Is Mindfulness still more hype than help for PTSD?

What is the DOD filling their heads with now?

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
April 6, 2019

Last year the BBC reported that many were thinking that "Mindfulness" was actually more hype than help.


Mindfulness meditation has been practiced for millennia – and today is a billion-dollar business. But how much does the practice really change our health?

“There is a common misperception in public and government domains that compelling clinical evidence exists for the broad and strong efficacy of mindfulness as a therapeutic intervention,” a group of 15 scholars wrote in a recent article entitled Mind the Hype. The reality is that mindfulness-based therapies have shown “a mixture of only moderate, low or no efficacy, depending on the disorder being treated,” the scholars wrote, citing a 2014 meta-analysis commissioned by the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

So how it is that now members of NATO, including Maj. Gen. Piatt of the 10th Mountain Division thinks it works great?

The British Royal Navy has given mindfulness training to officers, and military leaders are rolling it out in the Army and Royal Air Force for some officers and enlisted soldiers. The New Zealand Defence Force recently adopted the technique, and military forces of the Netherlands are considering the idea, too. This week, NATO plans to hold a two-day symposium in Berlin to discuss the evidence behind the use of mindfulness in the military.

Well that was from the following article reported yesterday on the New York Times. What is your head full of right now?

The Latest in Military Strategy:

The New York Times
By Matt Richtel
April 5, 2019

“I was asked recently if my soldiers call me General Moonbeam,” said Maj. Gen. Piatt, who was director of operations for the Army and now commands its 10th Mountain Division. “There’s a stereotype this makes you soft. No, it brings you on point.”

As commander of the coalition forces in Iraq, Maj. Gen. Walter Piatt juggled ruthless pursuit of enemies and delicate diplomacy with tribal leaders, using a trove of modern weaponry and streams of tech-generated data.

But his best decisions, he said, relied on a tool as ancient as it is powerful. Maj. Gen. Piatt often began daily operations by breathing deliberately, slack-jawed, staring steadily at a palm tree.
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