more now, and just really, really excited about it. And we had some some interesting, you know, initial findings, we hope to send out a paper sooner than later and, you know, kind of, get get going with that piece. But that that's kind of the the initial, that's how we we met, and that's kind of the, the, in the beginning of, of what we were doing. Mindfulness programs have been studied with an academic institutions just a bit, but not delivered online, and exactly like what we're doing, and not with our sort of curriculum, the same format, and certainly not with texting. And so we thought that that could be something that would be accessible, doable, and would be helpful. And that was my experience of starting to bring in a mindfulness practice in my own life. And then getting into that literature and, and learning more about it and starting to bring that into my professional work. And so that's why, you know we wanted to initiate this and move forward, and do the, do the study, actually study it, do a research study. So in implementing it with the four cohorts, we actually collect the data before and after, and we'd look to see what happened with participants, and, and so forth. But mindfulness was something that was, it was, it was something that was really helpful for me. And that's, that's why I sort of brought it in and thought, this is something that could be helpful for others. And, and it seems, the research support supports that, I think notion pretty well.

Mark Montalban
What's your experience been with people that haven't really been exposed to mindfulness, and you or maybe your organization's starting to share those ideas around mindfulness meditation with them.

James Pann
People have all sorts of conceptions and ideas about what it is. Some people think it's a very, esoteric, kind of a strange or religious thing, or tied to Eastern religion or something like that. And, and so I think it just depends, other people have an understanding and experience with it. I think people in the program that come into the SRAT program, that there's a variety of backgrounds and experiences, but you know, I've led meditations and faculty meetings, other things like that, and some people are very open to it, others will just kind of shut down and not really be open to it at all, which is, which is fine. I think it's something that is it's helpful for some people and not for everyone, you know, it's and so it being what it is helpful to define what what mindfulness is, there's definitely like a long tradition of mindful practice and many spiritual traditions, certainly in eastern ones in Buddhism and Hinduism, as well.

But, you know, Jon Kabat Zinn, who's the MBSR, sort of, you know, the person who started MBSR, in the late 70s, defined it roughly, moment by moment, awareness of the present moment in a non judgmental way. And oftentimes like to get leading to gaining insight, or more ethical behavior, or others or other sorts of, of outcomes that are, that are that are intrinsically positive. People have all sorts of understandings of it, and some people are sort of ready for it. Some people are not, I think, for me, I was I was interested in meditation for a long time, probably for 15 years, maybe more. And I just never got around to it. I never did it. I never took the time to do it. And I didn't really understand. I conflated the chair I didn't really know what mindfulness was. And I thought, well, meditation is something I want to do. And then with learning, meditation, then I learned I started to mindfulness is which is something that you can you can do mindfulness meditation, there's other forms of meditation to, then also you can increase your present moment awareness, right, in a non-judgmental way. And informal ways too, it doesn't just have to be like a sitting meditation or, that kind of thing. So people people come with all sorts of conceptions and all sorts of ideas. And maybe people can kind of look at it and see what the value of it is and make a decision side to pursue it. Others, maybe are kind of thrown off by it or don't like it, or whatever it is, just depends. So just a mixed bag. But I think the people who end up coming into our program are more open into they're not being forced to come in. So they're are coming in, but they also come in with various ideas around around what it is, yeah.

Mark Montalban 10:48
How did you first get into it? What was the What made you start to get interested in? How did you do? Do you have a formal practice now or is something you lean back on personally, when I am getting a little bit burnt out, I noticed myself practicing meditation more, for example. And that's when I really find the value of meditating. Mindfulness is something that I realized I was practicing after a lot of time. And I think it's something that a lot more people are practicing. Now, during these times, we're much more mindful of the things we touch the door handles, things we're bringing into our house, because of the state we're in right now. So I think we're all actually practicing mindfulness more so. But when did you start to put those two together of mindfulness and, I'd love to hear about how you started mindfulness and meditation.

James Pann 12:23
I was interested in meditation, but I never, I never practiced it in any rigorous way. So I had some vague ideas around what it was, I did it a bit, but it wasn't till probably, maybe like 5-6 years ago. So I've been doing it for about five years, five and a half years. So when I was just experiencing, like, a lot of anxiety, and I just see, I realized I needed to do something else. And I was like, at the point where like, Okay, I'm going to give this a shot. And so I actually went to see a nurse practitioner who is a teacher, actually she's a nurse, um, she, she's a mindfulness teacher, and she taught me in like six or seven sessions with her. And that was a great way to start. And then I started, and I started using an app, insight timer. And then I did different things that helped you, you've talked about how BJ Fogg, like work around like building habits, which I've learned about more recently, I was interested, I've seen other models that are similar about building habits, but um, that's, that's really I kind of like engineered things without knowing about about the habit building like literature and that kind of stuff, kind of, so that I could do it. And I started very small, and I now use the app. I've created sort of a gamified it a little bit like, I didn't want to miss a day because the app would, I would, it would reset.

I had like stuff set up in my office where it was like, right, like, the bench and everything else was like, first thing I saw in the morning, I associated it with, like, when I had, like, I really enjoy tea in the morning. So I had tea, and then I would have that side, like sort of associated the two. So on a normal day, weekday, I do it every morning, weekends, I tend to do it in the afternoon or evening. So I kind of shuffle things up. Most people will do it consistently in the morning, I think a lot of people

So, but yeah, I then at some point, like, as I started to study and learn about it more realized that, it's there's many different practices, and that mindfulness is, and then I find I read it a lot, read a lot, it's been studying as well. Different, all sorts of sources.

And just realizing that it's not, that, that it's, it's not just about meditation, there's other ways, just, noticing what you're doing. And the moment can be right now, or it could be like, every time you climb the stairs or open a door, you make a point, he'll just, pee in your scan, and just notice what you're doing. Because so much of our time is spent so much of my time is spent, in my head out, out in, in space, not really being where I'm at. And so, yeah, so then I started to realize that I can have more in the last, few years really, and it's practice happens at split thinks slowly, but there's like, it's like a gradual thing. But I for me, it's been in kind of like little, little, bumps of movement, like sort of, so it's there's a slope, but it comes like in like steps almost, you'll have an insight or something will happen. And it was helpful to go on on a retreat. I wanted to short retreat like a three day, three and a half day average retreat at the garrison Institute in New York. And that was that was really good and so those kinds of experiences are helpful. Yeah.

Mark Montalban 15:04
I'm just thinking from a perspective of somebody who may not be practicing mindfulness and meditation. And you mentioned, this idea of just being aware, when you're opening a door handle or when you're eating, and I'm just trying to think about your perspective and even my perspective, like the value of doing that, from the onset, I can't explain that myself, but being aware, bringing that awareness with the - Oh, okay, so now I'm thinking about the practice of awareness, and how it's useful to bring around with you. And maybe not the experience of opening the door handle might be useful. But the idea of just being aware, helps you throughout your day, because there are so many things that happen, for example, if you get a notification that might trigger you, if you get if you start to feel an emotion, that is also triggering, and you have that awareness, you're able to catch if that emotion, or that triggering thought takes you somewhere else.

So just thinking out loud about the value of this awareness of being mindful, when you're opening a door, it's not necessarily about the door itself and being present for the door, but it's this practice of awareness, and how it can help you through the ups and downs.

James Pann 16:40
Yeah, so it's like a self reflective, like a metacognitive, like strategy, like where you're just, you're aware of like, what you're thinking how you're feeling. So you can, so you can, you can act in a more like, more healthful way. And it's not that you're, you know, not going to, it's not that I don't get upset, or I don't like, act in ways that I'm, I realize they're just not helpful. But the idea is that when I do that, I, maybe I do it a little bit less, but also that, that just sort of notice it much quicker, right. So just sort of being being aware and being. And so just that practice of if it's the door handle or whatever it is just noticing what you're doing, noticing your your physical your body, noticing your emotions, your thoughts, your cognitions, noticing any beliefs that you have in situations when encountering when speaking and interacting with people, any biases that might come up and being really honest with yourself. And there's a number of ways you can do that. You can ask self reflective questions, reflective questions, which are questions designed to get you to pause and really think about, okay, what is what's really going on here? So an example I can evaluation work, we can, there was a great there was a great article by Ronald Epstein was actually done, him and his colleagues have done a lot of work in medicine, around mindfulness programs for physicians, and and they describe in one of their papers, at least one of their papers, reflective questions that they try to teach, like beginning physicians and, and in the physician training program, I don't think it's just for residents, but I think their work with others as well, other physicians, so that they can really just identify when, when they're going off in a way that that's not helpful. jumping to conclusions, when they're engaging and buy in a different sort of like a bias, attributing, jumping to specific conclusions around what might be happening in a situation, what might be causing an illness, what the actual, the underlying problems are all these kind of things and how we can use that in evaluation, that kind of thinking, asking those kind of questions. in our, in our work as evaluators, asking about our own, do I feel a sense of discomfort right now, like, am I feeling how am I feeling about my about this evaluation about the work I'm doing, our feelings, just noticing feelings?

Because sometimes those feelings can be indications of like, you know, am I engaging in some sort of like cognitive dissonance in my, am I trying to fooling myself, am I uncomfortable, am I acting in a way that's unhelpful, really being like, self reflective and honest, which is very difficult to do. And it's something I've been thinking about more and it's in that that paper that or the, it's in a paper that we're going to be publishing, sending out for for review - a group of us and other group of us evaluators, but then also have a blog post. So you'll be able to check that out. So, there's there's other techniques, reflective questions. For instance, there's, just sitting meditation, standing, walking mindfully, there's, like you said, the door handle technique, every time you touch the door handle you, you think you just, come into your, your body and you feel, oh, I'm here, and this is me versus thoughts and lost in your head. Yeah. And there's other other things as well. And for me, it's a process like I'm still at the beginning, so I'm learning a lot as well. So.

Mark Montalban 20:44
And we haven't even gotten to the non judgment part yet, which is the second half of the equation of mindfulness. But even just practicing, discussing our thoughts on awarenesses kind to be helpful for people, all the different ways that you can be aware is going to be helpful with like you were mentioning, are we thinking biased, are we are the things that are influencing the way that we're speaking or reacting, that we can be aware of first, before we take action, and in ways that we can be helpful. So I really loved your discussion around how those thoughts come together and how awareness plays into other aspects of our lives.

James Pann 21:24
Yeah, one thing I wanted to say was, yeah, I've been, I've been reading this, the most recent edition of by mistakes were made, but not by me by Tavris and Aronson who write about cognitive dissonance theory, which is why I mentioned that before. And one of the things they say that's important is like for people in the non judgmental vein like to realize that, if we make mistakes, it doesn't mean that we're bad, like mistakes are okay. And even though they say, like, people say that in our society, but no one really believes it, a lot of people, a lot of people just really don't believe it, so that it becomes, so what happens, then, if, if you make a mistake, and then you're bad, right, there's something wrong with you, then a lot of times, we're going to defend against the fact that we made a mistake, like even deny it or not, not examine and learn from it. So, that sort of fundamentals sort of mind set, shift, and I have to do an interview with Kylie Hutchinson makes me remind that interview where she talks a lot about that, because her and some of her colleagues or evaluators wrote about valuation mistakes. And initially, when I saw it, I was like, why, why are they focusing on that, but then I got it. And I think, I think that that's a really important thing. It's like, it's, it's not, it's, it's essential to feel, okay, it's make, it's okay to make mistakes, because then it allows us to examine those mistakes, learn from them. And so. So there's a lot of things kind of playing out there. But I think that that's, that's another point I wanted to make here.

Mark Montalban
Awesome. Awareness is such a big topic, and I love how we're discussing it here. And I want to be mindful of our time as well. So for our last question, James, what's the biggest takeaway you'd like for our audience?

James Pann
Well, I think like, one thing is, for me, it was really hard to get started really hard to kind of get get going with, with a practice. And so I do like, like that the BJ Fogg website, and the, one of his, I don't know if he has more than one book, but there's one book that I, I saw the the summary of, and I've watched some of the videos and starting to learn about his, his approach. And, and James clear, has a nice approach also, and I think you can use that, like I was saying before, to just, start the practice, because if you just start, even if it's just for like, one or two minutes a day, and you do it regularly, I think you'll find all sorts of benefits. And it's hard to know what those benefits will be. There's some, like typical benefits that you get.

But you will get some and it's not just about attention, or about like, regulating emotion or mood or, those kind of things which can be beneficial. But also you never know, I mean, it could be also about just sort of understanding, like metaphysically, like more like the nature of our lives of our existence kind of focusing on that. It can be very pragmatic things, like I said before, about like managing anxiety, helping build focus and concentration attention. So there's all sorts of benefits that come from it. And I think, starting easy, small very realistically, you're gamifying it in a way, like using an app where you track, and maybe have a community online or

Something that you're kind of seeing who else is meditating and they see how you're meditating and becomes a little bit more fun. There's insight timer, like I mentioned before, and there's a slew of others, many other apps as well.

And then using using something like MindfulText can be helpful to just as a reminder or other additional information to support practice. So just starting very modestly, is enough. Yeah, that's great. It's like that with it with exercise or changing eating too. I mean, a lot of things are like that. So that's important to note. And I think mindfulness practice meditation practice is similar. So

Mark Montalban 25:42
okay, James, thank you so much for your time. Thanks for sharing your perspective. And we'll catch you all next time.