Psychological and Neurobiological Impact of a Retreat Based on Mindfulness and Compassion for Stress Reduction.

"The MBSR is an 8-week standardized program (Kabat-Zinn,1990).~During the retreat, participants will receive intensive training during 3 days (from 4:00pm to 9pm the first day and from 7 am to 10 pm including breaks, the second and third days), including focused attention on the breath, open monitoring of awareness in body-scanning, prosocial meditation (i.e. loving kindness and compassion) and gentle yoga. Training is delivered by certified instructors by the University of Massachusetts Centre for Mindfulness (https://www.umassmed.edu/cfm/)."

"The CCT is an 8-week standardized program (Jinpa, 2010; Jazaieri et al. 2013, 2014) consisting of daily formal and informal practices.~Training will be conducted during 3 days of the retreat (same schedule as the MBSR training). The CCT consists of six sequential steps: 1) Settling the mind and learn how to focus it; 2) Loving kindness and compassion for a loved one practice; 3) Loving kindness and compassion for oneself practice; 4) compassion toward others, embracing shared common humanity and developing appreciation of others; 5) compassion toward others including all beings; and 6) active compassion practices (Tonglen) which involve explicit evocation of the altruistic wish to do something about others' suffering. CCT program is delivered by certified instructors by the University of Stanford Centre for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (http://ccare.stanford.edu/)."