On Wednesday, Nov. 16, BIOS hosted Director of Meditation Training at UW, Chad McGehee, and UW Orthopedics and Rehabilitation professor Dr. Andrew Watson to share their findings of meditation training at UW Athletics. See the full recording below.
We did not have time to address the additional Zoom questions that are listed below. Please see Chad McGehee’s and Dr. Andrew Watson’s responses for the Zoom questions.
Question for Chad. How do you incorporate and page homepage to the philosophical roots of mindfulness for your research and practices which is is a Buddhist based practice in a Western culture?
Chad McGehee: Great question and one that I acknowledge directly in trainings, sharing the historical roots of this practice. I of course teach in a secular way, seeking out the guidance of mentors like Jon Kabat-Zinn and Richie Davidson.
I am 100% bought in, love it. Appreciate the discussion on scalability. Part of that is understanding and acceptance. Wondering if Chad or Drew have created an infographic to be used as a conversation starter and subsequently an adoption of the HM app?
Dr. Andrew Watson: No, we do not yet have an infographic but this is a great idea and we will likely be working on something soon.
Chad McGehee: I echo what Drew shared and will add that I think infographics, versions of HMP and other population specific resources and adaptions will be coming out this work for decades to come.
Are other colleges beginning to start this practice for their athletic programs or is this work strictly unique to UW?
Chad McGehee: Currently, UW is the only college to have a dedicated position for this work. I believe the research we are doing will be a key contribution and guide post for other universities interested in doing this work.
Is the mediation being done with athlete’s include healthy mind app?
Chad McGehee: The Healthy Minds app is available to all student athletes and given my background at the Healthy Minds group, there is a lot of content crossover. Also, all UW Athletes have access the Calm app, provided by the BigTen.
What other measures are you considering to measure impacts of mindfulness training?
Dr. Andrew Watson: We’re currently looking at endpoints like performance, well-being, quality of life, mental health and injury risk, but could imagine evaluating the role and influence of mindfulness in injury recovery which will hopefully be another part of this work going forward.
Chad McGehee: To add to what Drew shared, in related strands of research we are looking at measuring acceptability of mindfulness training in college athletes, qualitative research on the role of Director of Meditation Training and qualitative research to explore the implementation of the work. Hopefully, all of the areas described by Drew and I are just the beginning of an exciting new area or research and training.