Episode 33-Mindfulness, Biofeedback and the Practice of Law

In this episode, I  welcome Dr. Inna Khazan, a clinical psychologist who is a nationally recognized expert in mindfulness and biofeedback.  Dr. Khazan talks about how she helps lawyers and other professionals in stressful jobs to achieve higher levels of performance through biofeedback and mindfulness meditation. Episode 33-Intro Law is a stressful business and there are a lot of efforts underway all over the country to help lawyers address the challenges in the profession. In Massachusetts, for example, we have an organization called Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers which helps attorneys deal with substance abuse and some of the underlying causes of attorney stress.  In the last episode of Counsel to Counsel, I interviewed Heidi Alexander the Deputy Director of the organization about the work they do. Recently, the SJC of Massachusetts created a new Standing Committee on Lawyer Well-Being. The Standing Committee is charged with planning and overseeing efforts to enhance the well-being of lawyers, judges and law students in the Commonwealth. And the recent Report of the Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being, issued by the American Bar Association, Conference of Chief Judges, and other legal organizations, calls well-being an essential element of a lawyer’s duty of competence and recommends mindfulness training as “mindfulness can enhance a host of competencies related to lawyer effectiveness, including increased focus and concentration, working memory, critical cognitive skills, reduced burnout, and ethical and rational decision-making.” While there are many approaches to dealing with stress in the practice of law, mindfulness is one technique that is getting a lot of attention lately. For today’s show, I invited an expert on mindfulness to talk about how she works with attorneys and other professionals to achieve high levels of performance in high stress jobs. Inna Khazan, is the founder of ARETE Institute for Performance Excellence. She is a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in biofeedback and mindfulness-based approaches to optimizing health and performance. Dr. Khazan is a faculty member at Harvard Medical School, where she teaches and supervises trainees. She is considered to be a pioneer in the area of mindfulness-based biofeedback. Dr. Khazan is a popular speaker at national and international conferences and prestigious institutions on the topics of biofeedback and mindfulness.  She has conducted biofeedback and mindfulness trainings for notable institutions in the US and abroad, including the US Navy Special Warfare, US Army Special Forces, and the Stuttgart Opera and Ballet Company. She is the author of numerous publications including her most recent book Biofeedback and Mindfulness in Everyday Life: Practical Solutions for Improving Your Health and Performance, and the highly-regarded Clinical Handbook of Biofeedback: A Step-by-Step Guide to Training and Practice with Mindfulness, published by Wiley Blackwell. Other Mindfulness Resources Ten Percent Happier (Dan Harris, an ABC News personality, brings mindfulness to skeptics with his book, app and podcast; tons of content and a great place to start for a modest annual fee--look for discounts)