Top of Mind

Mindful lawyers and lawmakers

A professional association for lawyers in the UK announced in November that it will “offer facilities” for members to practice mindfulness, following a trend in legal circles throughout the UK and abroad.

British Parliament has offered mindfulness training for members since 2014, as does Swedish Parliament. The American Bar Association advocates for the practice, even publishing a book about it in 2016.

Sipping on mindfulness

What would you do for a cup of tea? San Francisco’s Samovar Teahouse offers “mindfulness tea” at no charge, if you agree to drink

Stacked rocks: a not-so-mindful cliché

it mindfully. That means no using your phone and no chatting, and simply sipping for 60 whole minutes.

Owner Jesse Jacobs, a longtime meditator, says he sees it sparking curiosity around mindfulness, though not all customers are eager to dive in and try it. “As a social experiment, it’s brought people’s consciousness up to the challenge,” says Jacobs, “so they can start by asking, Why is this practice difficult for me? ”

A go-to symbol for mindfulness, meditation, and all things contemplative, stacked rocks may not be so mindful after all. This seemingly benign, Instagram-friendly activity can have destructive effects on sensitive ecosystems. While stacking rocks is a traditional practice in several cultures, including Native American, Scottish, and Scandinavian, in recent years it has become a socialmedia-fuelled phenomenon that, in a Facebook post from September 2018, the Zion National Park in Utah referred to as “vandalism.”

More than that, the post explained, the practice can harm wildlife and contribute to the erosion of shorelines. Perhaps it’s time we practice letting the rocks be.

Racing cars, not racing minds

The Mercedes Formula One racing team’s got a secret weapon for staying ahead of the pack in the past several seasons. You guessed it: mindfulness. The team is close to matching Ferrari’s record of six straight drivers’ and constructors’ championships. The team’s CEO, Toto Wolff, says mindfulness is a key way that team members can do “a better job than their opposite number at Ferrari.”

Is technology changing our hands?

For most of human history, we used our hands to cut and shape and measure and sculpt our way through the world. In the age of computers and robotics, we use our fingers less and in fewer ways, which has caused Roger Kneebone, professor of surgical education at Imperial College, London, to posit that due to a lack of “craft skills” his students have less ability in the cutting and stitching involved in surgery. Time for a new “digital” revolution?