The video of the first, insightful webinar of the Young Academy of Europe dedicated to work addiction and the situation of mental health in academia is now available on our YouTube channel here. During this event, Bernadette Kun mentioned self-awareness and mindfulness as one of the potential useful tools to fight workaholism and burnout.
Thus, on the second event of our Webinar Series on Mental Health in Academia, on the 26th of April 2024, 9:00 – 10:00 CET, we had an introductory lecture including basic presentation of the theory and practice of mindfulness based practices that can help self-reflection, self-compassion, and the reduction of stress and anxiety. Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) is an 8-week evidence-based program developed by Prof. Jon Kabat-Zinn including meditation, yoga, and awareness practices to improve conscious presence and thus increase self-awareness and decrease stress. Mindful self-compassion (MSC) was developed by American psychologists Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer. The method provides help about how to support yourself in times of difficulty, how to turn to yourself with compassion and kindness instead of shame and self-critcism.
Registrations for the event were available here, and the Zoom link was sent out to participants few days before the event.
The event was hosted by Gábor Fazekas, founder of the Center for Mindfulness Hungary, which plays an important role in the promotion of mindfulness methods and the linking of meditation and science in Hungary. Gábor is an MBSR and MBCT teacher, meditation trainer, MBSR teacher trainer, Compassion Cultivation Training teacher (Compassion Institute, Stanford), with great experience in trainings and workshops in the field.
During our webinar, Gábor briefly introduced the background of relevant mindfulness-based methods and also give some practical insight into how you can practice them. By improving mindfulness of habits (i.e. the awareness of thoughts, emotions and physical sensations as they are occurring when one is caught up in anxiety, worry, depression, etc. and the conditioned patterns that ensue), it is possible to gain insight into conditioned patterns of behavior, and to change maladaptive and unhealthy habits, such as for instance work addiction. The event was hosted by Katalin Solymosi (YAE Chair). Video recordings of the event are not available.