mFLEX Online Resilience Course

 mFLEX can be tailored to your team or organization.

mFLEX Overview

mFLEX is a 6-week online course that reviews a core elements of the mPEAK course: psychological FLEXibility and how mindfulness positively impacts stress resilience. Psychological flexibility is the ability to stay in contact with the present moment regardless of unpleasant thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations, while choosing one's behaviors based on the situation and personal values. This kind of flexibility is also at the heart of “resilience”. One who is resilient has the ability to stay calm in the midst of difficulty and to quickly recover and return to a high-performing baseline. Not only does the resilient person emerge from the difficulty without long-term negative consequences, they end up more competent, wise, resourceful and higher functioning as a result.

Stress resilience is one of the most empirically well-established mechanisms behind the long list of mental health and well-being benefits associated with mindfulness practice. mFLEX is based on tried and true mindfulness practices, adapted to the specific needs and challenges of high performers such as: hypervigilance, striving, performance anxiety, burnout, perfectionism, inner criticism and work/life balance.

Intended Audience

We’ve all had moments of difficulty that have been made worse by the way we’ve reacted. We’ve also all had stressful periods that have inspired us to adapt and grow into new and improved ways of being. The way you meet moments of stress doesn’t have to be left up to chance. mFLEX is for those looking to leverage the power of mindfulness to enhance their ability to respond wisely to stress and thrive during moments of difficulty rather than simply survive.

Designed for athletes, first responders and business leaders, mFLEX is also appropriate for anyone who wants to perform at their peak while under pressure, without sacrificing life-balance or well-being. Everyone experiences stress and everyone wants to live well, which means anyone is welcome to register. mFLEX is for beginners and advanced mindfulness practitioners alike. Previous meditation experience is not necessary to participate, but can facilitate a deeper learning experience. Graduates of the mPEAK program will find mFLEX to be a powerful refresher of their training.

Objectives

  • Work through performance anxiety

  • Stay calm and perform well under pressure 

  • Respond wisely to stress rather than react habitually

  • Use compassionate rather than critical self-talk around mistakes

  • Let go of negative rumination and shift to a more optimistic perspective 

  • Face physical or emotional pain with curiosity rather than repressing or avoiding

Class Format

Each of the six, 90-min sessions include: a new meditation, an experiential exercise, group coaching, a short didactic presentation on the weekly theme and home practices. Using the Zoom online platform, we’ve created an efficient, convenient and effective learning environment to deepen your mindfulness practice and explore the topic of psychological flexibility as it relates to your own peak performance and stress resilience. This course is experiential and highly participatory with regular opportunities to share your results, insights and challenges with like-minded participants. If you’re simply looking to gain new information and inspiration, but not participate, this course is not for you. If you’re looking to make real shifts in your life, deepen your mindfulness practice, enhance your resilience and connect with a community of “bio-hackers”, self-optimizers and performance enthusiasts, you are going to love this course!

  • Class 4: Responding to Stress (Pausing to investigate and respond appropriately to stressors rather than reacting automatically out of fear)

  • Class 5: Bouncing Back (Cultivating compassionate inner self talk rather than being critical about your own mistakes, weaknesses or perceived failures)

  • Class 6: Practicing Positivity (Learn to savor positive experiences and cultivate positive emotions such as gratitude and sympathetic joy)

  • Class 1: Fundamentals of Mindfulness (An introduction to mindfulness as it relates to psychological flexibility and stress resilience)

  • Class 2: Calm Under Pressure (Recognition and regulation of the interoceptive sensations of stress and performance anxiety)

  • Class 3: Mastering Mental Resilience (Recognition and regulation of unhelpful thinking and mind wandering during moments of stress)

Mindfulness & Stress Resilience Research

World-renowned neuroscientist Richard Davidson has found evidence that mindfulness does increase resilience, and the more mindfulness meditation you practice, the more resilient your brain becomes. The emotional reaction that follows a stressful event can activate negative stories about yourself or others that can spiral out of control. For example, if you have an argument with your partner before leaving for work, you can end up replaying that conversation all day, which continues to proliferate anxiety or low mood far more than is necessary. Mindfulness reduces this rumination and, if practiced regularly, changes your brain so that you’re more resilient to future stressful events.

Research Articles

  1. This study analyzed whether mindfulness training impacts marines’ stress resiliency and their brain activity in brain regions associated with stress resiliency.

    Haase, L., Thom, N. J., Shukla, A., Davenport, P. W., Simmons, A. N., Paulus, M. P., & Johnson, D. C. (2014). Mindfulness-based training attenuates insula response to an aversive interoceptive challenge. Social cognitive and affective neuroscience.

  2. This study assessed whether and how elite athletes process physiological or psychological challenges differently than healthy comparison volunteers.

    Paulus, M.P., Flagan, T., Simmons, A.N., Gillis, K., Kotturi, S., Thom, N., Johnson, D.C., Van Orden, K.F., Davenport, P.W., Swain, J.L. (2012). Subjecting elite athletes to inspiratory -4- breathing load reveals behavioral and neural signatures of optimal performers in extreme environments. PloS one 7, e29394.

  3. The findings of this study revealed that when anticipating negative or stressful images, the Navy SEALs’ brains experienced greater activity in brain regions involved in modulating emotional reactions and lesser activity in brain regions involved in the experiencing of negative emotions.

    Simmons, A. N., Fitzpatrick, S., Strigo, I. A., Potterat, E. G., Johnson, D. C., Matthews, S. C., ... & Paulus, M. P. (2012). Altered insula activation in anticipation of changing emotional states: neural mechanisms underlying cognitive flexibility in special operations forces personnel. Neuroreport, 23(4), 234-239.

  4. This study shows that mindfully monitoring and allowing painful sensations leads to faster recovery than surpassing or distracting attention.

    Cioffi, D., & Holloway, J. (1993). Delayed costs of suppressed pain. Journal of personality and social psychology, 64(2), 274.

  5. This study reveals that when chronic pain patients practice mindfulness meditation, it can significantly reduce their present-moment pain during the period in which the meditation practice persists, and can significantly reduce a host of difficult emotional and psychological symptoms not only during the persistence of the meditation practice, but for up to 15 months after cessation of the practice.

    Kabat-Zinn, J., Lipworth, L., & Burney, R. (1985). The clinical use of mindfulness meditation for the self-regulation of chronic pain. Journal of behavioral medicine, 8(2), 163-190.

  6. This study confirms that a mental expectation of an impending event can significantly shape the brain’s ensuing response to the event, as well as the person’s subjective experience of the event.

    Koyama, T., McHaffie, J. G., Laurienti, P. J., & Coghill, R. C. (2005). The subjective experience of pain: where expectations become reality. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 102(36), 12950-12955.

  7. The results of the study suggest that a brief 3-day mindfulness meditation practice can materially reduce high intensity pain, low intensity pain, and anxiety relating to the pain.

    Zeidan, F., Gordon, N. S., Merchant, J., & Goolkasian, P. (2010). The effects of brief mindfulness meditation training on experimentally induced pain. The Journal of Pain, 11(3), 199-209.

  8. This study provides evidence that mindfulness meditation reduces anxiety by altering activity in brain regions involved in the regulation of self-referential thought processes.

    Zeidan, F., Martucci, K. T., Kraft, R. A., McHaffie, J. G., & Coghill, R. C. (2014). Neural correlates of mindfulness meditation-related anxiety relief. Social cognitive and affective neuroscience, 9(6), 751-759.

  9. The findings suggest that mindfulness meditation reduces emotional reactivity for both novice meditators and experienced meditators, albeit for different reasons for each group.

    Taylor, V. A., Grant, J., Daneault, V., Scavone, G., Breton, E., Roffe-Vidal, S., ... & Beauregard, M. (2011). Impact of mindfulness on the neural responses to emotional pictures in experienced and beginner meditators. Neuroimage, 57(4), 1524-1533.

  10. These findings help confirm the notion that self-compassionate individuals have healthier motivational habits, are less fear-driven, are less likely to define themselves by their perceived failures, are more likely to see perceived failures as learning or growing opportunities, and are less likely to engage in denial and mental disengagement in response to perceived failures.

    Neff, K. D., Hsieh, Y. P., & Dejitterat, K. (2005). Self-compassion, achievement goals, and coping with academic failure. Self and Identity, 4(3), 263-287.