Health Care and Healthy Habits of the Mind
Yours truly at the U.S. Capitol on a rainy day
“We don’t need to move to the left or to the right. We all need to go a little deeper.”
This from Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan according to a recent Washington Times article¹ by Patrick Hruby about Mr. Ryan’s interest in a form of meditation called mindfulness. Ryan has found it so helpful that he said, “This needs to be in the schools. And the health care system.”
There’s a lot of talk these days in the U.S. about health care, health care costs, and what role the government should play. Mr. Ryan’s interest in mindfulness seems focused more on health itself.
According to Hruby, research suggests that mindfulness helps with such problems as chronic pain, inflammation, high blood pressure, and stress. He quotes Mr. Davidson, director of the University of Wisconsin’s Lab for Affective Neuroscience, who said, “There’s a huge amount of suffering that can be prevented with healthy habits of the mind.”
