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Psychiatrist at the Miguel Servet Hospital in Zaragoza, He is also a professor of Psychiatry and Medical Psychology at the University of this city.. In his career he has specialized in anxiety, depression, psychosomatic disorders, chronic pain and fibromyalgia. He is also part of a primary care research group that coordinates the mental health area at the national level..

Con 18 For years he practiced Buddhist meditation and martial arts. Then he began to study medicine and, later, Psychiatry and spent six months training in Manchester and Canada. Over there, running the year 1993, knew mindfulness. The first thing he thought was: “This will never reach Spain”.

What made you think that??
See doctors, psychiatrists and psychologists talking about meditation indicated a degree of openness absolutely unthinkable for Spain a few years ago. 20 years. Now in Spain things that were completely uncommon seem normal to us. 20 years back. A doctor who meditated was extraordinary.

Now it still is, in general…
Yeah, Yeah, now it is simply considered peculiar, but at that time there was a risk of total exclusion, could not be said more than to the most intimate friends within the profession. I knew mindfulness, so, as a psychotherapy devoid of anything religious and converted into a scientific technique. I kept in touch with psychiatrists in the United States who practiced mindfulness in those years 90, but at that time it was still difficult to think about introducing it in Spain, due to the possible isolation on the part of the profession and the scientific community.

When do you incorporate mindfulness into your professional activity??
From the year 2000 mindfulness began to slowly emerge in Spain. At the end of that decade, Vicent Simón begins to write some books on the subject, and some pioneers of mindfulness in Spain, like Ausiàs Cebolla in Valencia or Joaquim Soler in Barcelona, they started working on it. A group of friends who agreed on mindfulness formed a research team at the end of the year. 2012. We were able to research mindfulness thanks to the fact that we already had a powerful research career in other topics., because yesIf we had dedicated ourselves to research and teaching only in mindfulness, It would have cost us much more to work on it..

How do you define mindfulness?
Especially as concentrative meditation. That is to say, focus the focus of attention - it can be on the body or the breath- and observe mental phenomena. What mindfulness has done is manualize meditation, structure it into seven or eight hour and a half sessions, and in group format, which is more efficient and cost-effective.

Mindfulness has dispensed with the entire religious part of traditional meditation, leaving only the technique, simplified and accessible to Westerners, and that it can be done in a reasonable period of time. It is easy to learn and practice and It has no religious connotation, Neither Buddhist nor Hindu; that is to say, does not conflict with other people's previous ideas or beliefs.

How are you applying mindfulness now in your profession??
Five years ago I started working on it.. We have created a Master of Mindfulness at the University of Zaragoza, which is the first in Spain, at the moment. The research group that we have formed with Ausiàs Cebolla and Joaquim Soler is beginning to be recognized internationally. Our greatest objective is to introduce mindfulness into the health system, training doctors and nurses on this topic, because they are starting to be very interested.

Mindfulness emerges in the United States, within private payment medicine, for people of high sociocultural level. It was not designed to be applied in the primary care of the European universal and free systems. Therefore, it must be adapted and implemented in the primary care environment, facilitating it and making its techniques simpler and briefer.

So that it can be a therapy tailored to everyone and the circumstances we live in...
Yeah, of people who are stressed and have a bad time. Mindfulness can serve many purposes, for anxiety and depression and also for people who do not have a specific pathology but are stressed, tired, restless, or we are not well.

Do you like the translation of minfulness as full attention??
The truth is that it is difficult to find a good translation. Mindfulness is not meditation; It is a state of consciousness that is achieved through meditation, That's why it's not exactly the same.. We use Mindfulness to avoid translation problems, but it is an anglicism that should be changed.

What does the research say about its effectiveness??
In just eight weeks there begin to be areas of the frontal brain that are reinforced and manage to modulate the insula, which is the part of the brain that regulates emotions. In other words, there is more conscious control of them, so we don't get caught up in them so much., they don't make us suffer so much. There are changes that are seen in neuroimaging studies in people who have done meditation, with only eight weeks of practice.

In just eight weeks do the effects begin to be perceived??
Exactly, both psychological and also the cerebral repercussion observed through neuroimaging; that is to say, there is scientific evidence. Now what we are looking at is how to simplify it as much as possible., how to increase effectiveness, In what situations or diseases will it be better?, Which specific patients are best suited... There are people who have more difficulty doing body-based meditation and prefer to focus on breathing; others who prefer to do more compassion, a type of meditation that is being developed as a complementary therapy to mindfulness, and that is very interesting.

It is often said that meditation, in general, It is not recommended in cases of mental pathologies…
That was thought, but it's not exactly like that. The group of patients where care must be taken is psychotics., in schizophrenia, because they may tend to have more hallucinations or delusions. With other diseases - depression, pain, anxiety, obsessive disorders- meditation can be used perfectly, It's just that we insist more on some aspects than others.. For example, In anxiety, muscle relaxation is very important because there is a lot of tension; in depression, in which rumination is very frequent (be thinking about the past, the blame, etc), we emphasize meditation on breathing. I mean, an adaptation is made to each pathology. Even for schizophrenia, very short meditations are being tried, more directed, focused on a specific goal, but that should be done by people with experience in these patients.

This eight week therapy, What type of professionals apply it??
There are two levels of training or application. When it is for healthy people, no need to have special medical or psychological training. So, Mindfulness is being widely used in education, both in universities and schools; in companies, to avoid “burnout” or work stress, etc. You don't need to be a doctor or psychologist for that., but good training in mindfulness is enough. But if you are going to treat patients, It is logical that a doctor should do it, psychiatrist or psychologist who has experience with these types of patients and who has been trained in mindfulness.

It is very important to say that, like any practice, requires effort and perseverance, consistency…
One of the problems we have with mindfulness is abandonment. per year, only the 30% or the 40% keep practicing. people get tired, although check the benefits, because it requires a change in lifestyle, of habits, and persevere in them, as with a healthy diet or exercise.

And when one is having a bad day or is especially agitated, ¿mindfulness le sirve?
Yeah, Yeah, I want to insist on that. It is said that we meditate in order not to meditate. That is to say, we do formal meditation (dedicating a few minutes a day specifically), to be able to use it in almost all moments of daily life: in times of stress, of anger, of tension, etc.

There are some very short practices - one is called “three minutes”- that can be done on any occasion and relax you, and can be applied in daily life, in stressful situations or taking advantage of routine situations. If you are waiting at the bus stop, instead of ranting because the bus is late, you can close your eyes and do a short meditation. Or also when you cook or when you wash the dishes you can take the opportunity to do a few minutes of meditation. Just by paying attention to what you are doing, change the perspective. Instead of thinking “how boring it is to scrub”, If you are attentive to everything that happens at that moment it can be an exciting meditation.

That is mindfulness to be happier, ¿no? Or to enjoy more of the life we ​​have, that is so short.
That's the topic. We insist a lot on that. There is a therapy aspect to mindfulness, but we believe that it is almost more useful for anyone who wants to be happier in their daily life and be more involved in the things they are.

Yeah, because the big problem is that we often live apart from ourselves...
Exact, We are doing one thing and thinking about another., and that is a source of unhappiness because we are not where we are. There is a very interesting study published in Science in which he asked over the phone 7.000 people what they were doing at the time, what were they thinking, if they were happy at that moment. And the conclusion was that only he was happy 40% of the people, and that the majority of that percentage was thinking about the same thing they were doing. The other 60% I thought about other things and didn't enjoy what I was doing., whatever it was.

From full attention, eating for example is exciting, but we are incapable of eating just by eating, without watching television, talk, etc. That's why we eat more and get fat, because we fail to perceive when we are full.

It can be said that mindfulness helps us live happier.
Yeah, people say it in courses. In the United States there is a very powerful movement, el Mindful movement, for people on the street to do mindfulness, because it changes the social climate and increases compassion. And I say compassion not as it is understood in Spanish, which seems to denote that the compassionate one is superior to the other, but as the desire for others to be happy and free from suffering, but from a feeling of equality. Mindfulness facilitates this compassion because you connect more with yourself, you connect more with the planet and with all human beings. You are more aware of the suffering of others, but don't become pessimistic, on the contrary; You realize that it is worth living despite that suffering and you have the feeling of wanting to help people and feeling united with them.

Tich Nhat Hanh talks about “interbeing”, to feel like a being together with all humanity, which gives you a very special feeling of happiness and well-being.

Compassion has a lot of power to change society...
Yeah, Yeah. Those of us who dedicate ourselves to mindfulness think that the great revolution in society will not come from politicians, but when people practice mindfulness and compassion, and change your little environment. If I'm fine, my environment will be fine, and that is expanding progressively , so the world will be fine. Societies will live and let live, which is what it's about.

How do you relate yoga with mindfulness?
Mind/body techniques, like yoga, taichi, qigong, son mindfulness puro. Who is doing yoga, is doing mindfulness. What happens sometimes is that when we are doing one of these techniques, Instead of enjoying bodily sensations, we are thinking that we are not doing as well as we should. , or worse than the one next door; there we have already lost mindfulness. Mind/body techniques are perfect if we manage to have the right attitude.