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The Mississippi Lawyer Winter 2016 15 ay attention Perhaps this brings up memories of your 1st grade teacher in the classroom where new friends and other intrigues were more alluring than reading from your new class book even though it had cool pictures.POr maybe the memory of your law school professor pontificating in your Civil Procedure class comes up or pos- sibly you think of a month ago when your spouse after you spent the day litigating a no-win case for that special client is dis- cussing the behavior of your 13 year old before dinner. However it is actually part of the working definition of one of the most useful practices available today for dealing with all those stressors and more. When Chip Glaze the Director of the MS Bars Lawyers and Judges Assistance Program invited me to contribute a piece on mindfulness to this publication I won- dered why attorneys would be interested in the topic since many lawyers I had worked with were initially neither inter- ested in nor inclined to approaches that seemed a bit too touchy feely. My conjecture was quickly proven wrong as I found about 168000 search engine hits in less than a second with the search words mindfulness for attorneys. I was astounded. Additionally and impressively there were 63 items on the website for the American Bar Association using the searchtermmindfulness.www.american bar.org. This is good news As we are now all aware attorneys are in the top five when various statis- tics are examined regarding suicide rates by occupation. Of course accuracy is questionable regarding actual numbers since suicide is frequently labeled as an accident. This top ranking is also true for depression rates and cases of alcoholism in lawyers. In a personal communication with Chip Glaze he indicated that there were 17 suicides amongst Mississippi attorneys in 2014. The urgency to reduce stress improve emotional regulation improve self-care and experience deep joy for attorneys is apparent. What is mindfulness The short but salient definition is paying attention on purpose in the moment without judg- ment. This sounds simple but it is not easyespeciallyinthebeginning. However sticking with the practice on a regular basis is well worthwhile. Research indi- cates that practicing mindfulness reduces negative emotional states improves posi- tive emotional states improves ratings of the overall quality of life affects the auto- nomic nervous system reducing fight flight freeze responses reduces elevated stress hormones improves the immune systems response increases healthy eat- ing behaviors enhances restful sleep is as beneficial as relapse prevention approach- es in substance use disorders and can greatly benefit those with Attention Deficit Disorder who stick with it through initial frustrations. These frustrations can be reduced in those with attentional prob- lems by limiting the practice to 1 or 2 minutes in the beginning. Continued on next page