Sarah Fay: Patients and staff at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center will be the first on the west coast to receive training in a blend of Eastern and Western therapies designed by yoga instructors and fashion designer Donna Karan.

Urban Zen Foundation, started by Karan, is taking up residency at UCLA to ease the minds and bodies of cancer patients and their caretakers. It is the first hospital on the west coast to adopt the program, which involves training in yoga, Reiki, meditation, aromatherapy and other practices. Karan was at UCLA Thursday to visit with patients and staff.

“People think yoga is kind of …

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Patients watching television in their rooms at Springfield, Illinois, Memorial Medical Center now can turn on a channel that features instrumental music and soothing nature scenes.

The CARE Channel was added to the hospital’s TV lineup a few months ago, Memorial spokesman Michael Leathers said.

CARE, which stands for “Continuous Ambient Relaxation Environment,” is provided through a 19-year-old company in Reno, Nev., called Healing Healthcare Systems.

A news release from Memorial said the channel is designed “to enhance and promote healing.”

Susan Mazer, chief executive officer of Healing Healthcare Systems, said Wednesday the channel’s videos of waterfalls, mountain ranges, wildlife and flowers are not repetitive and have original music playing in the …

Banner Boswell Medical Center [in Sun City, Arizona] reopened its chapel this week, just in time for Ash Wednesday.

The newly remodeled space, now a non-denominational meditation chapel, offers both patients and their families a quiet space to think and escape the busy hospital atmosphere.

Chaplain Larry Weidner, the director of Spiritual Care, said that the remodel is more inclusive to all religions. Instead of pews, the room now contains individual chairs, and the art is not specific to one religion, but a trio of paintings on one wall incorporates symbols from all faiths.

“As a hospital, we minister to anyone that comes here,” Weidner said.

Weidner pointed out that when the remodel was first …

After several months of remodeling, Banner Boswell Medical Center in Sun City has reopened its Meditation Chapel inside the hospital’s main entrance.

The remodeling project was done to reflect the diversity of the spiritual culture of patients, visitors and staff.
The chapel has a new water feature, an original triptych painting representing the 10 major world religions. The remodeling project also included the replacement of pews with individual chairs to create an atmosphere for individual meditation and reflection.

The chapel features a library of more than…

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40 pamphlets on various supportive topics and a special “faith box,” where handwritten requests for prayers can be placed for the chaplain. The chapel is open 24 hours a …

Books on Buddha, prayers printed in different languages, moveable chairs, kneeling stools, a glass prayer bowl, space for Muslim prayer rugs and a stained glass installation with a nature design fill the 180-square-foot room.

As intended, it’s a hodgepodge scene.

But for patients, visitors and staff of the hospital at Kaiser Roseville Medical Center, the room represents a quiet, sacred space where people of all religious backgrounds and spiritual beliefs are welcome. This meditation room also illustrates a growing recognition by health care providers throughout the United States that mind, body and spirit go hand in hand.

“Healing comes in many ways and we do a great job with the physical healing, but there’s the emotional and spiritual wounds, as well,” said Kaiser …

The patterns of sacred colors pressed in glass on the doors of St. Alexius’ Meditation Room are rounded, reminiscent of Chippewa art and decoration, as well as geometric motifs, like the Lakotas’.

The colors and patterns also are appropriate for a room used by Muslim medical staff for prayer, since there is no depiction of the human form, which is forbidden in Islam.

The colored doors and side windows designed by artist Butch Thunderhawk allow light into the simply-furnished room. Rows of chairs line soft sand-colored walls. Natural materials complete the space – a wood plank ceiling and slate floor. The back of the room curves into a gentle bow to suggest the circular themes in Native American spiritual practices and the …

Cancer patients are improving their quality of life and reducing stress through meditation sessions offered by The Northern Hospital [Victoria, Australia].

The sessions teach stillness meditation, which helps manage anxiety and stress to provide inner peace, clearer thinking and improved decision-making.

Northern Health chief executive Greg Pullen said the sessions help patients and families reduce stress by teaching relaxation techniques during challenging times.

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Hospitals and meditation are coming together, what with the growth in mindfulness-based programs that started with Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction several decades ago. Sutter Hospital, in California, is one of the latest to add a Meditation Garden.

Meanwhile, at an Asheville, North Carolina, hospital, meditation is being used to help breast cancer patients. According to the Asheville Citizen-Times, a study “found patients using the body/mind/medicine therapies, including guided imaging, reported lowered blood pressure, heart rates and anxiety levels.”

In military medicine circles, the army’s plans to build up mental ‘resilience’ in soldiers serving in Iraq include a meditation room with stained glass windows.

There’s an Asheville connection with regards to Rev. Teijo Munnich, who is said to have been …