Institute of Coaching - Mindfulness

Matters of Mind: Mindfulness/Mindlessness in Perspective

Danad t Deek — Sun, 11 Jan 2026 05:56:48 +0000

Author:

Langer, Ellen

Summary:

The dual concepts of mindfulness and mindlessness are described. Mindfulness is a state of conscious awareness in which the individual is implicitly aware of the context and content of information. It is a state of openness to novelty in which the individual actively constructs categories and distinctions. In contrast, mindlessness is a state of mind characterized by an overreliance on categories and distinctions drawn in the past and in which the individual is context-dependent and, as such, is oblivious to novel (or simply alternative) aspects of the situation. Mindlessness is compared to more familiar concepts such as habit, functional fixedness, overlearning, and automatic (vs controlled) processing. Like mindlessness, these concepts concern rigid invariant behavior that occurs with little or no conscious awareness. The primary difference is that mindlessness may result from a single exposure to information. When information is given in absolute (vs conditional) language, is given by an authority, or initially appears irrelevant, there is little manifest reason to critically examine the information and thereby recognize the ways it may be context-dependent. Instead, the individual mindlessly forms a cognitive commitment to the information and freezes its potential meaning. Alternative meanings or uses of the information become unavailable for active cognitive use. Automatic vs controlled processing, while seemingly most similar to mindlessness/mindfulness, are orthogonal to them. One can process information in a controlled but mindless manner, or automatic but mindful. Related concepts like scripts, set, expectancy, labels, and roles direct behavior, but these too may be enacted mindlessly or mindfully. The major consequences of mindlessness/mindfulness are discussed with respect to their relevance for overt behavior (competence), memory, and health. Finally, the relationship between traditional notions of consciousness and mindfulness is briefly examined. 0 1992 Academx Press, Inc.

Citation:

CONSCIOUSNESS AND COGNITION 1, 289-305 (1992)

Content Type:

Journal

Coaching Specialty:

Health / Well-being, Life Coaching

Resource Topics:

Mindfulness, Life Coaching, Health and Wellness

Resource Content Type:

Journal

Psychological Interventions for Weight Management

Danad t Deek — Sun, 11 Jan 2026 05:56:48 +0000

Author:

Summary:

The IOC is pleased to present articles by submitted by Fellows and Sponsors.

Learning Objective

Recognize the importance of psychological programming for thoseattempting to lose weight, understand differences between various psychological interventions useful for weight management, and describe methods that may be used by the exercise and health professional from various psychological interventions.

Citation:

ACSM's Health & Fitness Journal (Impact Factor: 0.29). 09/2015; 19(5):16-22.

Content Type:

Journal

Coaching Specialty:

Health / Well-being

Resource Topics:

Motivational Interviewing, Weightloss, Mindfulness

Resource Content Type:

Journal

Stress Less, Live More: How Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Can Help You Live a Busy yet Balanced Life

Danad t Deek — Sun, 11 Jan 2026 05:56:48 +0000

Author:

Blonna, Richard

Summary:

I'm never going to finish this project on time. This is hopeless; everything's going wrong. Why do I try to do everything at once? A busy life is full of stressful situations — that's a given. But that doesn't mean there is nothing you can do. Your thoughts can actually affect the way your brain processes stress, for better or worse. Most of the time, our brains compound the problem, adding thoughts of self-doubt and frustration to already difficult situations.

Stress Less, Live More presents a program based in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) that can help you train your brain to react to stress in a different way. With the mindfulness and acceptance techniques in this book, you'll clear out mental clutter, enhance your focus, and concentrate on the present moment, so that you can channel your energy into what matters most to you. It's that simple.

Learn to mindfully accept what can't be changed
Find peace and contentment in the present moment
Practice relaxation skills you can use to calm yourself in a crisis
Make time for yourself by asserting your right to say 'no'

Content Type:

Book Summary

Coaching Specialty:

Leadership, Health / Well-being, Life Coaching

Resource Topics:

Acceptance Commitment Therapy, Mindfulness, Crisis Management

Resource Content Type:

Book

2015 January Coaching Report

Danad t Deek — Sun, 11 Jan 2026 05:56:48 +0000

Author:

Institute of Coaching

Summary:

We are pleased to start off 2015 focused on the evolving field of neuroscience and harnessing the power of your own brain.

If you are still searching for new behaviors or practices for the new year, you may wish to consider meditation. Contemplative practice has gone on for thousands of years and study after study shows the powerful benefits of meditation on human health and wellbeing. What`s particularly interesting in the selected article below, Neuroscience Reveals the Secrets of Meditation`s Benefits: Mind of the Meditator, is that researchers explore 3 varieties of contemplative practice: Focused Attention, Mindfulness, and Compassion and Loving Kindness. Neuroimaging proves the ability of these practices to rewire your brain and leading you to greater health and well-being. Have you considered incorporating a contemplative practice into your daily regime?

We are excited to launch our webinar series this year with two faculty presenters from our 2014 Coaching in Leadership and Healthcare Conference sponsored by Harvard Medical School; Margaret Moore, MBA and Shelley Carson PhD. They will present their latest neuroscience model designed to help you go from "survive" to "thrive" all year long and how to access different brain states depending on what you are doing.

If you are looking for more to read, we have recommended two books that focus on organizing your mind.

It is our hope that as we journey together through 2015, that we do so with reduced stress, decreased emotional exhaustion, and increased resiliency and well-being so that we can all reach our highest potential.

Enjoy!

Laurel

Director of Sponsors, Members, Marketing

Article Content:

From Research To Coaching Practice

Mind of the Meditator: Contemplative practices that extend back thousands of years show a multitude of benefits for both body and mind by Matthieu Ricard, Antoine Lutz and Richard J. Davidson, Scientific American, November 2014

Special thanks to Deb Elbaum, MD, CPCC, ACC for reviewing this research article and translating the key points to use your coaching practice.

We have been told that meditation has beneficial effects, and this article provides compelling physiological data to support this claim. Research representing almost 15 years of studies conducted at more than 19 universities shows that experienced meditators experience significant changes in their brain structure and function.
These experienced meditators included monastics and lay practitioners of Buddhism who have practiced meditation for tens of thousands of hours. Their brain imaging scans and electroencephalograms were compared to people who do not meditate or are beginning meditators.

Studies were performed on three different types of meditation:
•   Focused-attention -- This type of meditation aims to quiet and center the mind in the present moment. Meditators become aware of distractions and refocus their attention. Four phases of focused-attention meditation have been identified: mind wandering; distraction awareness; reorientation of awareness; and refocus. Brain scans performed during these four phases showed that different brain structures were activated during each phase of meditation.
•   Mindfulness -- In this type of meditation, people cultivate an awareness of the emotions, thoughts, and sensations they are experiencing, but in a way that is less emotionally reactive and creates less mental distress. After a three-month retreat of intensive mindfulness meditation, meditators performed better in studies on attention to visual stimuli and had decreased brain activity in brain areas related to anxiety. Another study showed that expert meditators, as compared to control subjects, had increased brain volume in the prefrontal cortex, an area that plays a role in processing attention, sensory information, and bodily sensations. Expert meditators also showed decreased volume in the amygdala, a region responsible for processing fear.
•   Compassion and loving–kindness -- This meditation practice encourages an altruistic perspective toward others; meditators experience a sincere, compassionate desire to help. Novice meditators who practiced a week of compassion and loving–kindness meditation had greater compassion toward suffering individuals portrayed in visual clips. In contrast, people who had empathy training only for a week experienced psychological distress when watching the video clips.

This research demonstrates that adults can transform their brain by becoming experts at meditation. Now, when you recommend to your clients that they incorporate practice meditation or mindfulness, you can back up your recommendations with scientific evidence.

Content Type:

Premium Resource Type

Coaching Specialty:

Leadership, Internal/Organizational Coaching, Health / Well-being, Life Coaching

Resource Topics:

Mindfulness, Meditation, Health and Wellness, Neuroscience, Coaching Report

Institute Premium Resources:

Coaching Reports

MasterClass: Mindfulness - Understanding and Defining Mindfulness - Part I

Danad t Deek — Sun, 11 Jan 2026 05:56:48 +0000

Author:

Summary:

Thank you for joining us for our two-part MasterClass series on mindfulness featuring the work of Ellen Langer, Ph.D. and Dan Siegel, M.D. In Part I of this MasterClass, will begin by asking, “What is mindfulness?” Surprisingly, one of the best ways to begin to understand mindfulness is by getting to know its opposite: mindlessness. Under Related Resources, we present a paper by Ellen Langer, Ph.D. on mindlessness and mindfulness as well as the Institute of Coaching’s interview with her.

Next, we look at the role of the mind in mindfulness. We invited Dr. Dan Siegel, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine, Co-Director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center, and Director of the Mindsight Institute, to develop a brief webinar describing the role of the mind in mindfulness. We also include two fascinating articles by Dr. Siegel.

Watch as Ellen Langer, Ph.D,, discusses mindfulness:

Once finished, don't forget about MasterClass: Mindfulness - Practical Applications - Part II.

Article Content:

About Ellen Langer, Ph.D.:

Dr. Ellen Langer, Ph.D., is a social psychologist and the first female professor to gain tenure in the Psychology Department at Harvard University. She is the author of eleven books and more than two hundred research articles written for general and academic readers on mindfulness. Her best-selling books include Mindfulness; The Power of Mindful Learning, On Becoming an Artist: Reinventing Yourself Through Mindful Creativity, and Counterclockwise: Mindful Health and the Power of Possibility. Her most recent book, The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of Mindfulness, is an anthology on mindfulness in which leading researchers integrate work derived from her western scientific theoretical base of mindfulness with research on eastern derived forms of meditation.

About Dan Siegel, MD:

Dan is an internationally acclaimed author, award-winning educator, and child psychiatrist. He is currently a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine where he serves as a co-investigator at the Foundation for Psychocultural Research Center for Culture, Brain, and Development and co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center. He is also the Executive Director of the Mindsight Institute, an educational center devoted to promoting insight, compassion, and empathy in individuals, families, institutions and communities. His professional book, The Mindful Brain, explores the nature of mindful awareness as a process that harnesses the social circuitry of the brain as it promotes mental, physical, and relational health. Mindsight offers the general reader an in-depth exploration of the power of the mind to integrate the brain and promote well-being. His latest professional text, The Mindful Therapist, explores the application of these ideas for the clinician’s own development of mindsight and neural integration.

Content Type:

Premium Resource Type

Coaching Specialty:

Health / Well-being, Life Coaching

Resource Topics:

Mindfulness, Health and Wellness

Institute Premium Resources:

MasterClasses

Relational Frame Theory, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and a Functional Analytic Definition of Mindfulness

Danad t Deek — Sun, 11 Jan 2026 05:56:48 +0000

Author:

Summary:

The present article interprets mindfulness from the point of view of the effects of language and cognition on human action. Relational Frame Theory is described to show how human suffering is created by entanglement with the cognitive networks made possible by language. Mindfulness can be understood as a collection of related processes that function to undermine the dominance of verbal networks, especially involving temporal and evaluative relations. These processes include acceptance, defusion, contact with the present moment, and the transcendent sense of self. Each of these components of mindfulness are targeted in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and there is some evidence that these they underlie the therapeutic changes induced by this approach. The relation between the present approach to mindfulness and other approaches is discussed.

Content Type:

Journal

Coaching Specialty:

Health / Well-being, Life Coaching

Resource Topics:

, Acceptance Commitment Therapy, Mindfulness, Relational Frame Theory

Resource Content Type:

Journal

Coaching with Our Eyes and Minds: Visual Thinking Strategies

Danad t Deek — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 02:33:49 +0000

Summary:

Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) is a facilitation method and research-based thinking strategy. It provides a spark for discussion and observation. The purpose of the webinar is to introduce IOC coaches to VTS and let you experience the flow of observing and discussing visual information in a group.

Visual thinking strategies originated in the museum world, but is now used in K-12, higher education (including medical schools), healthcare and the business world; for example, Visual Thinking Strategies has been offered as a continuing education course through Harvard Medical School for the last two years.

During the one-hour webinar, Dr. LeAnna DeAngelo will briefly discuss VTS facilitation, and observe two paintings or photographs. VTS enhances:

being observant
mindfulness
tolerance for ambiguity
empathy
critical thinking
creative thinking
active listening skills
team building

After attending this webinar, you will gain the following:

Be knowledgeable about an innovative method that can greatly enhance your coaching practice.
Expand your perspective, create meaningful dialogue and evoke clarity.
Experience how the same stimuli can provoke different associations, thoughts and feelings in different people.
Increase your visual literacy.

Author:

DeAngelo, LeAnna

Content Type:

Video

Coaching Specialty:

Leadership

Resource Topics:

Mindfulness, Empathy, Visual Thinking Strategies, Webinar

RLP Thumb:

Resource Content Type:

Webinar

Fellowship App requirement:

Money & Mindfulness: Coaching Financial Topics Presentation Slides

Danad t Deek — Thu, 06 Jun 2024 21:19:04 +0000

Summary:

Money & Mindfulness: Coaching Financial Topics Presentation Slides

Author:

Davis, Saundra

Content Type:

Presentation Slide

Coaching Specialty:

Health / Well-being

Resource Topics:

Mindfulness, Mindset

RLP Thumb:

Resource Content Type:

Presentation Slides

Money & Mindfulness: Coaching Financial Topics

Danad t Deek — Thu, 06 Jun 2024 19:55:41 +0000

Author:

Davis, Saundra

Summary:

Financial wellness is so much more than money. Coaching often is limited to "mindset" or "limiting beliefs" and relegated to positive psychology and other similar approaches.

This session explores the gap and the link between our money beliefs and behaviors and provides actionable approaches that coaches can use to facilitate real change in partnership with their clients.

The presenter demonstrated a financial coaching session and discuss the differences between financial coaching and other approaches.