Getting started with mindfulness
As I write this, we are in the middle of a global pandemic and crisis. Our lives have completely transformed in the space of a few weeks, as we stay at home to prevent the spread of the virus, and for many of us this is a time of huge worry, stress and anxiety. We’re separated from family and friends, those we love and need in our lives, we’re trying to cope with homeworking and home schooling, we’re furloughed and worried about what that means for our jobs and finances or if we’re self employed or have our own business, we’re trying to understand what the impact of all this is on our future. And then there’s the people on the frontline, in the NHS working tirelessly and selflessly to save lives, and those key workers who make sure that the rest of us have the supplies and infrastructure we need to live our lives.
What has been really heartening in the midst of this crisis is to see people pulling together, helping each other in a way that we haven’t seen before. And thankfully we have technology to keep us entertained, involved and so importantly, connected. In an effort to help, in even a small way, I’ll be doing a series of blogs and posts on my Facebook page. This week’s post is about Mindfulness.
How can Mindfulness help?
Research studies show time and time again that mindfulness can help us with our mental and physical health and that a mindfulness practice is particularly good at helping to improve how we deal with depression, anxiety, anger, worry, concentration, sleep and much more. These are issues that many of us are struggling with at the present moment.
Jon Kabat-Zin, one of the founding fathers of mindfulness, defines it as ‘paying attention to something, in a particular way, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgementally.’ For many of us, even in more normal times, we spend a huge amount of our day worrying about things that have happened in the past or may happen in the future, even if those are things we have no control of, or can’t change. Mindfulness practices help us to break that pattern and come back to the present moment, taking us out of our heads and helping us to pay attention to what is happening right now. In the current situation, with all our worries and fears, that’s an invaluable skill to have.
Getting started with Mindfulness
A lot of people think mindfulness involves long periods of meditation and that can seem impossible to achieve, even at the best of times. Meditation is definitely a really beneficial part of mindfulness but actually you can start with much easier practices, that will absolutely help and can have a huge impact.
My first video starts by helping you to tune into your breath. Such a simple thing, that we can come back to time and time again, to help anchor us in the present moment. By focusing on our breathing we help to activate our parasympathetic nervous system, helping us to relax and become more calm.
The second video introduces a really easy technique to help you focus on your breathing. For many people, when you are new to this, it’s difficult to focus purely on your breath. Thoughts and feeling will emerge, maybe even take over, and you’ll likely be distracted. That’s all part of mindfulness, and as we become more comfortable in our practice, we learn to accept that this is normal and just what we do, to not judge ourselves, and to simply return to our breathing.
The really easy technique introduced in the video encourages you to focus on a simple action as you breathe, helping you to concentrate on your breath. It’s particularly relevant if you are feeling very stressed or overwhelmed or if you have difficulty in controlling your thoughts and other distractions.
The third video is an introduction to the three step breathing practice, where we learn to start becoming more aware of our thoughts, emotions and how our body is feeling. These are things that many people aren’t consciously aware of. Mindfulness teaches us to not only become aware but to start to label these and let go of them, before we get too caught up. By learning to pay attention we can break the cycle of negative thoughts or emotions, or we can deal with those small niggles and pains before they become too big.