Mindful Mondays Blog Post One: Introduction to Mindfulness
Have you ever looked at your watch to check the time, only to look away and have no recollection of what the time is? Have you ever walked into a room and forgotten why you went there? If you answered yes to these questions, you know what it is to be ‘unmindful’. Being unmindful causes us to miss out on important information, increasing our risk of physical and social accidents and communicating at a more superficial level. Importantly, it makes us vulnerable to stress, poor mental heath and all of the harmful physical consequences that follow.
Described simply, mindfulness is living in the now. It is essentially being more present and aware in every moment of your life. Mindfulness has wide reaching benefits and powerfully practical applications, including:
- Mental Health: depression-relapse prevention, anxiety, stress, enhancing emotional intelligence, improvements in sleep, personality disorders and addiction.
- Clinical: pain management, symptom control, coping with illnesses, metabolic benefits, hormonal changes and changes in genetic function and repair.
- Performance: sport, academic, leadership.
- Spiritual: deep peace, insight, oneness.
Mindfulness is the ability to be present and aware of what is actually happening to you by not allowing your attention to drift off to what happened to you yesterday or might happen to you tomorrow.
Each week we will delve a little deeper into the history, benefits and practical applications of mindfulness. This week, let’s focus on practicing mindfulness in the shower.
Be mindful to set the temperature before you step in the shower Be mindful of the wave of pleasure as the warm water washes over you; Be mindful of the smell of the shower gel, soap or shampoo, and the sensation your hands passing over your skin; be mindful of thoughts cropping up and gentle refocus yourself; and mindful of the noise of the water coming to a halt.
If you feel comfortable to, share your mindfulness experiences and/or goals with the group.
References:
1. McKenzie, S. & Hassed, C., Mindfulness for Life, Exisle Publishing Pty Ltd, Auckland, 2012.
2. Killingsworth, M.A., Gilbert, D.T., ‘A Wandering Mind is an Unhappy Mind’, Science, 12 November 2010, Vol. 330, no. 6006, p. 932, DOI: 10.1126/science.1192439
3. Headspace Inc. 2016, ‘Get some Headspace’, https://www.headspace.com/, viewed April 2016.
Comments
-
Love this, I am a big fan of mindfulness except I find myself being more unmindfull all the time. Look out shower tomorrow... I'm all set to be mindfull
Paula xx
0 -
When seeing a counsellor a number of years ago, she taught me to notice or pay attention to the sensations that took over my body when I was anxious. As soon as your mind starts paying attention to the bodies reactions (and I guess it stops you thinking about whatever was making you anxious) they actually disappear.
But then the hard part is to stop your mind returning to the worrying!
I found it helped me immensely to be able to control my thinking when undergoing some of the stressful parts of treatment. During Chemo I used to focus on the sounds and calming sight of a small water feature I could see through a window. I would concentrate on breathing deeply too, especially when they were putting in the cannula each time.
Every night before going to bed, I listen to music through my iPod with the lights off, just concentrating on my breathing. I lay on my back with my legs up on the wall. This position is good for calming the nervous system, I have been told. It just slows me down and seems to help me sleep more restfully. Deanne xxx
0 -
Me too Paula, I am working hard to change the balance between mindful and unmindful thinking. Let me know how you find the shower exercise.
Fiona (Team BCNA)
0 -
Deanne, thank you for sharing your experiences. I am going to try lying with my legs up on the wall tonight. Do you find listening to music helps when practicing mindfulness?
0 -
The 'music' is gentle meditative style that just helps me to relax and blocks out any 'outside' noise from my mind.
0 -
While mindfulness can be wonderful for relaxation and living in the moment, there are times when being less minful or meditation is important. I use mindfulness techniques to relax normally. But when I was stuck in the MRI tunnel on my face and squeezed in...mindfulness actually made me very very anxious. Using visualization of being somewhere else actually aided me to slow my breathing down and relax. So both techniques are important I believe.
0 -
A very useful insight 'Primek' thank you. Do you practice mindfulness or meditation regularay?
0 -
Both...when stressed
0 -
I've found mindfulness really helpful - I combine 3 things:
- Gratefulness (each day we sit down at dinner and share 3 things we are grateful for from that day, or that went well for us)
- I do mindfulness meditation and positive mantras daily....it's so easy when you're on the BC journey to feel overwhelmed and to get too far ahead of yourself. Mindfulness helps me cope and tap into the energy of my body.
- Empathy - trying to say or do something kind for someone else. Makes you feel good.
The research indicates that you can even rewire your brain if you follow these sorts of practices for 21 days in a row...with even more impact after 42 days.
I'm finding it really useful
.Nikki xx
0 -
It's great when I don't get distracted......
Paula
0 -
Hi Nikki,
It is great to hear you are incorporating these practices into your life and finding them so beneficial.
The last point around empathy is so important, I really like the quote "The world if full of nice people. If you can't find one, be one.".
Do you find it hard to make time for mindfulness meditation?
Fiona (Team BCNA)
0 -
Hi Fiona
No I make the time...it's important and the practice really helps - last week I had my first operation (left vertical skin sparing mastectomy) and had the lymph scinitography...during which I practiced meditation as the needles were going in and the shots being taken. It helped.
Cheers Nikki
0
