Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness

Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness is a 1990 self-help book by American author and professor Jon Kabat-Zinn. In his work Kabat-Zinn explains his program of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), which is a series of meditative practices he designed to help people cope with stress and develop an awareness of and appreciation for the present moment. Inspired by the Buddhist traditions, the author felt that meditation could be highly beneficial for people suffering from chronic pain, anxiety disorders, and illnesses. Kabat-Zinn has treated patients with his MBSR program at the University of Massachusetts Memorial Health Center’s Stress Reduction Clinic since 1979, and he relays many patient anecdotes in Full Catastrophe Living. The book also offers a practical guide to exercises such as “Breathing Meditation,” “Sitting Meditation,” “The Body Scan,” and “Walking Meditation,” which the reader can try at home by themselves or with the book’s accompanying CD.

This guide refers to the Kindle edition of this book.

Summary

In Chapter 1, Kabat-Zinn introduces his philosophy about meditation, which he refers to as “the way of awareness” (5). He claims that by embracing the “non-doing” inherent to meditation people can learn to overcome compulsive thinking that fuels stress and anxiety. The author explains that meditation does not need to be interpreted as a mystical or spiritual activity but is simply living with a heightened awareness of the present. In the following chapter, Kabat-Zinn encourages the reader to look beyond the superficial aspects of meditation, such as owning certain equipment or following a particular program, and understand that developing one’s own mindfulness takes practice. While meditation may lower people’s stress levels, it is not supposed to put practitioners to sleep, and the author recommends that the reader meditate at a time that they feel most awake. He claims that Non-Judging, Patience, Beginner’s Mind, Trust, Non-Striving, Acceptance, and Letting Go are all helpful attitudes while developing a meditation practice. In Chapter 3, Kabat-Zinn argues that paying attention to breathing is a simple way to begin a meditative practice, and that breathing patterns can help people change their emotional states. He offers the readers their first exercise: sitting or lying down and focusing on their breath for 15 minutes.

In Chapter 4, the author coaches the reader to deal with negative thoughts and discomfort by observing them without judgment, and not creating an identity around their thinking patterns. As people try their first meditations, they should not attempt to suppress their thoughts, but instead gently redirect them to their breathing each time they are distracted. The author suggests that the reader begin a practice of 10 minutes each day and expand their awareness from their breath to include their whole body, as well as sounds, silence, or music.

In his fifth chapter the author introduces another type of formal meditation practice called “The Body Scan,” a 45-minute exercise in which the practitioner must concentrate their attention on different parts of their bodies, starting with their toes and working their way up to their heads. In the following chapter, Kabat-Zinn argues that yoga is an excellent way to meditate, as it emphasizes the union of body and mind. He claims that by changing their physical perspective, yogis can change their inner perspective, too. In Chapter 7, Kabat-Zinn offers another form of active meditation, the “Walking Meditation,” in which people walk slowly and mindfully, without a destination. This form of meditation caters to people who find sitting for long periods difficult. In Chapters 8 and 9, the author explains the “Day of Mindfulness” held by the Stress Reduction Clinic, and the positive benefits it brings to a wide array of people. For instance, one participant found that her experience at the event helped her overcome her anxiety about being alone overnight. The author concludes Part 1 of his book with his 10th chapter, in which he recommends that the reader try the variety of exercises they have read about so far, while also incorporating a mindful attitude into their daily life activities as well.

Kabat-Zinn begins Part 2 of his work by explaining that the culture around medicine has shifted in recent decades to include more “participatory medicine” that values the patient’s perspective in receiving care and recognizes the human body’s capacity for transformation and healing. He claims that meditation helps people overcome the notion that they are fragmented by illness or trauma, reclaim a feeling of wholeness, and develop a renewed connectedness with themselves and others. In Chapters 13 and 14, the author points to scientific evidence that demonstrates how changes in one’s psychology can help physical healing, using this to bolster his argument that meditation can play a role in recovery and should be taught in medical school. He continues this discussion in Chapter 15, in which he cites studies that show better health outcomes for optimists than pessimists, and Chapter 16 in which he argues that feeling connected to oneself and to a community helps people foster mental and physical health.

In the following chapters of Part 3, the author explores how stress can impact people’s lives, arguing that meditation makes people more “stress-hardy” as they perceive their stresses differently and feel less helpless. Life changes are a common source of stress, which can become chronic if the body’s stress burden, or “allostatic overload” becomes overwhelming, creating long-term “Stress Reactivity” which often results in illness or burnout. In Chapter 20, Kabat-Zinn concludes Part 3 by explaining that meditation can help people learn how to respond, rather than react, to stress with awareness.

In Part 4, the author argues that physical symptoms should be interpreted as messages from the body and encourages the reader to consider how they might address the root cause of their health problems rather than using drugs to dull the discomfort. In the following chapters he addresses chronic pain, suggesting that meditators develop an awareness of their pain without identifying it. He then turns his attention to emotional pain, suggesting either “problem-focused coping” which focuses on practical steps to ease emotional pain, or “emotion-focused coping” which involves simply observing the feelings as they arise. Similarly, in Chapter 25 Kabat-Zinn suggests that detaching one’s identity from anxious thoughts and utilizing breathwork when panicked can help people who struggle with chronic anxiety. In the following chapters, Kabat-Zinn explores different types of stress, including Time Stress, People Stress, Work Stress, and Food Stress, and how each can be mitigated with mindful practices.

Finally, in Part 5, the author briefly offers his final thoughts on meditation, or “The Way of Awareness,” arguing in Chapter 33 that frequent practice makes mindfulness easier and effective. In Chapters 34 and 35, he offers tips for how the readers can sustain their formal and informal mindfulness practices. In Chapter 36, Kabat-Zinn concludes his work by emphasizing that mindfulness is different from conscious thinking, and claims that awareness is a separate type of intelligence which Western societies should make use of.