Brumage Introducing Mindfulness to WVU
September 26, 2014 04:57 PM | General
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| Col. Michael Brumage is one of the military leaders in the field and has used mindfulness to help the Mountaineers. |
| Submitted photo |
Mindfulness was developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Kabat-Zinn took patients that no other doctors wanted because they didn’t know what to do with them anymore. Lo and behold, when he started teaching mindfulness to them, they began to feel better and were more functional in their lives.
“Jon’s definition is paying attention in a particular way; on purpose; in the present moment, and non-judgmentally,” Brumage explained. “What I like to say is mindfulness is about showing up and paying attention. It is about being fully present for practice, conditioning, classes and games and staying on track despite distractions.
“Living life as if it really mattered, because it does. I think we’ve all had periods of mindlessness. We have that in every-day life where we get in the car and end up at our destination and don’t remember anything that happened in between.”
A native of Fairmont, West Virginia, Brumage originally came to Morgantown last April and provided mini-workshops to some coaches, players and athletic department staff members.
“I had come to Morgantown in April and we put on a workshop with Dr. Frank Gardner. He had a very specific mindfulness approach, which is well-published, but wasn’t going to fit the circumstances at WVU,” Brumage said. “It turns out one of his students is doing his internship in the Carruth Center, and he also was well trained in mindfulness.”
That is when Brumage met Mike Gross, a doctoral intern in the Carruth Center for Psychological Services. After a successful trip in April, Brumage returned once again in July for the majority of the month to work with Gross and the football team. Since then, Gross has already been practicing mindfulness with coach Jill Kramer and the volleyball team.
Brumage initially earned a chemistry degree in 1982, before enrolling in the WVU School of Medicine and graduating in 1986. From Morgantown, Brumage studied one year at the University of Heidelberg in Germany and completed his residency in internal medicine at the University of Florida.
He has now been in the United States Army for 24 years, making a transition from internal medicine to public health and preventive medicine.
“I saw the tremendous amount of suffering that we were having in our military community around the constant deployment cycle of our soldiers and the effects on not only soldiers but their families,” Brumage commented. “I thought there has to be a better way to help reduce the suffering and an Air Force colleague introduced me to mindfulness.”
At first Brumage thought it sounded like a bunch of baloney, but as he began to read about it he discovered that there was something to it. In 2013 alone, there were more than 500 studies published in the medical literature about mindfulness.
“There is a growing body of evidence that it really does good things for our brain in terms of stress reduction, helping us deal with pain and improving our moods,” Brumage said. “That is what my research in the military has shown as well. We’ve been able to demonstrate that people have improved their state, they’re able to feel better physically and mentally.”
Brumage immediately found that this not only helps the military, but also the every-day person.
“It doesn’t appeal to everyone, it’s not a one size fits all solution,” Brumage said. “For the people who are willing to practice, whether it is soldiers or student-athletes, I think it offers intriguing possibilities not only on the field or on the court, but in the classroom as well.”
When Brumage returned for an extended period in July, he linked up with Gross and began working with Mike Joseph, WVU’s Director of Strength and Conditioning, as well as Andrew McGee and other members of the football staff.
“We put on a couple of didactic training sessions and did experiential exercises with them both in the classroom and on the practice field. It was pretty interesting,” Brumage said. “Some of the guys took to it, some of them didn’t like it, and that is expected.”
By the end of Brumage’s stay, around 20 individuals asked for his help in developing personalized mediations for them. Gross continues to work with the football and volleyball teams.
“There is no one motivational technique that works for everybody. This is about teaching focus and attention,” Brumage explained. “You put it out there and try to show them the relevance of how this is important in their games.”
The majority of the players said that much of their individual games were mental. Brumage compared that to the military, where 30 percent of the job involves mental development.
“If that much of your game is important in football and you’re not giving that 30 percent, then you’re missing out on a huge chunk of your potential,” Brumage said.
A recent study in the Journal of American Medical Association Internal Medicine took a look at comparing Division I college football players to other age-matched controls. The findings were staggering, as college football players had slower reaction times and were mainly dealing with shrinkage in a part of the brain called the hippocampus.
The hippocampus is what consolidates short-term memory into long-term memory, and mindfulness has been shown to grow the hippocampus.
“There is some suggestion, although no proof, that you might be able to help people who play football,” Brumage said. “It raises an intriguing question as to whether or not mindfulness practices can help people protect there brains from the inside out against concussions.”
Brumage’s current plan is to retire next year and continue to work with athletic teams. As a Mountaineer through-and-through, he would like to return to WVU and collaborate with people within the University to teach the concept.
“Mindfulness is hard to wrap your brain about when you hear it for the first time. Of course I’m there, where else would I be,” Brumage said. “The mind is wandering all of the time, and we’re constantly shuttling our mind between past, present and future, and the only time you ever have to be alive is now. We’re often not here for it.”
