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Fiona_BCNA's avatar
Fiona_BCNA
Member
10 years ago

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. 

  • Deanne's avatar
    Deanne
    Member
    10 years ago

    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

  • mum2jj's avatar
    mum2jj
    Member
    10 years ago

    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