Mindfulness is a wonderful philosophy and technique that enables us to get away from the stressful, greedy, insatiable, unhealthy and unhappy world of today. It is a mental ability that could be acquired and a way of perceiving the world. It is a means of achieving the ability to see everything as it is here and now, without judging, questioning, or escaping. It brings about an awareness in our relationships with other people, to the way we relate to food, to living and non-living beings. It has an effect of reducing stress, making people happier, and increasing success and efficiency. For this reason, mindfulness has an extensive and effective range of uses in medicine, in increasing success at businesses, and in art. The Cognita Mindfulness Workshop series will be an opportunity to bring mindfulness, in its various ways, into our lives.
Cognita Mindfulness Workshop
“Here and now”
Here and now are two fundamental concepts of mindfulness. In this starter workshop, through mindfulness meditations, we will experience how the here and now affects our mental and physical being.
Prof. Taner Damcı was born in Zonguldak in 1964, and completed his secondary education at TED Zonguldak College. He graduated from Istanbul Faculty of Medicine of Istanbul University in 1988, and received his post-graduate degree from the Department of Internal Medicine of Cerrahpaşa Faculty of Medicine in 1993. In 1995 he received the “Young Investigator Award” of International Diabetes Federation and worked at the Diabetes Clinic of the University of Manchester in the UK.
He became an associate professor in 1997 and a professor in 2003. He is currently a faculty member of Cerrahpaşa Faculty of Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Endocrinology, Metabolism and Diabetes, and the chairman of the Turkish Obesity Foundation. He is also a member of the Turkish Diabetes Association, the Society of Endocrinology and Metabolism of Turkey, the Diabetes Obesity Nutrition Society, the American Diabetes Association, the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD), and the Mediterranean Group for the Study of Diabetes (MGSD).
Prof. Taner Damcı ran ultra-marathons in various parts of the world, including deserts. These include races held in the Sahara, Atacama, and Gobi Deserts and the Antarctica. He is the founder and race director of the first international ultra-marathon in Turkey, “Lycian Way Ultra Marathon”, and another international ultra-marathon “RunFire Cappadocia”.
His interest in mindfulness began in 2004, and he participated in various educational programs on the subject in the USA. Since 2013, as a founding director, he has been working with COGNITA, which is a program that utilises “mindfulness”, to empower people who want to lead a healthy life to permanently change their way of life. The programme also has a “COGNITA business” module conceived to increase efficiency and success at work.