Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan, has been a man on a mission ever since he did a 5 day mindfulness retreat back in 2008 led by Jon Kabat-Zinn, the founder of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction. His new book which was published last month ‘A Mindful Nation – How a Simple Practice Can Help Us Reduce Stress, Improve Performance and Recapture the American Spirit’ has been receiving plaudits across many sections of US society.
Far from being just another self help book, Ryan is determined to pull all the disparate elements of this ‘quiet revolution’ together by showing what’s happening with mindfulness in the classrooms, medical schools, hospitals, boardrooms, research labs, and army bases across the country. By sharing his interactions with experts in education, defense, health care, criminal justice, and the environment the hope is that mindfulness will get a higher place at the policy making table in Washington.
The rationale being: tackle the root cause of stress, anxiety and depression within society and you save on healthcare costs further downstream.
These are exciting times for Mindfulness and I look forward to seeing one of the UK’s politicians taking up the mantle. The video clip and quote below reveal what Congressman Ryan has to say on the subject….
As a policy maker, if we start teaching all of our citizens these techniques, we can prevent a lot of the (stress related) problems, we can heal quicker and save our healthcare hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars, in the long run.