\We're often not really all that happy-have you noticed that?"" author Jon Kabat-Zinn asked a full crowd at Memorial Union Theater April 22. Kabat-Zinn and Andrew Weil, M.D., lectured as part of the UW Health Integrative Medicine and Mindfulness Programs.
The two speakers addressed separate but often intertwining topics. Kabat-Zinn's talk was titled, ""Coming to Our Senses: Living Life as if it Really Mattered."" Weil spoke on ""Self-Healing and the Future of Medicine.""
Kabat-Zinn is credited with bringing mindfulness into mainstream society and medicine.
""Mindfulness provides a simple but powerful route for getting ourselves unstuck, back into touch with our own wisdom and vitality. It is a way to take charge of the direction and quality of our own lives,"" wrote Kabat-Zinn in his bestseller ""Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life.""
Speaking calmly and eloquently, Kabat-Zinn discussed the fact that people often spend their time ruminating about the past or worrying about the future. Kabat-Zinn encouraged attendees to ""cultivate awareness and re-inhabit"" their own bodies.
""In fact, there's more right with us than wrong with us, no matter what's wrong with us,"" he said.
He also suggested the current medical system is in need of an overhaul. ??
""The medical system needs critical care-it needs to be in the [intensive care unit] itself,"" Kabat-Zinn said.
Weil began his lecture with a discussion of issues facing medicine today. Weil is the founder and director of the Program in Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona's Health Sciences.??He is an expert on medicinal herbs, mind-body interactions and integrative medicine.
""Integrative medicine is healing-oriented medicine that takes account of the whole person, body, mind and spirit,"" Weil said.
Weil suggested modern medicine should get away from its primary focus on disease.
""Physicians should teach people how to live,"" he said. ""Most physicians today are very poorly equipped to give patients the information they need.""
Weil stressed the importance of a healthy diet and exercise, and urged people to take preventative measures to stay healthy, rather than to care for themselves only after they are already sick.
""I think we all know what we'd like in medicine and health care. Now it's just a matter of getting there,"" Weil said. ??
First-year UW-Madison medical student Kristin Lyerly was in attendance. She acknowledged integrative medicine techniques are not a prominent part in her current training.
""So much of what we know we'll have to practice, we have to learn outside the classroom,"" Lyerly said.
Fellow medical student Surya Pierce agreed.
""We feel a deficit in our training,"" he said.
Speaker Kabat-Zinn said ultimately individuals are responsible for their own physical and mental well being.
""You need to be the explorer and adventurer in the life that's yours to live. What else is there to do?"" Kabat-Zinn said.
The UW Health Integrative Medicine and Mindfulness Programs run an Integrative Medicine Clinic and offer services such as massage therapy, stress reduction, Eastern Practices, acupuncture and more.
For more about the UW Health Integrative Medicine and Mindfulness Programs, visit Web site at www.uwhealth.org/integrativemed.
