Mindfulness

As business classes get underway at the Drucker School of Management at Claremont Graduate University, MBA students open their laptops and professors fire up PowerPoint presentations in many classrooms. In the Executive Mind class, however, professor Jeremy Hunter pulls out decidedly different tools: a brass singing bowl and leather-wrapped mallet. The chimes from three strikes on the bowl quiet the dozen or so students, who have put away smartphones and other devices. They close their eyes.

WASHINGTON - Desperate to avoid another Massachusetts special-election debacle, Democrats are pulling out all the stops for Rep. Edward J. Markey in the contest to keep the Senate seat formerly held by Secretary of State John F. Kerry in Democratic hands. Markey, a liberal from suburban Boston, is at least a nominal favorite in the June 25 election. But he has failed to put the race away, and Republican candidate Gabriel Gomez, a political novice, is lurking a few percentage points behind in recent public polling.

Of all fields of medicine, psychology seems especially prone to fads. Freudian dream analysis, recovered memory therapy, eye movement desensitization for trauma ? lots of once-hot psychological theories and treatments eventually fizzled. Now along comes mindfulness therapy, a meditation-based treatment with foundations in Buddhism and yoga that's taking off in private practices and university psychology departments across the country. "Mindfulness has become a buzzword, especially with younger therapists," said Stefan Hofmann, a professor of psychology at Boston University's Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders.

The Dodgers didn't throw at the Diamondbacks on Wednesday night and the Diamondbacks didn't throw at them. The benches never cleared and no punches were exchanged. But the brawl from the previous night at Dodger Stadium was still on their minds as Arizona piled up 20 hits in an 8-6, 12-inning victory. "I don't think it ends there," reliever Ronald Belisario said before taking the loss. BOX SCORE: Arizona 8, Dodgers 6 (12 inn.) Manager Don Mattingly also implied that the situation could escalate later in the season, as he sounded more concerned about administering vigilante justice than he did about the consequences of doing so. As it was, the Dodgers already lost Yasiel Puig from the starting lineup, as the rookie outfielder sat with a strained right shoulder he presumably sustained in the fracas.

Mindfulness therapy comes in different forms. Patients can receive it through group therapy or one-on-one sessions with a therapist. Some practitioners use CDs or books, such as "The Mindful Way Through Depression," to help guide the therapy. The precise structure of a program varies: The mindfulness-based stress reduction program at UC San Diego's Center for Mindfulness, for example, offers an eight-week plan that combines CDs, books and daily home assignments. In one assignment, participants write down their physical and emotional responses to unpleasant events.

There's something healing about simply watching "Free the Mind," Danish filmmaker Phie Ambo's gentle, compassionate documentary spotlighting the use of such drug-free options as meditation and mindfulness to treat anxiety and trauma. Writer-director Ambo focuses on three main subjects: Will, an endearing 5-year-old with ADHD and a fear of elevators; Steve, an Afghanistan war veteran haunted by his stint as a military intelligence soldier and interrogator; and Rich, a former battalion leader in Iraq wracked by guilt and horrific memories of combat.

Every Thursday at lunchtime at the Hammer Museum in Westwood, several dozen people turn off their cellphones and take seats in the bright pink chairs of the Billy Wilder Theater. They come to spend half an hour with Diana Winston, a former Buddhist nun and one of the nation's best-known teachers of mindfulness meditation. The lights go down, and Winston takes a seat in an office chair and speaks quietly into a microphone. Occasionally she is accompanied by Michael Perricone playing about 20 Tibetan bells, the haunting, wave-like sounds enhancing her voice, which is so soothing it's as if she were born to the work.

Mark Coleman has been practicing meditation for 30 years. In a conversation with the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday morning, he offers some thoughts and advice about how to get started. If you've ever been intrigued by the idea of mindful meditation, he provides all you need to get started -- and the entry bar is low: just five minutes a day. Mindfulness is being used in prisons, public schools, corporations and the military to help people focus and improve their reactions. It can even help make the traffic more bearable.

Depression increasingly looks to researchers and clinicians like, say, a psychiatric version of bronchitis or a heart attack. Some people come down with a case of it, have it treated (or not), and it goes away. But for a great number of patients, it's a chronic condition that must be treated when it flares. And after depression's acute symptoms subside, many patients need to manage the disease -- to continue with some kind of treatment -- to reduce the likelihood of experiencing repeated bouts of mental suffering.

Vincent Horn opened his eyes after a moment of meditation, scanned the room and smiled. About 150 other people were emerging from their own states of dead-silent, self-induced tranquillity. They shuffled a bit in their seats. "Hello, Buddhist geeks!" Horn said from his perch onstage. "This is the most geeks I've seen in one place, I think, ever. " His statement brought to mind a moment in the documentary "Woodstock," when folk singer Arlo Guthrie takes in the crowd of several hundred thousand young people and cackles, "Lotta freaks!"

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — To hear his head coach tell it, no one on the Denver Broncos made a bigger one-season leap than safety Rahim Moore did last year. But the leap most people remember is Moore's shocking season-ender — his badly mistimed jump (and fall) in the postseason loss to Baltimore that allowed Jacoby Jones to score a 70-yard, score-tying touchdown with 31 seconds left. "I felt horrible," said Rick Neuheisel, who had Moore in his secondary when he was UCLA's head coach.

Customized TV Listings are available here: www.latimes.com/tvtimes Click here to download TV listings for the week of May 19 - 25, 2013 in PDF format This week's TV Movies   SERIES The Middle Frankie (Patricia Heaton) is eager to throw a graduation party for Axl (Charlie McDermott) and Sue (Eden Sher) takes her driver's license test for the sixth time in the season finale. 8 p.m. ABC MasterChef Amateur chefs compete to become a culinary master in the fourth season of this competitive series hosted by chef Gordon Ramsay.

There's something healing about simply watching "Free the Mind," Danish filmmaker Phie Ambo's gentle, compassionate documentary spotlighting the use of such drug-free options as meditation and mindfulness to treat anxiety and trauma. Writer-director Ambo focuses on three main subjects: Will, an endearing 5-year-old with ADHD and a fear of elevators; Steve, an Afghanistan war veteran haunted by his stint as a military intelligence soldier and interrogator; and Rich, a former battalion leader in Iraq wracked by guilt and horrific memories of combat.

NEW DELHI - The disaster caused shocking loss of life among young, mostly female garment workers, awoke the conscience of a nation, spotlighted dismal working conditions and spurred loud calls for construction and labor reform. So far, that description could apply equally to the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory complex in Bangladesh three weeks ago and to the Triangle shirtwaist factory fire in New York in 1911. The Triangle fire would prove a turning point in safeguarding American workers after 146 mostly young Jewish and Italian immigrants died, including many who jumped to their deaths because they were trapped behind locked doors.

WASHINGTON - First came the letter-writing campaigns, then the protests at town hall meetings and now the television ads. The last several weeks in New Hampshire have had the feel of a heated electoral season - but the target of this siege, first-term Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte, isn't on the ballot until 2016. Welcome to Round 2 in the battle over gun control. The first round ended last month, when a proposal to expand the background check system to cover most commercial gun sales fizzled in the Senate.

Fly toy helicopters with your mind. Be a DJ and shift musical tracks based on how you feel. Wiggle robotic cat ears by increasing your state of calm. Astonishing advances in the ability to harness brain waves have made the fantastic notion of moving and controlling objects with the mind possible. Now neuroscientists are grappling with another challenge: Find a "killer app" that will demonstrate the true potential of tapping into brain waves and ignite the neurotechnology revolution.

For anyone who spent 2010 worrying about his or her weight, the economy or egg recalls, it's time to look within. Introspection can mean a healthier you -- not a more narcissistic you. That's the message featured in a new weight loss book called "The Self-Compassion Diet. " This Allentown Morning Call story features a Q&A with author and Harvard psychotherapist Jean Fain. She tells the paper: "What I'm saying is when you treat yourself with self-compassion, when you treat yourself like a friend or a loved one with love and kindness, you're more apt to eat when you're hungry and stop when you're full; rest when you're tired and move when you feel energized; and when you do that, you lose weight naturally.

Obadiah Harris is president of the Philosophical Research Society and a former director of community education at Arizona State University. 1. "The Secret Teachings of All Ages," by Manly Palmer Hall It's a wondrous book that reveals the finest flowerings of Western esoteric thought. After reading its sections about Pythagoras, Francis Bacon and others, you feel like you know them. 2.

In a major case of academic poaching among cross-town rivals, USC is announcing Friday that it is hiring away prominent UCLA neuroscientists and moving an internationally renowned lab that uses brain imaging to research such diseases as Alzheimer's, schizophrenia and autism to its medical school campus. Join us at 9 a.m. as we discuss the scientific boon for USC with Times reporters Larry Gordon and Eryn Brown. UCLA professors Arthur Toga and Paul Thompson said they will switch to USC's medical campus next fall along with dozens of graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and staffers who now work at UCLA's Laboratory of Neuro Imaging.

Men and women wearing the latest fashions will walk the runway Friday during the Set Sail With Saks fundraiser in Las Vegas , hosted by a star of CBS' " Criminal Minds . " The event, which will be at the posh Las Vegas Country Club , begins with a 5:30 p.m. cocktail reception, followed by dinner and a fashion show featuring designs from Saks Fifth Avenue . Proceeds will benefit the American Lung Assn. in Nevada . The evening's various activities will be hosted by Matthew Gray Gubler, who plays Dr. Spencer Reid on “Criminal Minds.” Gubler, a Las Vegas native, went to the city's performing arts high school before attending film school at New York University.