We’ve all experienced moments of distraction, periods of what we call “mindlessness” – where we seem to be drawn away from the present, caught up in our heads with a loss of awareness, cut off and disconnected from what’s going on, even from oneself. Perhaps too, a sense of living mechanically, sort of going through the motions and not really showing up to our own lives.
The fast and sometimes overwhelming pace of our lives leaves us vulnerable to increased levels of stress. Vulnerable too, to this mindless-living in which we all too easily find our minds perpetually spinning whether it be planning for the future or reacting to memories of the past – without connecting with the present.
A way of learning to relate directly to whatever is happening…
Mindfulness, then is a way of learning to relate directly to whatever is happening in your life, a way of connecting with our moment to moment experience.
Fortunately, mindfulness is not something that you have to “get” or acquire. It is already within you — a deep internal resource available and patiently waiting to be released and used in the service of learning, growing, and healing. In a very real sense, this connecting is happening right now, in this very moment as you read these lines – and indeed in every moment of our lives. So this is not something that has to be started – rather, as a subtle process, it’s more of a refining and increasing in awareness.
Actually it’s quite difficult to talk about since it really has to be experienced. The moment we call the process “this” or ”that” – even though we need to use words to describe – can only approximate talking about it. Its like pointing at the moon is never be the moon itself.
A balanced sense of health and well-being…
One of the effects of increased awareness of all aspects of self – including body, mind, heart and soul is a balanced sense of health and well-being. This awareness also gives rise to an increased effectiveness in dealing with life’s difficulties and challenges. An increased ability to assume responsibility for one’s own life, and acting in accord with one’s values.
A skill which can be learned and practiced over time…
Mindfulness is a skill which can be learned, cultivated and practiced using specific meditation techniques, some of which are over five thousand years old, and have been refined and developed over the past thirty or so years.
Teachers such as Thich Nhat Hanh and Chogyam Trungpa have played a central role in bringing Mindfulness and other meditation techniques to the West. And teachers such Jon Kabat-Zinn, Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzburg and Tara Brach have all been instrumental in integrating the healing aspects of Mindfulness Meditation practices with psychological awareness and healing.
In my approaches to therapy, Mindfulness techniques are really foundational. Integrating Mindfulness techniques with Cognitive and Behavioral treatment approaches, provide powerful and effective strategies for working with Depression, Anxiety and Stress-related symptoms.
I invite you to have a look at Mindfulness approaches to Individual work using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (click on) and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (click on) -
as well as approaches to Couples and Marriage therapy using Gottman Couples therapy (click on) and Dialectical Behavioral therapy with High Conflict couples (click on).
Further reading:
“Full Catastrophe Living” – Jon Kabat-Zinn Ph.D.
“Heal Thyself” – Saki Santorelli M.Ed.
“The Happiness Trap” – Russ Harris MD.
“After the Ecstacy, the laundry” – Jack Kornfield Ph.D
“The Miracle of Mindfulness: a Manual on Meditation” – Thich Nhat Hanh.
“Wherever you go, there you are : Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life” – Jon Kabat-Zinn Ph.D
Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depression: a new approach to preventing relapse, by Zindel V. Segal, J. Mark G. Williams, John D. Teasdale. Guilford Press, 2002. .
Mindfulness-based treatment approaches: clinician’s guide to evidence base and applications, by Ruth A. Baer. Academic Press, 2006.
Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Anxious Children: A Manual for Treating Childhood Anxiety, by Randye Semple, Jennifer Lee. New Harbinger Pubns Inc, 2010.
Research and Effectiveness
While much research centered on mindfulness seeks to reduce stress, another large body of research has examined mindfulness as a tool to elevate and sustain “positive” emotional states as well and their related outcomes:
1) Fredrickson (2008) studied the building of personal resources through increased daily experiences of positive emotions due to meditation. She found that meditation practice showed increases over time in purpose in live, social support, and decreased illness symptoms.
(Fredrickson, BL et al. (2008). Open hearts build lives: positive emotions, induced through loving-kindness meditation, build consequential personal resources. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95(5).0
2) Davidson (2003) found that mindfulness meditation increased brain and immune function in positive ways, but highlighted the need for additional research.
(Davidson, RJ et al. (2003). Alterations in brain and immune function produced by mindfulness meditation. Psychosomatic Medicine, 65(3).)
3) Jain and Shapiro (2007) conducted a study to show that mindfulness meditation may be specific in its ability to “reduce distractive and ruminative thoughts and behaviors”, which may provide a “unique mechanism by which mindfulness meditation reduces distress”.
Jain, S et al. (2007). A randomized controlled trial of mindfulness meditation versus relaxation training:Effects on distress, positive states of mind, rumination, and distraction. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 33(1).)
4) Arch (2006) found emotional regulation following focused breathing. A breathing group provided moderately positive responses to emotionally neutral visual slides, while “unfocused attention and worry” groups responded significantly more negatively to neutral slides.
(Arch, JJ and Craske, MG, (2006). Mechanisms of mindfulness: Emotion regulation following a focused breathing induction. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 44(12).
5) Brown (2003) found declines in mood disturbance and stress following mindfulness interventions.
(Brown, KW and Ryan, RM. (2003). The benefits of being present: Mindfulness and its role in psychological well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(4).)
6) Jha (2010) found that a sufficient meditation training practice may protect against functional impairments associated with high-stress contexts.
(Jha, Ap et al. (2010). Examining the protective effects of mindfulness training on working memory capacity and affective experience. )
7) Garland (2009) found declines in stress after mindfulness interventions, which are potentially due to the positive re-appraisals of what were at first appraised as stressors.
(Garland, E et al. (2009). The role of mindfulness in positive reappraisal. Explore-The Journal of Science and Healing, 5(1).)