This month, military leaders from around the world will meet for a first-of-a-kind virtual symposium to share how they’ve been using mindfulness within their formations, and to learn from each other. They’ll hear from some leading mindfulness experts, too, like Jon Kabat-Zinn, and Dr. Amishi Jha. Dr. Jha is a co-organizer of the International Mindfulness in Defence Symposium (or MINDS) alongside the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence’s (UK MOD) Major Patrick Burgess. Dr. Jha is a neuroscientist, professor of psychology at the University of Miami, and author of the forthcoming book Peak Mind. For the past 15 years she has been researching how to best promote resilience in high-stress cohorts—such as those who serve in the military—using contemplative and mind training techniques that strengthen the brain’s attention networks. Major Burgess, a squadron leader with 30 years of military service including tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, has been offering courses aimed at integrating mindfulness into the existing culture of physical training within Defence for a decade. For his work in this area, in 2020 he was awarded one of the UK’s highest honors—the Most Excellent Order Of The British Empire (MBE). Mindful spoke with Dr. Amishi Jha and Major Pat Burgess about the symposium and about the role mindfulness can play for service members.
Mindful: What is this symposium about?
Major Pat Burgess: The International Mindfulness in Defence Symposium is an opportunity for nations to collaborate, to share best practice and to hear what others are doing around mindfulness. When it comes to mindfulness in active duty and veteran populations, there’s lots of information and good work around mindfulness for psychological illness for disorders such as PTSD and suicidality. While this is a worthy and growing effort, it is not the focus of this event. This symposium’s focus is about keeping people fit—it’s about keeping service members holistically fit and making sure that they understand that they own that fitness. We’ve put together some phenomenal speakers to talk about how, on a strategic level, mindfulness can be implemented, research on the benefits of mindfulness for performance and optimized wellness, and then breaking it down into the individual countries for them to convey what they’re actually doing with mindfulness. Together, we’re keen to share notes on successes, lessons learned, and how can we bring this all together and take the next steps forward. The UK Ministry of Defence is honored to host this event and has been pleased with the international interest in this topic.
Mindful: Amishi, why was it important to you to be involved in this conference?
Dr. Amishi Jha: Back in 2018, I was invited to the first ever meeting at the UK Parliament on mindfulness for military, policing, and emergency services. It was a great opportunity to meet UK military leaders, who took note of the growing evidence base regarding the utility of mindfulness training for service members. In 2019, at a NATO meeting in Berlin convened to discuss military wellness and effectiveness, I was asked to give a keynote on the topic of mindfulness. And there again, I met service members, leaders, and researchers from several nations who were already pursuing mindfulness in defence, or were at least intrigued by it. In addition, my colleague Scott Rogers and I have been actively working with not only the US Army and Special Operations Forces, but with the New Zealand Defence Force and the Royal Australian Navy on mindfulness-based programs. All of these various pieces were the seeds that made me quite enthusiastic in collaborating with Major Burgess to organize this groundbreaking symposium. I had a growing sense that this could become an international effort of offering mindfulness training to support military service members to do their jobs with more discernment, clarity, and resilience.
Grassroots Mindfulness Training
Mindful: To what degree are defense departments around the world already using mindfulness in a formal way?
Major Burgess: I wouldn’t say that it’s at the forefront of the formal approach, certainly not in the UK. Individuals are bringing mindfulness to the fore. Personally, I’ve created my own courses and courseware, which is hosted on the Army Internet page, so that not just the Army, but veterans and the general population can gain access to it as well, for free. And as for most other nations, I think they’re in a similar situation. I think we’re behind the US for sure. I mean, looking at the research papers I’ve seen from Amishi, I think the US are probably at the very forefront of this.
Dr. Jha: My lab has been researching mindfulness training in high-stress groups for some time. We’re interested in finding out what works and what doesn’t work—systematically pursuing solutions that are most feasible, effective, and scalable. The good news is that we’re getting some clear answers on best practices for delivery of mindfulness training to benefit attention, psychological health, and operational performance. Currently, delivery of mindfulness training to military service members in the US is mostly constrained to grant-funded research studies. As I think of the future, my hope is that military leaders and decision makers follow the science—benefiting from research findings, including the 15-plus years my lab has spent pursuing best practices for offering mindfulness training to active duty cohorts.
One of the benefits of coming together for this symposium is that we can share notes on research findings and innovative approaches being pursued. For example, what I find fascinating about Patrick’s approach is that he is integrating mindfulness into the context of physical fitness. Since soldiers are often motivated to work toward their fitness, seeing that their mind, just like their body, requires specific training to stay fit, is a really smart way to promote interest and engagement in the training itself. Others are doing it in the context of strategic thinking and strategic leadership, as well as wellness and resilience. So there are different pockets in which mindfulness sits. And the effort, for the most part is patchy, ad hoc, and guided by champions within these defense organizations. This effort is truly in its infancy.
At the same time, part of my interest in this meeting is to give military leaders across multiple nations an opportunity to understand the breadth and depth of how mindfulness can be creatively and successfully offered in Defence to benefit many aspects of what service members and military leaders themselves are called to do.
Mindful: What do you make of it being such a grassroots effort at this point?</