When could Mindfulness help?
Do you feel anxious or depressed or fear you might slip back into those feelings?
Do you find you keep getting hijacked by thoughts, worries and feelings about the past or the future?
Do you feel depressed or anxious so that you can’t enjoy life now, sleep or get done what you want to do?
Do you find yourself behaving in familiar ways that keep causing you problems and wonder how that keeps happening?
Do you often criticise and speak to yourself as “silly”, “stupid” or “useless” in a way that you would never speak to others?
Do you feel somehow disconnected or not present much of the time so that it is hard to really enjoy everyday things?
Do you live with chronic physical pain?
What is Mindfulness and how can it help?
Mindfulness is a simple form of meditation that can help you “turn the volume down” on all sorts of difficulties we face from unwanted, unhelpful thoughts, feelings, anxieties, behaviours.
It helps you to become more aware of them more quickly, lets you observe them rather than be overwhelmed by them and so can give you the choice of whether you want to keep repeating them automatically or if you want to make changes.
You come to see that these automatic thoughts that cause so much trouble are not facts or true. They are just some electrical activity in your brain. You can choose not to be dictated to by them.
Mindfulness can take you off auto-pilot where you are at the mercy of old patterns and put you more in control of how you think, feel and act. It is like waking up.
My favourite definition of Mindfulness is that Mindfulness is “awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgementally”. This comes from Jon Kabat-Zinn the pioneer of mindfulness to treat those suffering with chronic pain at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
There is strong research evidence from studies around the world of its effectiveness in building resilience to depression, anxiety and physical pain and for improving ability to focus and be productive at work or study.
Regular practice can actually create physical changes in the brain as helpful pathways are exercised and strengthened – just like muscles at a gym.
It is a powerful, helpful way of becoming kinder to yourself and becoming more aware so that you can feel more in control again and make conscious choices in your life.
It also helps you to be present so that you can actually connect with and enjoy the people and things around you right now.
How do I practice Mindfulness?
You don’t have to sit cross-legged for hours. Most people practice sitting or lying down and you can get benefits from just a minute or two if you want. You can also practice by doing things you are doing anyway but in a consciously mindful way, like walking, brushing your teeth or eating. I love doing washing-up mindfully! – paying attention to the senses of how it feels, sounds, looks, smells as well as thoughts.
If you want to see how different it is to do something really mindfully you could try this chocolate meditation.
It is a bit of fun but also highlights how much of life we miss when we are on autopilot and how much more we could enjoy or notice when we “wake up” and pay attention.
It is a skill though and like any skill the more regular practice you do the more you will get from it. Think of it like going to the gym or learning a sport or a musical instrument.
Often at the start people say they “don’t have the time” to do even a few minutes Mindfulness. Just think how much time you are not really present because your mind is taking you to something that happened in the past or might happen in the future. Or maybe you spend a lot of time scrolling on the internet. If you try swapping some of this time for Mindfulness you will find that you can actually get so much time back to be really “here right now”.
The most common “problem” that people new to Mindfulness find is lots of intrusive thoughts whilst they practice. They think that this is either themselves or Mindfulness failing, that their minds “should be quiet”. This is simply that it has not been properly explained. It isn’t a problem, it is just what all minds do. With Mindfulness it is not the purpose to create a calm mind or anything else particularly. The intention is simply to pay attention to what is there right now without judgement. As we practice this calmness will follow.
Actually the repeated intrusive thoughts that new meditators find so off-putting give exactly the chance to repeat the key skills of simply noticing the thought, not get involved with it and bringing our attention gently back to our breath or whatever our focus was. If that happens twenty times that gives a chance to repeat the skill twenty times to build up the new healthy patterns in the brain. Again this is exactly what you do at the gym – repeat the exercise to develop the muscles you want.
You don’t have to believe anything in particular. It is not a religion and people from all faiths and none practice Mindfulness.
What resources can help me start Mindfulness?
There are so many resources out there but here are some that I have found best for myself and for clients.
To give yourself the best chance of establishing a practice that will last and be regular it is best to find the supporting framework of a course, a book or an app.
Books
This is a down to earth and easy to read guide to Mindfulness from one of the world’s leading experts.
A really helpful, structured way to get the most out of Mindfulness it guides you when practising seems difficult.
It sets out a practical 8 week programme of simple yet powerful guided practices that you can build into daily life to help break the cycle of unhappiness, stress, anxiety and mental exhaustion and promote genuine joie de vivre.
This book has sold 1.5 million copies and is often used as the basis for 8 week group Mindfulness courses around the world and effectively it gives you your own guide to the same course without paying £300 ! A good website linked to this book and with a useful resources page with meditations, videos and podcasts. http://franticworld.com/
Online Introductions to Mindfulness
Dr Meera Joshi’s good Introduction to Mindfulness
Willem Kuyken on The Benefits of Mindfulness
Mark Williams of Oxford University on The Science of Mindfulness
Free Online Mindfulness courses
A really good, free introductory course at just 15 minutes a day for 40 days. Slightly American but very good and from two of the top western Mindfulness practitioners.
https://courses.tarabrach.com/courses/mindfulness-daily
A good, free 8 week Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction course
https://palousemindfulness.com/
Mindfulness Apps
Smiling Mind
A free, friendly programme of meditations designed for four different age groups
Mindfulness; finding peace in a frantic world. The App version of the book recommended above.
Calm: Mediation and Relaxation
A free, simple app presents seven guided steps to calm yourself, running from 2-20 minutes and with a range of calming background sounds to choose from.
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/calm-meditate-sleep-relax/id571800810?hl=en_GB&mt=8https%3A%2F%2Fplay.google.com%2Fstore%2Fapps%2Fdetails%3Fid%3Dcom.calm.android
Headspace
A very popular and accessible programme of Mindfulness .Free basic version with further subscription options. They also have a Guide to Meditation on Netflix.