Amit Sood is a professor of medicine at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Director of Research and Practice for the Mayo Clinic Complementary and Integrative Medicine Program. He develops and teaches innovative approaches to stress and wellness and, over the past five years has provided mind-body consults to 50,000 patients. Reading this truncated overview of his work, it would be logical to assume that Sood's approach to reducing stress would be 100% scientifically-based and structured. But this paperback offers instead a path to a stress-free existence built on many of the same qualities we identify in Spirituality & Practice's Alphabet of Spiritual Literacy!
After assessing the wandering mind as an unhappy mind, Sood probes the restlessness of the mind animated by its innate nature, desires, the pace of life, and choice fatigue. He salutes attention training where the mind is focused, relaxed, compassionate, nonjudgmental, sustained, deep, and intentional. To enhance these qualities, Sood suggests regular practices of joy and kindness.
In a section titled "Integrating Interpretive Skills," the good doctor recommends more practices: gratitude, compassion, acceptance, meaning, and forgiveness. The cumulative impact of this emphasis is a way of living that leads to peace and calm rather than worry and anxiety. Dr. Sood has come up with a rather amazing affirmation of a contented life!
