title: Gene Autry

text: Autry also recorded many "hillbilly"-style records in 1930 and 1931 in New York City, which were certainly different in style and content from his later recordings. These were much closer in style to the Prairie Ramblers or Dick Justice, and included the "Do Right, Daddy Blues" and "Black Bottom Blues", both similar to "Deep Elem Blues". These late Prohibition-era songs deal with bootlegging, corrupt police, and women whose occupation was certainly vice. These recordings are generally not heard today, but are available on European import labels, such as JSP Records. His first hit was in 1932 with "That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine", a duet with fellow railroad man Jimmy Long that Autry and Long co-wrote.


title: Gene Autry

text: As Autry's movie career flourished, so did his record sales. His unofficial theme song became the Ray Whitley composition "Back in the Saddle Again". Autry made 640 recordings, including more than 300 songs written or co-written by himself. His records sold more than 100 million copies and he has more than a dozen gold and platinum records, including the first record ever certified gold.


title: Gene Autry

text: Today's listeners associate Gene Autry with Christmas songs, which are played perennially during each holiday season. These include "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town", his own composition "Here Comes Santa Claus", "Frosty the Snowman", and his biggest hit, "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer". He wrote "Here Comes Santa Claus" after being the Grand Marshal of the 1946 Santa Claus Lane Parade (now the Hollywood Christmas Parade). He heard all of the spectators watching the parade saying, "Here comes Santa Claus!" virtually handing him the title for his song. He recorded his version of the song in 1947 and it became an instant classic.


title: Gene Autry

text: In the late 1950s he began recording other artists, as the original owner of Challenge Records. The label's biggest hit was "Tequila" by The Champs in 1958, which started the rock and roll instrumental craze of the late 1950s and early 1960s. He sold the label soon after, but the maroon (later green) label has the "GA" in a shield above the label name.


title: Gene Autry

text: Autry and Burnette were discovered by film producer Nat Levine in 1934. Together, Autry and Burnette made their film debut for Mascot Pictures Corp. in "In Old Santa Fe" as part of a singing cowboy quartet; he was then given the starring role by Levine in 1935 in the 12-part serial "The Phantom Empire." Shortly thereafter, Mascot was absorbed by the newly formed Republic Pictures Corp. and Autry went along to make a further 44 films up to 1940. Most were low-budget Westerns in which he played under his own name, rode his horse Champion, had Smiley Burnette as his regular sidekick, and had many opportunities to sing in each film. His films were tremendously successful, so much so that almost every other studio tried to compete by showcasing their own singing cowboys. By 1940 Autry was Republic's biggest star, and his films became more costly and more elaborate. They played first-run in large cities, unlike the usual "B" westerns that played in neighborhood theaters.


title: Gene Autry

text: In the "Motion Picture Herald" Top Ten Money-Making Western Stars poll, Autry was listed every year from the first poll in 1936 to 1942 and 1946 to 1954 (he was serving in the AAF 1943–45), holding first place 1937 to 1942, and second place (after Roy Rogers) 1947 to 1954, when the poll ceased. He appeared in the similar "Boxoffice" poll from 1936 to 1955, holding first place from 1936 to 1942 and second place (after Rogers) from 1943 to 1952. While these two polls are really an indication only of the popularity of series stars, Autry also appeared in the Top Ten Money Making Stars Poll of all films from 1940 to 1942, His "Gene Autry Flying "A" Ranch Rodeo" show debuted in 1940.


title: Gene Autry

text: Autry served in the U. S. Air Force during World War II. Part of his military service included his broadcast of a radio show for one year; it involved music and true stories. Several decades ago on an early afternoon show featuring Republic westerns, one of Gene's sidekicks said that when Gene told Republic Pictures of his intentions to join the military during World War II, Republic threatened to promote Roy Rogers as "King of the Cowboys" in Gene's absence, which it did. Republic reissued old Autry westerns during the war years, to keep his name before the public.


title: Gene Autry

text: Autry's contract had been suspended for the duration of his military service, and he had tried to have it declared void after his discharge. The courts found in Republic's favor, and Autry returned to Republic after the war. He finished out his contract with four more features, with Autry now publicized as "King of the Singing Cowboys".


title: Gene Autry

text: In 1947 Autry left Republic for Columbia Pictures, which offered him his own production unit. He chose a new sidekick, Pat Buttram, recently returned from his World War II service. Buttram would co-star with Gene Autry in more than 40 films and in more than 100 episodes of Autry's television show. In 1951, Autry formed his own company (Flying A Productions) to make westerns under his own control, and Columbia continued to distribute them through 1953.


title: Gene Autry

text: Autry purchased the 110-acre Monogram Ranch in 1953, in Placerita Canyon near Newhall, California, in the northern San Gabriel Mountains foothills. He renamed it the Melody Ranch after his movie "Melody Ranch." Autry then sold 98 acres of the property, most of the original ranch. The Western town, adobes, and ranch cabin sets and open land for location shooting were retained as a movie ranch on 12 acres. Numerous "B" Westerns and TV shows were shot there during Autry's ownership, including the initial years of "Gunsmoke" with James Arness. A decade after he purchased Melody Ranch, a brushfire swept through in August 1962, destroying most of the original standing sets and dashing Autry's plans to turn it into a museum. However, the devastated landscape did prove useful for productions such as "Combat!". A complete adobe ranch survived at the northeast section of the ranch.


title: Gene Autry

text: According to a published story by Autry, the fire caused him to turn his attention to Griffith Park, where he would build his Museum of Western Heritage (now known as the Autry Museum of the American West).


title: Gene Autry

text: In 1990, after his favorite horse Champion Three, which lived in retirement there, died, Autry put the remaining 12-acre ranch up for sale. It was purchased by the Veluzat family in 1991 and rebuilt. It is now known as the Melody Ranch Motion Picture Studio and Melody Ranch Studios on 22 acres. The ranch has the Melody Ranch Museum open year-round; and one weekend a year, the entire ranch is open to the public during the Cowboy Poetry and Music Festival, another legacy of Autry's multiple talents.


title: Gene Autry

text: From 1940 to 1956, Autry had a huge hit with a weekly show on CBS Radio, "Gene Autry's Melody Ranch". His horse, Champion, also had a Mutual radio series, "The Adventures of Champion" and a CBS-TV series of the same name. In response to his many young radio listeners aspiring to emulate him, Autry created the Cowboy Code, or Ten Cowboy Commandments. These tenets promoting an ethical, moral, and patriotic lifestyle that appealed to youth organizations such as the Boy Scouts, which developed similar doctrines. The Cowboy Code consisted of rules that were "a natural progression of Gene's philosophies going back to his first "Melody Ranch" programs—and early pictures." According to the code:


title: Gene Autry

text: Beginning in 1950, he produced and starred in his own television show on [CBS through his Flying A Productions studio. In the late 1950s, Autry also made several appearances on ABC-TV's "Jubilee USA".


title: Gene Autry

text: During World War II, Autry enlisted in the United States Army in 1942, and became a tech sergeant in the United States Army Air Forces. Holding a private pilot certificate, he was determined to become a military pilot and earned his Service Pilot rating in June 1944, serving as a C-109 transport pilot with the rank of flight officer. Assigned to a unit of the Air Transport Command, he flew as part of the dangerous airlift operation over the Himalayas between India and China, nicknamed the Hump.


title: Gene Autry

text: In 1942, at the height of his screen popularity, Autry had a string of rodeo stock based in Ardmore, Oklahoma. A year later, he became a partner in the World Championship Rodeo Company, which furnished livestock for many of the country's major rodeos. In 1954, he acquired Montana's top bucking string from the estate of Leo J. Cremer Sr., and put Canadian saddle bronc riding champion Harry Knight in charge of the operation. A merger with the World Championship Rodeo Company in 1956 made Autry the sole owner. He moved the entire company to a ranch near Fowler, Colorado, with Knight as the working partner in the operation. For the next 12 years, they provided livestock for most of the major rodeos in Texas, Colorado, Montana, and Nebraska. When the company was sold in 1968, both men continued to be active in rodeo. For his work as a livestock contractor, Autry was inducted into the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association's ProRodeo Hall of Fame in 1979. Autry received several honors for his contributions to rodeo.


title: Gene Autry

text: Gene Autry was often portrayed in the comics, primarily during the heyday of Western-themed comics, the 1940s and 1950s.


title: Gene Autry

text: The Register and Tribune Syndicate comic strip "Gene Autry Rides" by Till Goodan was the first entry, lasting from 1940 to 1941. From 1941 to 1943, Autry was the subject of a comic book initially published by Fawcett Comics and then picked up by Dell Comics that ran 12 issues. Dell then published 101 issues of "Gene Autry Comics" from 1946 to 1955. That title was changed to "Gene Autry and Champion", and ran an additional 20 issues from 1955 to 1959, making it the longest-running (by number of issues) cowboy actor comic book.


title: Gene Autry

text: Meanwhile, Autry was the subject of an "Air-Western-Adventure Strip" comic strip syndicated by General Features from 1952 to 1955. The strip was produced in association with Whitman Publishing.


title: Gene Autry

text: In 1937, Kenton Hardware Company began producing Gene Autry cast-iron cap guns as a part of its line of iron toys. The toy was commission by Kenton vice-president Willard Bixler, who had conceptualized an iron cap revolver modeled after the pearl-handled gun used by Gene Autry. The cap pistols were extremely popular and by 1939, two million units of the toy had been sold in the United States and abroad.


title: Gene Autry

text: In the 1950s, Autry had been a minority owner of the minor-league Hollywood Stars. In 1960, when Major League Baseball announced plans to add an expansion team in Los Angeles, Autry—who had once declined an opportunity to play in the minor leagues—expressed an interest in acquiring the radio broadcast rights to the team's games. Baseball executives were so impressed by his approach that he was persuaded to become the owner of the franchise rather than simply its broadcast partner. The team, initially called the Los Angeles Angels upon its 1961 debut, moved to suburban Anaheim in 1966, and was renamed the California Angels, then the Anaheim Angels from 1997 until 2005, when it became the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Autry served as vice president of the American League from 1983 until his death. In 1995, he sold a quarter share of the team to the Walt Disney Company and a controlling interest the following year, with the remaining share to be transferred after his death. Earlier, in 1982, he sold Los Angeles television station KTLA for $245 million. He also sold several radio stations he owned, including KSFO in San Francisco, KMPC in Los Angeles, KOGO in San Diego, and other stations in the Golden West radio network.


title: Gene Autry

text: The number 26 was retired by the Angels in Autry's honor. The chosen number reflected that baseball's rosters (at the time) had 25 men, so Autry's unflagging support for his team made him the "26th man" (see also the "12th man", a similar concept in football). When the Angels finally won their first (and to date, only) World Series championship in 2002, star outfielder Tim Salmon held Autry's cowboy hat aloft during the on-field celebration, and the public address system played his hit song, "Back in the Saddle Again."


title: Gene Autry

text: He invested in property, owning by 1964 the Mark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco; the Hotel Continental in Hollywood; the Sahara Inn, a $12-million motel near Chicago; plus property in Palm Springs.


title: Gene Autry

text: Autry retired from show business in 1964, having made almost 100 films up to 1955 and over 600 records. He was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1969 and to the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970. After retiring, he invested widely in real estate, radio, and television. He also invested in ownership of the KOOL-TV CBS-affiliate (now Fox affiliate KSAZ-TV) in Phoenix, Arizona, which created local shows such as the weekly bilingual children's show "Niños Contentos".


title: Gene Autry

text: Republic Pictures, its finances failing, had shut down production in 1957. By the late 1960s Republic was barely operational, managing only its film library. Gene Autry, correctly assessing the company's cash-poor situation, made a cash offer for the rights and negatives to his Republic films. The company accepted Autry's terms, and Autry now controlled the film materials for home-movie reprints and home-video tapes and discs.


title: Gene Autry

text: Gene Autry died of lymphoma on October 2, 1998, three days after his 91st birthday at his home in Studio City, California. He was buried at the Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles. His epitaph read, "America's Favorite Cowboy ... American Hero, Philanthropist, Patriot and Veteran, Movie Star, Singer, Composer, Baseball Fan and Owner, 33rd Degree Mason, Media Entrepreneur, Loving Husband, Gentleman".


title: Gene Autry

text: In 1932, Autry married Ina Mae Spivey, the niece of Jimmy Long. During this marriage he had a sustained affair with Gail Davis, the actress who played Annie Oakley in the television series of the same name that Autry produced. After Spivey died in 1980, he married Jacqueline Ellam, who had been his banker, in 1981. He had no children by either marriage.


title: Gene Autry

text: While Autry was quiet about his political views during his life, his voting records listed him as a registered Republican, and he supported the Civil Rights Movement.


title: Gene Autry

text: Autry was raised into Freemasonry in 1927 at Catoosa Lodge No. 185, Catoosa Oklahoma. He later became a 33rd degree Scottish Rite Mason, as recorded on his headstone.


title: Gene Autry

text: On November 16, 1941, the town of Berwyn, Oklahoma, north of Ardmore, was renamed Gene Autry in his honor. Though Autry was born in Tioga, Texas, his family moved to Oklahoma while he was an infant. He was raised in the southern Oklahoma towns of Achille and Ravia. Autry had also worked as a telegraph operator near Berwyn. In 1939, he bought the Flying A Ranch on the west edge of Berwyn, and the town decided to honor him by changing its name. Approximately 35,000 people attended the ceremonies broadcast live from the site on Autry's "Melody Ranch" radio show. Expectations that Autry would make his permanent home on the ranch were heightened when Autry's house in California burned down just 8 days before the name change ceremony, but dashed three weeks later with the attack on Pearl Harbor. Autry


title: Gene Autry

text: In 1972, he was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers at the National Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Center in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Autry was a life member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, Burbank Lodge No. 1497. His 1976 autobiography, co-written by Mickey Herskowitz, was titled "Back in the Saddle Again" after his 1939 hit and signature tune. He is also featured year after year, on radio and "shopping mall music" at the holiday season, by his recording of "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer." "Rudolph" became the first No. 1 hit of the 1950s. In 2003, he was ranked No. 38 in CMT's list of the "40 Greatest Men of Country Music".


title: Gene Autry

text: In 1977, Autry was awarded the American Patriots Medal by Freedoms Foundation of Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.


title: Gene Autry

text: Johnny Cash recorded a song in 1978 about Autry called "Who is Gene Autry?" Cash also got Autry to sign his famous black Martin D-35 guitar, which he plays in the video of "Hurt".


title: Gene Autry

text: When the Anaheim Angels won their first World Series in 2002, much of the championship was dedicated to him. The interchange of Interstate 5 and State Route 134, near the Autry National Center in Los Angeles, is signed as the "Gene Autry Memorial Interchange." There is also a street named after Autry in Anaheim, California called Gene Autry Way, and there is a street in Palm Springs, California named Gene Autry Trail.


title: Gene Autry

text: Autry was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2003. In 2004, Starz joined forces with the Autry estate to restore all of his films, which have been shown on Starz's Encore Westerns channel on premium television on a regular basis to date since.


title: Gene Autry

text: In May 2019, Warner Chappell Music acquired the Gene Autry Music Group, a music publisher comprising four smaller publishers, 1,500 compositions (including "Back in the Saddle Again", "Here Comes Santa Claus", "Just Walkin' in the Rain", and "You Belong To Me"), and several of Autry's master recordings.


title: Gene Autry

text: Autry is the only person to have five stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one in each of the five categories defined by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. All of Autry's stars are located along Hollywood Boulevard: Recording at 6384, Radio at 6520, Motion pictures at 6644, Television at 6667, and Live theatre at 7000 Hollywood Boulevard. His first four stars were placed during the initial inductions of 1960 while the final one was placed in 1987, in the additional category named "Live theatre"—later renamed "Live performance"—introduced in 1984.


title: Gene Autry

text: The Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles' Griffith Park was founded in 1988 as the Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum featuring much of Autry's personal collection of Western art and memorabilia as well as collections of his friends and other Western film stars. Since 2004, the museum is partnered with the Southwest Museum of the American Indian and is divided into two locations, eight miles apart from each other.


title: Gene Autry

text: Since many radio stations in the US adopt a format change to Christmas music each December, many holiday hits have an annual spike in popularity during the last few weeks of the year and are retired once the season is over. In December 2011, "Billboard" began a Holiday Songs chart with 50 positions that monitors the last five weeks of each year to "rank the top holiday hits of all eras using the same methodology as the Hot 100, blending streaming, airplay, and sales data", and in 2013, the number of positions on the chart was doubled, resulting in the Holiday 100. A few Autry recordings have made appearances on the Holiday 100 and are noted below according to the holiday season in which they charted there.


title: Gene Autry

text: From 1934 to 1953, Autry appeared in 93 films. From 1950 to 1955, he also appeared in 91 episodes of "The Gene Autry Show" television series. , a large number of these films and television episodes remain available via the Gene Autry Foundation on the Western Channel (a cable television station), the latter having collaborated with the Foundation to restore the Republic titles, which had been cut to a uniform 54 minutes for television release in the 1950s, to full length and to provide clean negative-based source prints for all the titles in the 1990s.


title: Mindfulness

text: Mindfulness is the practice of purposely bringing one's attention to the present-moment experience without evaluation, a skill one develops through meditation or other training. Mindfulness derives from "sati", a significant element of Hindu and Buddhist traditions, and is based on Zen, "Vipassanā", and Tibetan meditation techniques. Though definitions and techniques of mindfulness are wide-ranging, Buddhist traditions explain what constitutes mindfulness such as how past, present and future moments arise and cease as momentary sense impressions and mental phenomena. Individuals who have contributed to the popularity of mindfulness in the modern Western context include Thích Nhất Hạnh, Herbert Benson, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Richard J. Davidson, and Sam Harris.


title: Mindfulness

text: Clinical psychology and psychiatry since the 1970s have developed a number of therapeutic applications based on mindfulness for helping people experiencing a variety of psychological conditions. Mindfulness practice has been employed to reduce depression, stress, anxiety, and in the treatment of drug addiction. Programs based on mindfulness models have been adopted within schools, prisons, hospitals, veterans' centers, and other environments, and mindfulness programs have been applied for additional outcomes such as for healthy aging, weight management, athletic performance, helping children with special needs, and as an intervention during the perinatal period.


title: Mindfulness

text: Clinical studies have documented both physical- and mental-health benefits of mindfulness in different patient categories as well as in healthy adults and children. Studies have shown a positive relationship between trait mindfulness (which can be cultivated through the practice of mindfulness-based interventions) and psychological health. The practice of mindfulness appears to provide therapeutic benefits to people with psychiatric disorders, including moderate benefits to those with psychosis. Studies also indicate that rumination and worry contribute to a variety of mental disorders, and that mindfulness-based interventions can enhance trait mindfulness and reduce both rumination and worry. Further, the practice of mindfulness may be a preventive strategy to halt the development of mental-health problems. However, according to one opinion article, too much mindfulness may produce negative effects.


title: Mindfulness

text: There is also evidence that suggests engaging in mindfulness meditation may influence physical health. For example, the psychological habit of repeatedly dwelling on stressful thoughts appears to intensify the physiological effects of the stressor (as a result of the continual activation of the sympathetic nervous system and the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis) with the potential to lead to physical health related clinical manifestations. Studies indicate that mindfulness meditation, which brings about reductions in rumination, may alter these biological clinical pathways. Further, research indicates that mindfulness may favourably influence the immune system as well as inflammation, which can consequently impact physical health, especially considering that inflammation has been linked to the development of several chronic health conditions. Other studies support these findings. Additionally, mindfulness appears to bring about lowered activity of the default mode network of the brain, and thereby contribute towards a lowered risk of developing conditions such as dementia and Alzheimer's disease.


title: Mindfulness

text: However, critics have questioned both the commercialization and the over-marketing of mindfulness for health benefits—as well as emphasizing the need for more randomized controlled studies, for more methodological details in reported studies and for the use of larger sample-sizes. While mindfulness-based interventions may be effective for youth, research still needs to determine the most appropriate methods in which mindfulness could be introduced and delivered in schools.


title: Mindfulness

text: Mindfulness practice involves the process of developing the skill of bringing one's attention to whatever is happening in the present moment.


title: Mindfulness

text: There are several exercises designed to develop mindfulness meditation, which may be aided by guided meditations "to get the hang of it". As forms of self-observation and interoception, these methods increase awareness of the body, so they are usually beneficial to people with low self-awareness or low awareness of their bodies or emotional state, and can provoke anxiety, distress, flashbacks, pain, and even trigger substance abuse in people who are very focused on themselves, their bodies, and their emotions.


title: Mindfulness

text: Meditators are recommended to start with short periods of 10 minutes or so of meditation practice per day. As one practices regularly, it becomes easier to keep the attention focused on breathing. An old Zen saying suggests, "You should sit in meditation for 20 minutes every day — unless you're too busy. Then you should sit for an hour."


title: Mindfulness

text: In a Buddhist context the keeping of moral precepts is an essential preparatory stage for mindfulness or meditation. Vipassana also includes contemplation and reflection on phenomena as dukkha, anatta and anicca, and reflections on causation and other Buddhist teachings.


title: Mindfulness

text: Mindfulness meditation is part of Buddhist psychological traditions and the developing scholarship within empirical psychology.


title: Mindfulness

text: The Buddhist term translated into English as "mindfulness" originates in the Pali term "sati" and in its Sanskrit counterpart "smṛti". It is often translated as "bare attention", but in the Buddhist tradition it has a broader meaning and application, and the meaning of these terms has been the topic of extensive debate and discussion.


title: Mindfulness

text: According to Bryan Levman, "the word "sati" incorporates the meaning of 'memory' and 'remembrance' in much of its usage in both the "suttas" and the [traditional Buddhist] commentary, and ... without the memory component, the notion of mindfulness cannot be properly understood or applied, as mindfulness requires memory for its effectiveness".


title: Mindfulness

text: According to Robert Sharf, "smṛti" originally meant "to remember", "to recollect", "to bear in mind", as in the Vedic tradition of remembering the sacred texts. The term "sati" also means "to remember". In the "Satipaṭṭhāna-sutta" the term "sati" means to remember the dharmas, whereby the true nature of phenomena can be seen. Sharf refers to the Milindapañha, which explained that the arising of "sati" calls to mind the wholesome dhammas such as the four foundations of mindfulness, the five faculties, the five powers, the seven awakening-factors, the noble eightfold path, and the attainment of insight. According to Rupert Gethin,


title: Mindfulness

text: Sharf further notes that this has little to do with "bare attention", the popular contemporary interpretation of "sati", "since it entails, among other things, the proper discrimination of the moral valence of phenomena as they arise."


title: Mindfulness

text: Georges Dreyfus has also expressed unease with the definition of mindfulness as "bare attention" or "nonelaborative, nonjudgmental, present-centered awareness", stressing that mindfulness in a Buddhist context also means "remembering", which indicates that the function of mindfulness also includes the retention of information. Robert H. Sharf notes that Buddhist practice is aimed at the attainment of "correct view", not just "bare attention". Jay L. Garfield, quoting Shantideva and other sources, stresses that mindfulness is constituted by the union of two functions, "calling to mind" and vigilantly "retaining in mind". He demonstrates that there is a direct connection between the practice of mindfulness and the cultivation of moralityat least in the context of Buddhism, from which modern interpretations of mindfulness are stemming.


title: Mindfulness

text: The Pali-language scholar Thomas William Rhys Davids (1843–1922) first translated "sati" in 1881 as English "" in "sammā-sati" "Right Mindfulness; the active, watchful mind". Noting that Daniel John Gogerly (1845) initially rendered "sammā-sati" as "correct meditation", Davids explained:


title: Mindfulness

text: John D. Dunne asserts that the translation of "sati" and "smṛti" as mindfulness is confusing. A number of Buddhist scholars have started trying to establish "retention" as the preferred alternative. Bhikkhu Bodhi also points to the meaning of "sati" as "memory". The terms "sati"/"smṛti" have been translated as:


title: Mindfulness

text: A.M. Hayes and G. Feldman have highlighted that mindfulness can be seen as a strategy that stands in contrast to a strategy of avoidance of emotion on the one hand and to the strategy of emotional over-engagement on the other hand. Mindfulness can also be viewed as a means to develop self-knowledge and wisdom.


title: Mindfulness

text: According to Brown, Ryan, and Creswell, definitions of mindfulness are typically selectively interpreted based on who is studying it and how it is applied. Some have viewed mindfulness as a mental state, while others have viewed it as a set of skills and techniques. A distinction can also be made between the "state" of mindfulness and the "trait" of mindfulness.


title: Mindfulness

text: According to David S. Black, whereas "mindfulness" originally was associated with esoteric beliefs and religion, and "a capacity attainable only by certain people", scientific researchers have translated the term into measurable terms, providing a valid operational definition of mindfulness. Black mentions three possible domains:


title: Mindfulness

text: Several mindfulness measures have been developed which are based on self-reporting of trait-like constructs:


title: Mindfulness

text: According to Bishop, et alia, mindfulness is, "A kind of nonelaborative, nonjudgmental, present-centered awareness in which each thought, feeling, or sensation that arises in the attentional field is acknowledged and accepted as it is."


title: Mindfulness

text: According to Steven F. Hick, mindfulness practice involves both formal and informal meditation practices, and nonmeditation-based exercises. Formal mindfulness, or meditation, is the practice of sustaining attention on body, breath or sensations, or whatever arises in each moment. Informal mindfulness is the application of mindful attention in everyday life. Nonmeditation-based exercises are specifically used in dialectical behavior therapy and in acceptance and commitment therapy.


title: Mindfulness

text: Since the 1970s, most books on meditation use definitions of mindfulness similar to Jon Kabat-Zinn's definition as "present moment awareness". However, recently a number of teachers of meditation have proposed quite different definitions of mindfulness. Shinzen Young says a person is mindful when they have mindful awareness, and defines that to be when "concentration power, sensory clarity, and equanimity [are] working together." John Yates (Culadasa) defines mindfulness to be "the optimal interaction between attention and peripheral awareness", where he distinguishes attention and peripheral awareness as two distinct modes in which one may be conscious of things.


title: Mindfulness

text: According to American Buddhist monk Ven Bhante Vimalaramsi's book "A Guide to Tranquil Wisdom Insight Meditation", the term mindfulness is often interpreted differently than what was originally formulated by the Buddha. In the context of Buddhism, he offers the following definition:


title: Mindfulness

text: The English term "mindfulness" already existed before it came to be used in a (western) Buddhist context. It was first recorded as "myndfulness" in 1530 (John Palsgrave translates French "pensée"), as "mindfulnesse" in 1561, and "mindfulness" in 1817. Morphologically earlier terms include "mindful" (first recorded in 1340), "mindfully" (1382), and the obsolete "mindiness" (c. 1200).


title: Mindfulness

text: According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, mindfulness may also refer to "a state of being aware". Synonyms for this "state of being aware" are wakefulness, attention, alertness, prudence, conscientiousness, awareness, consciousness, and observation.


title: Mindfulness

text: A two-component model of mindfulness based upon a consensus among clinical psychologists has been proposed as an operational and testable definition, :


title: Mindfulness

text: In this two-component model, self-regulated attention (the first component) "involves bringing awareness to current experience—observing and attending to the changing fields of "objects" (thoughts, feelings, sensations), from moment to moment – by regulating the focus of attention". Orientation to experience (the second component) involves maintaining an attitude of curiosity about objects experienced at each moment, and about where and how the mind wanders when it drifts from the selected focus of attention. Clients are asked to avoid trying to produce a particular state (e.g. relaxation), but rather to just notice each object that arises in the stream of consciousness.


title: Mindfulness

text: An ancient model of the mind, generally known as the five-aggregate model enables one to understand the moment-to-moment manifestation of subjective conscious experience, and therefore can be a potentially useful theoretical resource to guide mindfulness interventions. This model is based upon the traditional buddhist description of the Skandhas.


title: Mindfulness

text: This model describes how sensory consciousness results in the generation of feelings, perception or volition, and how individuals' previously conditioned attitudes and past associations influence this generation. The five aggregates are described as constantly arising and ceasing in the present moment.


title: Mindfulness

text: The practice of mindfulness can be utilized to gradually develop self-knowledge and wisdom. In this regard, Buddhist teachings provide detailed instructions on how one can carry out an inquiry into the nature of the mind, and this guidance can help one to make sense of one's subjective experience. This could include understanding what the "present moment" is, how various thoughts, etc., arise following input from the senses, the conditioned nature of thoughts, and other realizations. In Buddhist teachings, ultimate wisdom refers to gaining deep insight into all phenomena or "seeing things as they are."


title: Mindfulness

text: Mindfulness as a modern, Western practice is founded on Zen and modern Vipassanā, and involves the training of sati, which means "moment to moment awareness of present events", but also "remembering to be aware of something".


title: Mindfulness

text: "Sati" is one of the seven factors of enlightenment. "Correct" or "right" mindfulness (Pali: "sammā-sati", Sanskrit "samyak-smṛti") is the seventh element of the Noble Eightfold Path. Mindfulness is an antidote to delusion and is considered as a 'power' (Pali: "bala") which contributes to the attainment of "Nibbana". This faculty becomes a power in particular when it is coupled with clear comprehension of whatever is taking place. Nirvana is a state of being in which greed, hatred and delusion (Pali: "moha") have been overcome and abandoned, and are absent from the mind.


title: Mindfulness

text: According to Paul Williams, referring to Erich Frauwallner, mindfulness provided the way in Early Buddhism to liberation, "constantly watching sensory experience in order to prevent the arising of cravings which would power future experience into rebirths." According to Vetter, "Jhanas" may have been the original core practice of the Buddha, which aided the maintenance of mindfulness.


title: Mindfulness

text: According to Thomas William Rhys Davids, the doctrine of mindfulness is "perhaps the most important" after the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path. T.W. Rhys Davids viewed the teachings of Gotama Buddha as a rational technique for self-actualization and rejected a few parts of it, mainly the doctrine of rebirth, as residual superstitions.


title: Mindfulness

text: The aim of zazen is just sitting, that is, suspending all judgmental thinking and letting words, ideas, images and thoughts pass by without getting involved in them.


title: Mindfulness

text: In modern "vipassana"-meditation, as propagated by the Vipassana movement, "sati" aids "vipassana", insight into the true nature of reality, namely the three marks of existence, the impermanence of and the suffering of every conditioned thing that exists, and non-self. With this insight, the practitioner becomes a so-called "Sotāpanna", a "stream-enterer", the first stage on the path to liberation.


title: Mindfulness

text: Vipassana is practiced in tandem with Samatha, and also plays a central role in other Buddhist traditions. According to the contemporary Theravada orthodoxy, Samatha is used as a preparation for Vipassanā, pacifying the mind and strengthening the concentration in order to allow the work of insight, which leads to liberation.


title: Mindfulness

text: Vipassanā-meditation has gained popularity in the west through the modern Buddhist vipassana movement, modeled after Theravāda Buddhism meditation practices, which employs vipassanā and ānāpāna meditation as its primary techniques and places emphasis on the teachings of the Sutta.


title: Mindfulness

text: Anapanasati is mindfulness of breathing. "Sati" means mindfulness; "ānāpāna" refers to inhalation and exhalation. Anapanasati means to feel the sensations caused by the movements of the breath in the body. The "Anapanasati Sutta" gives an exposition on this practice.


title: Mindfulness

text: Satipaṭṭhāna is the establishment of mindfulness in one's day-to-day life, maintaining as much as possible a calm awareness of one's body, feelings, mind, and dhammas. The practice of mindfulness supports analysis resulting in the arising of wisdom (Pali: "paññā", Sanskrit: "prajñā").


title: Mindfulness

text: In contemporary Theravada practice, "mindfulness" also includes "samprajaña", meaning "clear comprehension" and "apramāda" meaning "vigilance". All three terms are sometimes (confusingly) translated as "mindfulness", but they all have specific shades of meaning.


title: Mindfulness

text: In a publicly available correspondence between Bhikkhu Bodhi and B. Alan Wallace, Bodhi has described Ven. Nyanaponika Thera's views on "right mindfulness" and sampajañña as follows:


title: Mindfulness

text: According to Buddhadasa, the aim of mindfulness is to stop the arising of disturbing thoughts and emotions, which arise from sense-contact.


title: Mindfulness

text: According to Grzegorz Polak, the four "upassanā" (foundations of mindfulness) have been misunderstood by the developing Buddhist tradition, including Theravada, to refer to four different foundations. According to Polak, the four "upassanā" do not refer to four different foundations, but to the awareness of four different aspects of raising mindfulness:


title: Mindfulness

text: The Greek philosophical school of Stoicism founded by Zeno of Citium included practices resembling those of mindfulness, such as visualization exercises. In his "Discourses", Stoic philosopher Epictetus addresses in particular the concept of attention ("prosoche"), an idea also found in Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. By cultivating it over time, this skill would prevent the practitioner of becoming unattentive and moved by instinct rather than according to reason.


title: Mindfulness

text: Mindfulness traditions are also found in some Christian spiritual traditions. In his Rules for Eating, St. Ignatius of Loyola teaches, "let him guard against all his soul being intent on what he is eating, and in eating let him not go hurriedly, through appetite, but be master of himself, as well in the manner of eating as in the quantity which he eats." He might have been inspired by Epictetus' "Enchiridion".


title: Mindfulness

text: Mindfulness practitioner Jon Kabat-Zinn refers to Thoreau as a predecessor of the interest in mindfulness, together with other eminent Transcendentalists such as Emerson and Whitman:


title: Mindfulness

text: The forms of Asian religion and spirituality which were introduced in the west were themselves influenced by Transcendentalism and other 19th-century manifestations of Western esotericism. Transcendentalism was closely connected to the Unitarian Church, which in India collaborated with Ram Mohan Roy (1772–1833) and his Brahmo Samaj. He found that Unitarianism came closest to true Christianity, and had a strong sympathy for the Unitarians. This influence worked through on Vivekananda, whose modern but idiosyncratic interpretation of Hinduism became widely popular in the west. Vipassana meditation, presented as a centuries-old meditation system, was a 19th-century reinvention, which gained popularity in south-east due to the accessibility of the Buddhist sutras through English translations from the Pali Text Society. It was brought to western attention in the 19th century by the Theosophical Society. Zen Buddhism first gained popularity in the west through the writings of D.T. Suzuki, who attempted to present a modern interpretation of Zen, adjusted to western tastes.


title: Mindfulness

text: In 1979, Jon Kabat-Zinn founded the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program at the University of Massachusetts to treat the chronically ill. This program sparked the application of mindfulness ideas and practices in Medicine for the treatment of a variety of conditions in both healthy and unhealthy people. MBSR and similar programs are now widely applied in schools, prisons, hospitals, veterans centers, and other environments.


title: Mindfulness

text: Mindfulness practices were inspired mainly by teachings from the Eastern World, particularly from Buddhist traditions. Kabat-Zinn was first introduced to meditation by Philip Kapleau, a Zen missionary who came to speak at MIT where Kabat-Zinn was a student. Kabat-Zinn went on to study meditation with other Zen-Buddhist teachers such as Thích Nhất Hạnh and Seungsahn. He also studied at the Insight Meditation Society and eventually taught there. One of MBSR's techniques—the "body scan"—was derived from a meditation practice ("sweeping") of the Burmese U Ba Khin tradition, as taught by S. N. Goenka in his Vipassana retreats, which he began in 1976. The body scan method has since been widely adapted to secular settings, independent of religious or cultural contexts.


title: Mindfulness

text: Kabat-Zinn was also influenced by the book "The Varieties of Religious Experience" by William James which suggests that religions point toward the same experience, and which 1960s counterculture figures interpreted as meaning that the same universal, experiential truth could be reached in different ways, including via non-religious activities.


title: Mindfulness

text: Mindfulness is gaining a growing popularity as a practice in daily life, apart from Buddhist insight meditation and its application in clinical psychology. In this context mindfulness is defined as moment-by-moment awareness of thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment, characterized mainly by "acceptance"—attention to thoughts and feelings without judging whether they are right or wrong. Mindfulness focuses the human brain on what is being sensed at each moment, instead of on its normal rumination on the past or the future. "Mindfulness" may be seen as a mode of being, and can be practiced outside a formal setting. The terminology used by scholars of religion, scientists, journalists, and popular media writers to describe this movement of mindfulness "popularization," and the many new contexts of mindfulness practice which have cropped up, has regularly evolved over the past 20 years, with some criticisms arising.


title: Mindfulness

text: The latest changes when people moved from real-life meditation sessions to the applications on their smart devices has been even more accelerated by the global pandemic. Applications like Meditopia, Yours App and Relax: Master Your Destiny are adapting to the needs of their users by using AI technology, involving professional psychologists and offering many different mindfulness approaches to serve a wider audience.


title: Mindfulness

text: According to Jon Kabat-Zinn the practice of mindfulness may be beneficial to many people in Western society who might be unwilling to adopt Buddhist traditions or vocabulary. Western researchers and clinicians who have introduced mindfulness practice into mental health treatment programs usually teach these skills independently of the religious and cultural traditions of their origins. Programs based on MBSR and similar models have been widely adopted in schools, prisons, hospitals, veterans centers, and other environments.


title: Mindfulness

text: Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) is a mindfulness-based program developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, which uses a combination of mindfulness meditation, body awareness, and yoga to help people become more mindful. While MBSR has its roots in spiritual teachings, the program itself is secular.


title: Mindfulness

text: Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) is a psychological therapy designed to aid in preventing the relapse of depression, specifically in individuals with Major depressive disorder (MDD). It uses traditional cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) methods and adds in newer psychological strategies such as mindfulness and mindfulness meditation. Cognitive methods can include educating the participant about depression. Mindfulness and mindfulness meditation focus on becoming aware of all incoming thoughts and feelings and accepting them, but not attaching or reacting to them.


title: Mindfulness

text: Like CBT, MBCT functions on the theory that when individuals who have historically had depression become distressed, they return to automatic cognitive processes that can trigger a depressive episode. The goal of MBCT is to interrupt these automatic processes and teach the participants to focus less on reacting to incoming stimuli, and instead accepting and observing them without judgment. This mindfulness practice allows the participant to notice when automatic processes are occurring and to alter their reaction to be more of a reflection.


title: Mindfulness

text: Research supports the effects of MBCT in people who have been depressed three or more times and demonstrates reduced relapse rates by 50%.


title: Mindfulness

text: Mindfulness-based pain management (MBPM) is a mindfulness-based intervention (MBI) providing specific applications for people living with chronic pain and illness. Adapting the core concepts and practices of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), MBPM includes a distinctive emphasis on the practice of 'loving-kindness', and has been seen as sensitive to concerns about removing mindfulness teaching from its original ethical framework. It was developed by Vidyamala Burch and is delivered through the programs of Breathworks. It has been subject to a range of clinical studies demonstrating its effectiveness.


title: Mindfulness

text: Acceptance and commitment therapy or (ACT) (typically pronounced as the word "act") is a form of clinical behavior analysis (CBA) used in psychotherapy. It is a psychological intervention that uses acceptance and mindfulness strategies mixed in different ways with commitment and behavior-change strategies, to increase psychological flexibility. The approach was originally called "comprehensive distancing". It was developed in the late 1980s by Steven C. Hayes, Kelly G. Wilson, and Kirk Strosahl.


title: Mindfulness

text: Mindfulness is a "core" exercise used in dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), a psychosocial treatment Marsha M. Linehan developed for treating people with borderline personality disorder. DBT is dialectic, explains Linehan, in the sense of "the reconciliation of opposites in a continual process of synthesis." As a practitioner of Buddhist meditation techniques, Linehan says:


title: Mindfulness

text: Mode deactivation therapy (MDT) is a treatment methodology that is derived from the principles of cognitive-behavioral therapy and incorporates elements of Acceptance and commitment therapy, Dialectical behavior therapy, and mindfulness techniques. Mindfulness techniques such as simple breathing exercises are applied to assist the client in awareness and non-judgmental acceptance of unpleasant and distressing thoughts and feelings as they occur in the present moment. Mode Deactivation Therapy was developed and is established as an effective treatment for adolescents with problem behaviors and complex trauma-related psychological problems, according to recent publications by Jack A. Apsche and Joan Swart.


title: Mindfulness

text: research supports promising mindfulness-based therapies for a number of medical and psychiatric conditions, notably chronic pain, stress, anxiety and depression, substance abuse, and recurrent suicidal behavior. Bell (2009) gives a brief overview of mindful approaches to therapy, particularly family therapy, starting with a discussion of mysticism and emphasizing the value of a mindful therapist.


title: Mindfulness

text: The Japanese psychiatrist Shoma Morita, who trained in Zen meditation, developed Morita therapy upon principles of mindfulness and non-attachment.


title: Mindfulness

text: The British doctor Clive Sherlock developed Adaptation Practice in 1977. Adaptation Practice is a structured program of self-discipline.


title: Mindfulness

text: Hakomi therapy, under development by Ron Kurtz and others, is a somatic psychology based upon Asian philosophical precepts of mindfulness and nonviolence.


title: Mindfulness

text: Internal Family Systems Model (IFS), developed by Richard C. Schwartz, emphasizes the importance of both therapist and client engaging in therapy from the Self, which is the IFS term for one's "spiritual center". The Self is curious about whatever arises in one's present experience and open and accepting toward all manifestations.


title: Mindfulness

text: Mindfulness relaxation uses breathing methods, guided imagery, and other practices to relax the body and mind and help reduce stress.


title: Mindfulness

text: In 2012 Congressman Tim Ryan of Ohio published "A Mindful Nation", and received a $1 million federal grant to teach mindfulness in schools in his home district.


title: Mindfulness

text: Mindful Kids Miami is a tax-exempt, 501 (c)(3), non-profit corporation established in 2011 dedicated to making age-appropriate mindfulness training available to school children in Miami-Dade County public and private schools. This is primarily accomplished by training educators and other childcare providers to incorporate mindfulness practices in the children's daily activities.


title: Mindfulness

text: In 2000, The Inner Kids Program, a mindfulness-based program developed for children, was introduced into public and private school curricula in the greater Los Angeles area.


title: Mindfulness

text: MindUP, a classroom-based program spearheaded by Goldie Hawn's Hawn Foundation, teaches students to self-regulate behavior and mindfully engage in focused concentration required for academic success. For the last decade, MindUP has trained teachers in over 1,000 schools in cities from Arizona to Washington.


title: Mindfulness

text: The Holistic Life Foundation, a non-profit organization that created an in-school mindfulness program called Mindful Moment, is currently serving almost 350 students daily at Robert W. Coleman Elementary School and approximately 1300 students at Patterson Park High School in Baltimore, Maryland. At Patterson High School, the Mindful Moment program engages the school's faculty along with the students during a 15-minute mindfulness practice at the beginning and end of each school day.


title: Mindfulness

text: Mindful Life Project, a non-profit 501(c)3 based out of Richmond, California, teaches mindfulness to elementary school students in underserved schools in the South Richmond school district. Utilizing curriculum, "Rise-Up" is a regular school day intervention program serving 430 students weekly, while "Mindful Community" is currently implemented at six South Richmond partner schools. These in-school mindfulness programs have been endorsed by Richmond Mayor Gayle McLaughlin, who has recommended additional funding to expand the program in order to serve all Richmond youth.


title: Mindfulness

text: Mindfulness practices are becoming more common within educational institutions including Elementary and Secondary schools. This has been referred to as part of a 'contemplative turn' in education that has emerged since the turn of the millennium. The applications of mindfulness in schools are aimed at calming and relaxation of students as well as for students and educators to build compassion and empathy for others. An additional benefit to Mindfulness in education is for the practice to reduce anxiety and stress in students. Based on a broad meta-analytical review, scholars argued that the application of mindfulness practice enhances the goals of education in the 21st century, which include adapting to a rapidly changing world and being a caring and committed citizen. Within educational systems, the application of mindfulness practices shows an improvement of students' attention and focus, emotional regulation, creativity, and problem solving skills. As discussed by Ergas and Todd, the development of this field since the turn of the millennium has brought diverse possibilities as well as complexities, given the origins of mindfulness within Buddhism and the processes of its secularization and measurement based on science.


title: Mindfulness

text: Renshaw and Cook state, "As scientific interest in the utility of Mindfulness-Based Intervention (MBI) in schools grew steadily, popular interest in mindfulness in schools seemed to grow exponentially". Despite research on mindfulness being comparatively unexamined, especially with young students, the practice has seen a spike in use within the educational arena. "A relatively recent addition to discourse around preventing school expulsion and failure, mindfulness is gaining popularity for its potential to improve students' social, emotional, behavioral, and learning-related cognitive control, thereby improving academic outcomes". Researchers and educators are interested in how mindfulness can provide optimal conditions for a students' personal development and academic success. Current research on mindfulness in education is limited but can provide insight into the potential benefits for students, and areas of improvement for future studies.


title: Mindfulness

text: Mindfulness in the classroom is being touted as a promising new intervention tool for young students. According to Choudhury and Moses, "Although still marginal and in some cases controversial, secular programs of mindfulness have been implemented with ambitious goals of improving attentional focus of pupils, social-emotional learning in "at-risk" children and youth, not least, to intervene in problems of poverty and incarceration". Emerging research is concerned with studying teachers and programs using mindfulness practices with students and is discovering tension arising from the moral reframing of eastern practices in western school settings. As cited by Renshaw and Cook, "Unlike most other approaches to contemporary school-based intervention, which are squarely grounded in behavioral, cognitive-behavioral, and ecological systems theories, MBIs have their origins in Eastern religious traditions". Some school administrators are concerned about implementing such practices, and parents have been reported to take their children out of mindfulness programs because of their personal religious beliefs. Yet, MBIs continue to be accepted by the mainstream in both primary and secondary schools because, "Mindfulness practices, particularly in relation to children who might otherwise be considered broken or unredeemable, fill a critical niche – one that allows its advocates to imagine a world where people can change, become more compassionate, resilient, reflective, and aware; a world with a viable future". As mindfulness in education continues to develop, ethical consequences will remain a controversial issue because the generic description for the "benefits" and "results" of MBIs are largely concerned with individual and inward-focused achievement, rather than the original Buddhist ideal of global human connection.


title: Mindfulness

text: Available research reveals a relationship between mindfulness and attention. Semple, Lee, Rosa, & Miller argue, "Anxiety can impair attention and promote emotionally reactive behaviors that interfere with the development of good study skills, so it seems reasonable that increased mindfulness would be associated with less anxiety". They conducted a randomized trial of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Children (MBCT-C) that found promise in managing anxiety for elementary school-aged children, and suggests that those who completed the program displayed fewer attention problems. In addition, Flook shows how an eight-week mindfulness awareness program was evaluated in a random and controlled school setting and measured the effects of awareness practices on executive functions in elementary school children. Their findings concluded, "Participation in the mindfulness awareness program was associated with improvements in behavioral regulation, metacognition, and overall executive functions". In the study by Flook, parents and teachers completed questionnaires which propose that participation in mindfulness programs is associated with improvements in child behavioral regulation. These perspectives are a valuable source of data given that caregivers and educators interact with the children daily and across a variety of settings. According to Eklund, Omalley, and Meyer, "School-based practitioners should find promise in the evidence supporting mindfulness-based practices with children, parents, and educators". Lastly, a third study by Zenner, Herrnleben-Kurz, and Walach concluded, "Analysis suggest that mindfulness-based interventions for children and youths are able to increase cognitive capacity of attending and learning by nearly one standard deviation and yield". Application of Mindfulness-Based Interventions continue to increase in popularity and practice.


title: Mindfulness

text: Mindfulness-Based Interventions are rising across western culture, but its effectiveness in school programs is still being determined. Research contends, "Mindfulness-based approaches for adults are effective at enhancing mental health, but few controlled trials have evaluated their effectiveness among young people". Although much of the available studies find a high number of mindfulness acceptability among students and teachers, more research needs to be conducted on its effects on well-being and mental health for students. In a firmly controlled experiment, Johnson, Burke, Brinkman, and Wade evaluated "the impact of an existing and widely available school-based mindfulness program". According to their research, "no improvements were demonstrated on any outcome measured either immediately post-intervention or at three-month follow-up". Many questions remain on which practices best implement effective and reliable mindfulness programs at schools, and further research is needed to identify the optimal methods and measurement tools for mindfulness in education.


title: Mindfulness

text: Mindfulness training appears to be getting popular in the business world, and many large corporations have been incorporating mindfulness practices into their culture. For example, companies such as Google, Apple, Procter & Gamble, General Mills, Mayo Clinic, and the U.S. Army offer mindfulness coaching, meditation breaks and other resources to their employees to improve workplace functioning.


title: Mindfulness

text: The introduction of mindfulness in corporate settings still remains in early stages and its potential long-term impact requires further assessment. Mindfulness has been found to result in better employee well-being, lower levels of frustration, lower absenteeism and burnout as well as an improved overall work environment.


title: Mindfulness

text: Mindfulness has been taught in prisons, reducing hostility and mood disturbance among inmates, and improving their self-esteem. Additional studies indicate that mindfulness interventions can result in significant reductions in anger, reductions in substance use, increased relaxation capacity, self-regulation and optimism.


title: Mindfulness

text: Many government organizations offer mindfulness training. Coping Strategies is an example of a program utilized by United States Armed Forces personnel. The British Parliament organized a mindfulness-session for its members in 2014, led by Ruby Wax.


title: Mindfulness

text: Mindfulness has gained increasing empirical attention since 1970 and has been studied often as an intervention for stress reduction. Meta analyses indicate its beneficial effects for healthy adults, for adolescents and children, as well as for different health-related outcomes including weight management, psychiatric conditions, heart disease, sleep disorders, cancer care, adult autism treatment, multiple sclerosis, and other health-related conditions. An often-cited meta-analysis on meditation research published in JAMA in 2014, found insufficient evidence of any effect of meditation programs on positive mood, attention, substance use, eating habits, sleep, and weight, but found that there is moderate evidence that meditation reduces anxiety, depression, and pain. However, this study included a highly heterogeneous group of meditation styles (i.e., it did not focus exclusively on mindfulness meditation), which is a significant limitation of this study. Additionally, while mindfulness is well known to have positive psychological effect among individuals diagnosed with various types of cancers, the evidence is unclear regarding its effectiveness in men with prostate cancer.


title: Mindfulness

text: Thousands of studies on meditation have been conducted, though the methodological quality of some of the studies is poor. Recent reviews have pointed out many of these issues. Nonetheless, mindfulness meditation is a popular subject for research, and many present potential benefits for a wide array of conditions and outcomes. For example, the practice of mindfulness has also been used to improve athletic performance, as a beneficial intervention for children with special needs and their caregivers, as a viable treatment option for people with insomnia an effective intervention for healthy aging, as a strategy for managing dermatological conditions and as a useful intervention during pregnancy and the perinatal period. Recent studies have also demonstrated that mindfulness meditation significantly attenuates physical pain through multiple, unique mechanisms. Meditation also may allow one to modulate pain. When exposed to pain from heating, the brain scans of the mindfulness meditation participants (by use of functional magnetic resonance imaging) showed their brains notice the pain equally, however it does not get converted to a perceived pain signal. As such they experienced up to 40–50% less pain.


title: Mindfulness

text: Further, mindfulness meditation also appears to lead to increased telomere length, which is an important finding considering that short telomeres can be a risk factor for the development of several chronic health conditions. Research has also investigated mindful movements and mindful exercises for different patient populations. Mindfulness-based approaches are a major subject of increasing research interest, 52 papers were published in 2003, rising to 477 by 2012. Nearly 100 randomized controlled trials had been published by early 2014.


title: Mindfulness

text: Research studies have also focused on the effects of mindfulness on the brain using neuroimaging techniques, physiological measures and behavioral tests. Research on the neural perspective of how mindfulness meditation works suggests that it exerts its effects in components of attention regulation, body awareness and emotional regulation. When considering aspects such as sense of responsibility, authenticity, compassion, self-acceptance and character, studies have shown that mindfulness meditation contributes to a more coherent and healthy sense of self and identity. Neuroimaging techniques suggest that mindfulness practices such as mindfulness meditation are associated with "changes in the anterior cingulate cortex, insula, temporo-parietal junction, fronto-limbic network and default mode network structures." Further, mindfulness meditation may prevent or delay the onset of mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease. Additionally, mindfulness-induced emotional and behavioral changes have been found to be related to functional and structural changes in the brain. It has also been suggested that the default mode network of the brain can be used as a potential biomarker for monitoring the therapeutic benefits of meditation. Recent research also suggest that the practice of mindfulness could influence genetic expression leading to a reduced risk of inflammation-related diseases and favourable changes in biomarkers.


title: Mindfulness

text: Grey matter concentrations in brain regions that regulate emotion, self-referential processing, learning and memory processes have shown changes in density following MBSR. Additionally, MBSR practice has been associated with improvement of the immune system which could explain the correlation between stress reduction and increased quality of life. Part of these changes are a result of the thickening of the prefrontal cortex (executive functioning) and hippocampus (learning and memorisation ability), the shrinking of the amygdala (emotion and stress response) and the strengthening of the connections between brain cells. Long-term meditators have larger amounts of gyrification ("folding" of the cortex, which may allow the brain to process information faster) than people who do not meditate. Further, a direct correlation was found between the amount of gyrification and the number of meditation years, possibly providing further proof of the brain's neuroplasticity, or ability to adapt to environmental changes.


title: Mindfulness

text: Mindfulness (as a trait, distinguished from mindfulness "practice") has been linked to many outcomes. In an overview, Keng, Smoski, and Robins summarize: "Trait mindfulness has been associated with higher levels of life satisfaction, agreeableness, conscientiousness, vitality, self esteem, empathy, sense of autonomy, competence, optimism, and pleasant affect. A 2020 study found links between dispositional mindfulness and prosocial behavior. Studies have also demonstrated significant negative correlations between mindfulness and depression, neuroticism, absentmindedness, dissociation, rumination, cognitive reactivity, social anxiety, difficulties in emotion regulation, experiential avoidance, alexithymia, intensity of delusional experience in the context of psychosis, and general psychological symptoms." (References to underlying studies omitted from quotation.)


title: Mindfulness

text: The mechanisms that make people less or more mindful have been researched less than the effects of mindfulness programmes, so we do not know much about what are the relevant components of mindfulness practice. For example, meta-analyses have shown that mindfulness practice does increase mindfulness when compared to active control groups. This may be because we do not know how to measure mindfulness. It could also be that mindfulness is dose-dependent and increases with more experience. To counter that, Bergomi et al. found that "results provide evidence for the associations between self-reported mindfulness and meditation practice and suggest that mindfulness is particularly associated with continued practice in the present, rather than with accumulated practice over years."


title: Mindfulness

text: Some research into other mechanisms has been done. One study conceptualized such mechanisms in terms of competition for attention. In a test of that framework, mindfulness was found to be associated (as predicted) with having an activated intention to be mindful, with feeling good, and with not being hurried or very busy. Regarding the relationship between feeling good and being mindful, a different study found that causality probably works both ways: feeling good increases mindfulness, and mindfulness increases feeling good.


title: Mindfulness

text: One theory suggests an additional mechanism termed as "reperceiving". Reperceiving is the beneficial effect that comes after the process of being mindful after all the intention, attention, and attitude has been experienced. Through reperceiving there is a shift in perspective. Reperceiving permits disassociation from thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations, and allows one to exist with them instead of being defined by them.


title: Mindfulness

text: Many of the above cited review studies however also indicate the necessity for more high-quality research in this field such as conducting intervention studies using larger sample sizes, the use of more randomized controlled studies and the need for providing more methodological details in reported studies. The majority of studies also either measure mindfulness as a trait, and in research that use mindfulness interventions in clinical practice, the lack of true randomisation poses a problem for understanding the true effectiveness of mindfulness. Experimental methods using randomised samples, though, suggest that mindfulness as a state or temporary practice can influence felt emotions such as disgust and promote abstract decision-making. There are also a few review studies that have found little difference between mindfulness interventions and control groups, though they did also indicate that their intervention group was treated too briefly for the research to be conclusive. In some domains, such as sport, a lack of internal validity across studies prevents any strong claims being made about the effects of mindfulness. These studies also list the need for more robust research investigations. Several issues pertaining to the assessment of mindfulness have also been identified including the current use of self-report questionnaires. Potential for bias also exists to the extent that researchers in the field are also practitioners and possibly subject to pressures to publish positive or significant results.


title: Mindfulness

text: Various scholars have criticized how mindfulness has been defined or represented in recent Western psychology publications.


title: Mindfulness

text: These modern understandings depart significantly from the accounts of mindfulness in early Buddhist texts and authoritative commentaries in the Theravada and Indian Mahayana traditions. Adam Valerio has introduced the idea that conflict between academic disciplines over how mindfulness is defined, understood, and popularly presented may be indicative of a personal, institutional, or paradigmatic battle for ownership over mindfulness, one where academics, researchers, and other writers are invested as individuals in much the same way as religious communities.


title: Mindfulness

text: The popularization of mindfulness as a "commodity" has been criticized, being termed "McMindfulness" by some critics. According to John Safran, the popularity of mindfulness is the result of a marketing strategy:


title: Mindfulness

text: "McMindfulness is the marketing of a constructed dream; an idealized lifestyle; an identity makeover." The psychologist Thomas Joiner argues that modern mindfulness meditation has been "corrupted" for commercial gain by self-help celebrities, and suggests that it encourages unhealthy narcissistic and self-obsessed mindsets.


title: Mindfulness

text: According to Purser and Loy, mindfulness is not being used as a means to awaken to insight in the "unwholesome roots of greed, ill will and delusion," but reshaped into a "banal, therapeutic, self-help technique" that has the opposite effect of reinforcing those passions. While mindfulness is marketed as a means to reduce stress, in a Buddhist context it is part of an all-embracing ethical program to foster "wise action, social harmony, and compassion." The privatization of mindfulness neglects the societal and organizational causes of stress and discomfort, instead propagating adaptation to these circumstances. According to Bhikkhu Bodhi, "[A]bsent a sharp social critique, Buddhist practices could easily be used to justify and stabilize the status quo, becoming a reinforcement of consumer capitalism." The popularity of this new brand of mindfulness has resulted in the commercialization of meditation through self-help books, guided meditation classes, and mindfulness retreats.


title: Mindfulness

text: Buddhist commentators have criticized the movement as being presented as equivalent to Buddhist practice, while in reality it is very possibly denatured with undesirable consequences, such as being ungrounded in the traditional reflective morality and therefore, astray from traditional Buddhist ethics. Criticisms suggest it to be either de-moralized or re-moralized into clinically based ethics. The conflict is often presented with concern to the teacher's credentials and qualifications, rather than the student's actual practice. Reformed Buddhist-influenced practices are being standardized and manualized in a distinct separation from Buddhism - which is seen as a religion based in monastic temples - and expressed as “mindfulness” in a new psychology ethic, practiced in modern meditation centers.


title: Mindfulness

text: In media reports, people have attributed unexpected effects of increasing fear and anxiety, panic or "meltdowns" after practicing, which they suggest could expose bipolar vulnerability or repressed PTSD symptoms. However, according to published peer-reviewed academic articles, these negative effects of meditation are rare for mindfulness meditation, and appear to happen due to a poor understanding of what actually constitutes mindfulness/meditation practices.


title: Prince Louis of Battenberg

text: Admiral of the Fleet Louis Alexander Mountbatten, 1st Marquess of Milford Haven, (24 May 185411 September 1921), formerly Prince Louis Alexander of Battenberg, was a British naval officer and German prince related by marriage to the British royal family.


title: Prince Louis of Battenberg

text: Although born in Austria, and brought up in Italy and Germany, Louis enrolled in the United Kingdom's Royal Navy at the age of fourteen. Queen Victoria and her son the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) occasionally intervened in his career: the Queen thought that there was "a belief that the Admiralty are afraid of promoting Officers who are Princes on account of the radical attacks of low papers and scurrilous ones". However, Louis welcomed assignments that provided opportunities for him to acquire the skills of war and to demonstrate to his superiors that he was serious about his naval career. Posts on royal yachts and tours arranged by Queen Victoria and Prince Edward actually impeded his progress, as his promotions were perceived as undeserved royal favours.


title: Prince Louis of Battenberg

text: After a naval career lasting more than forty years, in 1912 Louis was appointed First Sea Lord, the professional head of the British naval service. With the First World War looming, he took steps to ready the British fleet for combat, but his background as a German prince forced his retirement once the war began, when anti-German sentiment was running high. He changed his name and relinquished his German titles, at the behest of King George V, in 1917. The King made Louis Marquess of Milford Haven.


title: Prince Louis of Battenberg

text: Louis married Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. The couple had four children, including Queen Louise of Sweden and Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, who also served as First Sea Lord from 1954 to 1959. The Marquess and Marchioness of Milford Haven were the maternal grandparents of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.


title: Prince Louis of Battenberg

text: Louis Alexander of Battenberg was born in Graz, Styria, on 24 May 1854, the eldest son of Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine by his morganatic marriage to Countess Julia von Hauke. Because of his morganatic parentage, Louis did not inherit his father's rank in the Grand Duchy of Hesse; and, from birth, his style of "Illustrious Highness" and title of Count of Battenberg instead derived from the rank given to his mother at the time of her marriage. On 26 December 1858, he automatically became "His Serene Highness" Prince Louis of Battenberg when his mother was elevated to Princess of Battenberg with the style of "Serene Highness", by decree of her husband's brother, Louis III, Grand Duke of Hesse.


title: Prince Louis of Battenberg

text: Shortly after Louis's birth, his father was stationed with the Austro-Hungarian Army of occupation in Northern Italy during the Second Italian War of Independence. Louis's early years were spent either in the north of Italy or at Prince Alexander's two houses in Hesse, the castle of Heiligenberg in Jugenheim, and the Alexander Palace in Darmstadt. Because his mother spoke French to him and he had an English governess, he grew up trilingual.


title: Prince Louis of Battenberg

text: Among the visitors entertained at Heiligenberg were Battenberg's relations, the Russian imperial family and his cousin, Prince Louis of Hesse. Influenced by his cousin's wife, Princess Alice, a daughter of Queen Victoria, and by Prince Alfred, another of Queen Victoria's children, Battenberg became a naturalised British subject and joined the Royal Navy on 3 October 1868 at age fourteen. He was admitted by the Board of Admiralty without the production of a medical certificate, which was contrary to the usual regulation. He had been found medically unfit "on account of small, flat chest, slight lateral curvature of the spine and defective vision", but was allowed to join so as not to disappoint the Queen. He was entered as a naval cadet aboard , Nelson's old flagship, then used as a permanently moored receiving ship.


title: Prince Louis of Battenberg

text: In January of the following year, the Prince and Princess of Wales cruised the Mediterranean and Black Seas in the frigate ; and the Prince of Wales requested that Louis be appointed to the vessel, before his training was complete. As part of the same tour, Louis accompanied them on a visit to Egypt, where they visited the construction site of the Suez Canal. As was traditional, the Khedive, Isma'il Pasha, bestowed honours on the party, with Louis receiving the Medjidie (4th Class); in April, he received the Osmanie (4th Class) from the Ottoman Sultan.


title: Prince Louis of Battenberg

text: Louis returned to Britain in May 1869. In June he joined , the flagship of the North America and West Indies Station, becoming a midshipman in October. From June to September 1870 he took leave in Germany, coinciding with the Franco-Prussian war, but he spent the next three-and-a-half years in the Americas (Bermuda and Halifax, Nova Scotia), where his tour of duty served to make up for the training he had missed while posted with the Prince of Wales on the "Ariadne". Returning to Europe in early 1874, he was placed on the books of the at Portsmouth, and passed the sub-lieutenant's examinations—gaining the best marks ever recorded at seamanship and joint best-ever at gunnery.


title: Prince Louis of Battenberg

text: In 1875, again at the invitation of the Prince of Wales, he joined , which conducted the Prince on an official tour of India, 1875–76. Louis sketched some of the events of the tour and his drawings were published in the "Illustrated London News". He was promoted to lieutenant on 15 May 1876. The Prince asked Louis to stay with him at Marlborough House for the summer of 1876, but wishing to gain further experience at sea, Louis instead accepted an offer to join Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, as a lieutenant on board . In addition to acting as the Duke's equerry, Louis continued his naval duties. He did not enjoy the position, as the Duke was rather touchy and Louis's cabin was infested with rats, one of which he caught with his bare hands as it ran across his chest as he lay in bed. The "Sultan" toured the Mediterranean from July 1876.


title: Prince Louis of Battenberg

text: In late February–early March 1878, Louis was still serving on the "Sultan" as it lay in the Bosphorus during the Russo-Turkish War. He was criticised for visiting his brother, Prince Alexander, who was serving with the Russian forces, but an investigation cleared both Louis and Alexander, as well as Prince Alfred, of any wrongdoing. For the next two years Louis served on and on the Royal Yacht, , but in October 1879 he refused further service on the Royal Yacht, saying it was damaging his professional career, and requested half-pay until he could be given an active duty. On 17 February 1880 he, his father, and Tsar Alexander II witnessed an explosion at the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, when Stephen Chalturin unsuccessfully attempted to assassinate the Tsar with dynamite beneath the great dining room.


title: Prince Louis of Battenberg

text: On 24 August 1880, Louis was posted to , the flagship of the Flying Squadron, which included on which Princes Albert Victor and George were serving. The ship sailed to South America, South Africa, Australia, Fiji, Japan, China, Hong Kong, Singapore and the Dutch East Indies, before returning to South Africa in April 1882. Seven months after Louis left Britain on the voyage, actress Lillie Langtry allegedly bore him an illegitimate daughter, Jeanne Marie. Langtry was also a one-time mistress of the Prince of Wales. Jeanne Marie's parentage was never completely verified, but Louis made a financial settlement nonetheless.


title: Prince Louis of Battenberg

text: From South Africa the "Inconstant" sailed to St Helena, and the Cape Verde Islands, where the squadron received orders to proceed to Gibraltar, and from there to Malta and Egypt to take part in the Anglo-Egyptian War. On 11 July 1882, Alexandria was bombarded and in the next two weeks Louis served in the Flying Squadron delivering shells and ammunition to the battle fleet, and then as a guard to the Khedive at Ras Al Teen Palace. He was decorated with the Egypt War Medal by Queen Victoria personally.


title: Prince Louis of Battenberg

text: In November 1882, he left the "Inconstant", spent Christmas in Darmstadt, and in March the following year visited his younger brother, Prince Alexander, in Bulgaria. Alexander had been made Sovereign Prince of Bulgaria in 1879 with the approval of Europe's Great Powers. Louis accompanied his brother on a state visit to Turkey, and then on a tour of Cyprus and the Holy Land with the Turkish navy, during which Louis was appalled at the lack of seamanship—the Turkish captains were unable to navigate and had to hug the coast so as not to get lost; when they did leave the coast they became so disoriented that they were unable to steer for Jaffa. On its return journey the ship on which they had travelled ran aground.


title: Prince Louis of Battenberg

text: In September 1883, Queen Victoria appointed him to her yacht, . On 30 April 1884 at Darmstadt in the presence of the Queen, Prince Louis married her granddaughter, Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine. His wife was the eldest daughter of Queen Victoria's second daughter Princess Alice and Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse. Through the Hesse family, Prince and Princess Louis of Battenberg were first cousins once removed. They had known each other since childhood, and invariably spoke English to each other. As wedding presents Louis received the British Order of the Bath and the Star and Chain of the Hessian Order of Louis.


title: Prince Louis of Battenberg

text: In 1885, one of Louis's younger brothers, Prince Henry of Battenberg, married Princess Beatrice, the youngest child of Queen Victoria, and took up residence with the Queen in Britain so that Beatrice could continue to serve as her mother's companion and personal secretary.


title: Prince Louis of Battenberg

text: On his penultimate day aboard the Queen's yacht, 30 August 1885, Louis was promoted to the rank of commander. The next four years were spent in the shore establishments and on half-pay, on HMS "Cambridge", very briefly at Milford Haven in August 1886, and on board in the Mediterranean. Irish nationalist Member of Parliament (MP) Willie Redmond and Liberal MP Charles Conybeare both questioned Battenberg's appointment to "Dreadnought" in the British House of Commons. Conybeare asked, "What special qualifications have entitled a foreigner to be promoted over the heads of some 30 British officers?" First Lord of the Admiralty Lord George Hamilton said, "Captain Stephenson, who commands the "Dreadnought", applied for Prince Louis of Battenberg to fill the appointment. I may add that another officer who is about to command a large iron-clad in the Mediterranean has made a similar application." He added that 22 commanders junior to Battenberg held similar appointments, and that Battenberg was a naturalised British subject. Another Liberal MP, Edward Pickersgill, backed up by Conybeare and Irish nationalist Charles Tanner, questioned the propriety of Battenberg's appointment to the Navy in 1868, given Battenberg's failure to get the required medical certificate, and suggested that he only got in the Navy because of royal favour.


title: Prince Louis of Battenberg

text: On 3 October 1889, Battenberg was appointed to his first independent command, , a torpedo-cruiser, which saw service in the Red Sea.


title: Prince Louis of Battenberg

text: On 31 December 1891, Prince Louis was promoted to the rank of captain. At the beginning of the following year, he was appointed naval advisor to the inspector-general of fortifications. His role was to act as a liaison between the navy and the army in order to ensure a co-ordinated defence. Traditionally, there was a great deal of friction between the two services, but Louis exercised his social skills in the role, leading Prince George, Duke of Cambridge, to write to him, "You have produced a mutual feeling of goodwill and unanimity which I have always wished to see established, and which, by your tact and sound judgement, you have brought about to the fullest extent."


title: Prince Louis of Battenberg

text: In 1892, Battenberg invented the Battenberg Course Indicator, a relative velocity analogue computer device used by seamen to determine course and speed to steer for changes of position between ships.


title: Prince Louis of Battenberg

text: By February 1894 his role was further developed when he was appointed joint secretary of the naval and military committee on defence, which was later renamed the Committee of Imperial Defence. Louis captained in the Mediterranean Fleet from October 1894 to May 1897 and in the Channel Fleet from June 1897. His careful study of both naval and military defence, as well as its interaction, led to his appointment as assistant director of the Naval Intelligence in June 1899. He used his relationships with the royal houses of Europe to gather intelligence on the naval fleets of other nations, which he passed on to the Admiralty in full and detailed reports. He became an aide-de-camp to the Queen in 1897, a post he would retain under both King and King.


title: Prince Louis of Battenberg

text: He commissioned the newly built battleship on 10 September 1901, and served as its captain for a year in the Mediterranean, during which he spectacularly defeated a larger opposing force in a naval exercise. When the Second-in-Command of the Mediterranean Fleet, Rear-Admiral Burges Watson, died suddenly in late September 1902, Louis was temporarily appointed 2nd class Commodore with added responsibilities. In November of the same year he was appointed as Director of Naval Intelligence, an apt posting for a man whom First Lord of the Admiralty the Earl of Selborne described as "the cleverest sailor I have met yet".


title: Prince Louis of Battenberg

text: He was promoted to rear admiral on 1 July 1904, in which year his family connections to the royal courts of Europe helped resolve the Dogger Bank incident peacefully. The following February, he was given command of the Second Cruiser Squadron, with as his flagship. During a successful two years the squadron visited Greece, Portugal, Canada, and the United States, where the American press commented favourably on Prince Louis's courtesy, unassuming manner and democratic nature. After two years at the head of the Second Cruiser Squadron, and further visits to Spain (where his niece Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg was Queen), he was appointed second-in-command of the Mediterranean Fleet as acting vice-admiral with as his flagship.


title: Prince Louis of Battenberg

text: After less than six months in post his flag was transferred to the battleship in August 1907. The following year, he was promoted to vice-admiral, and appointed as Commander-in-Chief, Atlantic Fleet. Historian Andrew Lambert described Battenberg as a sea-going admiral as "more cerebral than the average, although somewhat lazy. The [fleet] exercises had a greater sense of realism, reflecting the latest thinking on weapons and strategy." In 1909, he published a translation of Commander Vladimir Semenoff's "Rasplata" ("The Reckoning"), a memoir of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05, and witnessed the first crossing of the English Channel by air by Louis Blériot. He was appointed as commander of the newly constituted Third and Fourth Divisions of the Home Fleet two years later. The years immediately preceding this appointment were marred by disagreements between Admirals Sir John Fisher and Lord Charles Beresford over the direction of the navy and the imposition of reforms. Louis largely supported Fisher's modernising efforts, although he disapproved of his methods, and as a result Fisher's opponents attempted to prevent Louis's promotions.


title: Prince Louis of Battenberg

text: Fisher recommended Louis as First Sea Lord in 1911: "He is the most capable administrator in the Admirals List "by a long way"", but elements of the British press were against his appointment on the grounds that he was a German. Horatio Bottomley said it was "a crime against our Empire to trust our secrets of National Defence to any alien-born official". In December 1911, Louis did return to the Admiralty but as Second rather than First Sea Lord. As Second Sea Lord, Louis pushed through improvements in working conditions for the ratings, and created an Admiralty War Staff that would prepare the navy's plans in case of war. He was promoted to full admiral on 13 July 1912.


title: Prince Louis of Battenberg

text: However, almost a year to the day later, on 8 December 1912, Battenberg assumed the post of First Sea Lord in succession to Admiral Sir Francis Bridgeman. Military historian Hew Strachan contends that Battenberg "lacked Fisher's dogmatism. Not the least of his attractions to Churchill [the First Lord] was his malleability. The combination of frequent change and weak appointees <nowiki>[</nowiki>Wilson, Bridgeman and Battenberg] ensured that the professional leadership of the Royal Navy lost its direction in the four years preceding the war. Power now lay with the service's civilian head ... Winston Churchill".


title: Prince Louis of Battenberg

text: As First Sea Lord, Battenberg was responsible to the First Lord for the readiness of the fleet and the preparation of naval strategy, as well as the development of a scheme for state insurance of merchant vessels in times of war, which was to prove essential in preventing prohibitive insurance rates that would have stifled British trade.


title: Prince Louis of Battenberg

text: On the eve of the World War, Churchill and Battenberg made the crucial decision to cancel the scheduled dispersal of the British fleet following practice manoeuvres, to preserve the Royal Navy's battle readiness. In the view of Andrew Lambert, "While Churchill planned to recall Fisher if war broke out, he missed the chance to prevent war that might have been provided by drafting him earlier. No Cabinet advised by Fisher would have made such a blundering, incompetent, disastrous response to the July [1914] Crisis. The British trumpet gave a very uncertain note in July [1914], allowing the Germans to delude themselves that Britain might be neutral ... the contrast in habits between the energy and enthusiasm of the young First Lord and the lackadaisical habits of the First Sea Lord Prince Louis of Battenberg made Fisher's recall all but inevitable."


title: Prince Louis of Battenberg

text: Upon the outbreak of war, gout began to cause Battenberg considerable pain, and the naval staff he had set up did not function as well as it ought to have done. On 6 August 1914 Battenberg and the French Deputy Chief of Staff of the Navy Antoine Schwerer signed a convention in London on the division of responsibilities between the two navies. The convention confirmed the terms of the Entente Cordiale, and placed France in command of all naval operations in the Mediterranean. Malta and Gibraltar would both be treated as French naval bases. In the event that Austria entered the war France would act against its naval forces, and would at minimum prevent them passing the Strait of Otranto.


title: Prince Louis of Battenberg

text: Anti-German sentiment rose among the British public, in newspapers, and in elite gentlemen's clubs, where resentment was inflamed by Admiral Lord Charles Beresford despite Churchill's remonstrances. Driven by public opinion, Churchill asked Prince Louis to resign as First Sea Lord on 27 October 1914. When acceptance of Battenberg's resignation was delayed by the King's opposition to the appointment of Fisher in his place, Louis wrote to Churchill, "I beg of you to release me. I am on the verge of breaking down & I cannot use my brain for anything". On 13 November he wrote to Churchill's Naval Secretary, Rear-Admiral Horace Hood, "It was an awful wrench, but I had no choice from the moment it was made clear to me that the Government did not feel themselves strong enough to support me by some public pronouncement."


title: Prince Louis of Battenberg

text: His resignation was announced amid an outpouring of appreciation from politicians and naval comrades. Battenberg had written to Churchill on 28 October, "What I shd value above all else is to be admitted to the Privy Council." The King later swore Louis in as a Privy Councillor in a public show of support. Labour party politician and trade union leader J. H. Thomas wrote to "The Times": "I desire to express my extreme regret at the announcement that Prince Louis of Battenberg has, by his resignation, pandered to the most mean and contemptible slander I have ever known ... I was simply astounded to hear the base suggestions and rumours current, and I am afraid that his action will simply be looked upon as a triumph for the mean and miserable section of people, who, at a time of national trial, is ever ready to pass a foul lie from lip to lip without a tittle of evidence." Admiral of the Fleet Lord John Hay thought that the "ingeniously propagated lies" originated from Germany.


title: Prince Louis of Battenberg

text: Prince Louis held no official post for the remainder of the war and lived in retirement at Kent House on the Isle of Wight. He occupied his time in writing a comprehensive encyclopaedia on naval medals published in three large volumes, which became the standard reference work on the subject. His naval career had been characterised by industry, invention and intellect; he introduced mechanical calculators to compute navigations and a cone signalling apparatus. Although assured that he would be returned to command post-war, on 9 December 1918 the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Rosslyn Wemyss, wrote to Prince Louis informing him that he would not be employed again and suggested that he might retire in order to facilitate the promotion of younger officers. Prince Louis agreed, and he officially retired on 1 January 1919 "at [his] own request", shortly before reaching the mandatory retirement age of 65.<ref name="ADM 196/38">ADM 196/38</ref>


title: Prince Louis of Battenberg

text: During the war, persistent rumours that the British Royal Family must be pro-German, given their dynastic origins and many German relatives, prompted the King to abandon his subsidiary German dynastic titles and adopt an English surname. At the behest of the King, Louis relinquished the title Prince of Battenberg in the Grand Duchy of Hesse, along with the style of "Serene Highness", on 14 July 1917. At the same time, Louis anglicised his family name, changing it from "Battenberg" to "Mountbatten", having considered but rejected "Battenhill" as an alternative. On 7 November, the King created him "Marquess of Milford Haven, Earl of Medina, and Viscount Alderney" in the peerage of the United Kingdom. He was offered a dukedom by George V, but declined as he could not afford the lavish lifestyle expected of a duke.


title: Prince Louis of Battenberg

text: The King's British relatives in the Teck, Schleswig-Holstein, and Gleichen families underwent similar changes. Louis's wife ceased to use her own title of Princess of Hesse and became known as the Marchioness of Milford Haven. His three younger children ceased to use their princely titles and assumed courtesy titles as children of a British marquess; his eldest daughter, Princess Alice, had married into the Greek Royal Family in 1903, and never had occasion to use the surname Mountbatten. However, her only son, Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, adopted the name when he became a British subject in 1947.