Mindfulness

Rating:
Summary: REframing mindfulness
Review: Ellen Langer's mind first reached my ears at an international conference on thinking at MIT, 1995. One year later (inspired by her talk and my reading of her breakthrough book), I created the developing mindful leaerners model: an ecological approach for the 21st century. This became a paper for the World Future Society conference in Washington D.C. For the last seven years, my work has been to connect mindfulness, vision, framework, and content into a whole for 21st century schools. Recently, the topic of Langer's mindfulness has become a centerfold for my dissertation in educational psychology. In brief, the question is to what degree are teachers mindful of their teaching? This question creates a problem: what instrument measures mindfulness? In the case of Langer's two books, she mostly infers mindfulness from her studies rather than spell out the specific instrument she used. That does not keep her book from offering timeless insights: mindful people welcome new ideas, create new categories, hold multiple perspectives, see life as a process, reframe situations to see the positive. Such qualities tell us what we want to become as human beings creating a more mindful world.

Rating:
Summary: Stimulating And Easy Reading
Review: I bought this book because I needed to read it for a class. I didn't expect to like it as much as I did! The first couple of pages made you really think and wonder about how mindless one really is. The book did wonderfully in keeping the psychological jargon out, and the examples helped me understand the concepts. I would definately say that this book is a must-read for everyone.

Rating:
Summary: This book can change your life!
Review: I purchased this wonderful book back in the 80's! I had quite a few bad habits, and really wanted to change not only my life but my attitude.Mindfulness not only enabled me to quit smoking without suffering any withdrawals, but woke me up from the sleep ofcomplacency. I began to look at the world differently. I learned to let go of destructive ideas.I learned how to slow down, and to be grateful for the moment.Over the years I have given this book to anyone seeking advice. Miss Langer writes in an easy to understand style as if she is your best friend who has just discovered some amazing insights that she is going to share with just you.I have not re-read this little gem in years, but can still remember certain paragraphs and sentences that were so true then as they are now. I recommend this book to anyone who is looking to put the zest & joy of living back in their life.Even those that are truly happy will find this book riveting & a fun read.

Rating:
Summary: Extensive, yet limited.
Review: Langer is a good writer and her research on the subjectis very volumnous. However, the book suffers from a number of irrelavant and misplaced examples that sometimes do not at all support her points. What Lange failed to do, in my opinion, is integrate the concept of mindfulness into the larger trends in Social Psychology. The most glaring ommision is the fact that mindlessness, as Langer calls it, is derived from the naturally limited human attention abilities, has many benefits that outweight the limitations. Langer's mindlessness is better known as automaticity, and while using automatic patterns of behavior and judgment has its pitfalls, it is also responsible for making our lives run smoothly. In great majority of situations, you would much rather act automatically according to preset patterns instead of having to actively consider every option every single time.
What langer succeeds in accomplishing is making her readers aware of the way our mind works (which is always intuitive) so that they can be mindfull of our natural limitations in the instances when it could help them avert negative effects on their quality of life.

Rating:
Summary: mindful?
Review: This book is still selling well after ten years because Langer is a first-rate researcher who can write. And not only that, the subject she chose to study is extremely valuable and important.

The book is basically about mindLESSness: What causes it, what we can do about it, and what difference it makes. If you would like to be more creative in your work, if you would like to be more alive and awake, if you would like to stay mentally young for your entire life, read this book. I'm the author of the book, Self-Help Stuff That Works, and I'm an expert on what is effective and what is not. Ellen Langer's work is effective and extremely important, both for you personally and for society at large. I highly recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: Thought Provoking and Eye Opening
Review: This book presents a new look into mindsets, routine and habits. It shows how many individuals can become completely mindless. The book shows creative ways to change attitudes and behavior.

Rating:
Summary: Thought provoking
Review: This is a book rich in provoking thought. While I have read it more than once through cover to cover, I still keep it handy to read sections of again. It approaches mindfulness from a Western thought perspective and avoids the comparisons with Eastern thought. This is not a detriment. It helps to focus the material. It is also the source of much of the ongoing playing with ideas that I still find with this book. By now, you may have realized that Ellen has not presented us with a silver bullet. But she does provide much insight in the relationship between the physical and the mental. The third party view or that of an outsider coming into a group, are both inherently examples of mindfulness. Without pre-set notions, anything is possible. Read and enjoy!