mindful intentPamela Love l l

Mindfulness

Our Plan for Today

Purpose:• To introduce mindfulness

• What is it?• Why is seems to be important now? • What are the benefits? • Interspersed with mindful meditations• Suggestions of things you can do starting today

Ground rules:• Come with your curiosity• Turn your technology off for the duration• Experiment, try all or some of the meditations• Do what feels right for you

What is mindfulness?

Paying attention

On purpose

In the present moment

Non-judgmentally

(curiosity, openness, kindness)

Jon Kabat-Zinn

Listening Practice

What mindfulness isn’t

Why is paying attention important?

‘A wandering mind is an unhappy mind’

‘The ability to think about what is not happening is a cognitive achievement that comes at an emotional cost.’

Killingsworth MA, Gilbert DT. A Wandering Mind is an Unhappy Mind. Science 12 November 2010: Vol. 330. no. 6006, p 932

.

What is Stress?

When demand exceeds the means

You sense (real or perceived) a demand is placed on you and you don’t feel as though you have the resources to meet the demand. (physical, emotional or mental resources)

Stress

National Mental Health Survey of Doctors

and Medical Students 2013

Burn out

Experience psychological distress

Suicidal thoughts

Drinking too much alcohol

Stigma attached to mental health issues

Depression and Anxiety

The hidden cost of poor mental health in Australian workplaces is estimated to be $10.9 billion a year.

For every dollar spent in this area, the average business could see a ROI of $2.30.

Heads Up – PWC report 2015 - beyondblue

Distraction

What is your experience with distraction for even an hour in your day?

We develop a habit of distraction andit is hard to let it go

Has this ever happened to you?

Has this ever happened to you?

Are we in a state of constant distraction?

Trying to deal with too much input results in:

Black and white thinking: perspective and shades of grey disappear

Difficulty in staying organised, setting priorities and

managing time

Feeling a constant level of panic and guilt

Less self-control

Hallowell EM. Overloaded circuits: why smart people underperform. Harv Bus Rev. 2005 Jan;83(1):54-62, 116

Not a personal failure!

The new normal

• Unrelenting demands

• 24/7 connectivity

• Inability to concentrate

• Greater emotional complexity

• No structured down time

• Glorification of being busy

The Dilemma

Two problems

that aren’t going away….

1. Intense multi-focus demands

2. Sheer volume of work

Living life from the neck up

Body Scan Practice

Why tune into body sensations?

• To detect early warning signals for unhelpful thoughts, emotional states or actions

• It is the key to self-awareness

• Gets us out of our heads

• Puts us in touch with our body

wisdom (gut feelings)

Other ways of bringing awareness to the body

Mindful movement

yoga, qigong, walking

Why train attention?

Stress Reactivity

Stress reactivity

Getting upset is natural when our:

Physical safety

Achievement of goals

Attachment and connectedness to others

is threatened.

We make fast, habitual responses to these threats AND they always come at a cost

Stress reactivity

What happens under threat? (stress)

Heart rate? Blood pressure? Sweating? Tension? Blood flow? Digestion? Immune system? Reproduction? Sleep?

What’s happening in our brains?

The amygdala (threat detector) is in reactive mode which releases cortisol in our brains. Our executive function shuts down, our working memory shuts down and we lose concentration and attention. As this happens, we lose perspective and negative emotional states take over.

‘Real’ or ‘imagined’ threat

= Same physiological responseThe body/mind can’t distinguish

•Imagined scenarios of failure•Perceived stress (I’m not up to this)•Comparison of actual situation with a desired ideal•Recall of disturbing or distressing event•Self-criticism•Rumination about a negative event

The power of the mind

I’ve experienced

some terrible things in my life

and some of them actually happened.

Mark Twain

Trying to talk our way out of it

It isn’t enough

“Don’t be silly.”

“You shouldn’t feel like that…you know you are good at your job.”

“You’ve got no reason to be worried about this presentation, meeting, phone call.”

“ I shouldn’t be upset at….”

etc, etc, etc

Threats: outside and inside

Threats from the ‘outside’ Lion, assailant, aggressor, bus

It is smart to move into “doing mode” to move away or remove threat

Threats from the ‘inside’ Fatigue, irritation, fear, anger, shame, overwhelm

Makes it worse when we move into “doing mode” to move away or remove threat – habits form that keep us away from dealing with our experience in a skillful way.

Counter-intuitively – we need to allow, approach, befriend the ‘inside’ threats to regulate the body/mind

Brain training

Breathing Practice

Benefits of training attention

• Emotional regulation in the brain

• Decreased reactivity, increased response flexibility

• Boosts working memory

• Increased focus

• Reduced rumination

• Decreased anxiety and depression

• Increased empathy and compassion

• Enhances relationships

Physical benefits of training attention

• Ability to work with physical and emotional pain

• Reduced levels of cortisol

• Increased immune function

• Lowering of blood pressure

• Increased cortical thickening

• Less telomere decay (protective caps on chromosomes)

When we’re stressed:

There is always a sense of deficiency

Worry is mostly future focused

Generally, there is adversive judgment going on – we are often thinking how things shouldn’t be this way

Mindfulness helps by:

Becoming aware of what is actually happening rather than what we imagine

Taking a better look at our emotions and thoughts and begin to question them

Bringing awareness to the situation, we often make wiser choices rather than our habitual responses

Breathing Room: It’s all about choice

‘Between stimulus and response

there is a space. In that space is

our power to choose our response. In our

response lies our growth and our freedom.’

Viktor Frankl

Things you can do:

Bring attention to the body (physical characteristics) Calms the flight-fight system in the body Activates rest and digest system in the body Calms mental chatter Awareness that things are always changing

Name the emotion (…..is arising) ‘Name it and tame it’ Gives perspective Gives sense of relationship to the experience

Recognize thoughts and stories Gives perspective Notice patterns or habits of thinking

Many times a day…..

Stop

Take a breath

Observe your body sensations, emotional

state and thoughts

Proceed into the next moment with greater

clarity and calm

Using mindfulness, consider…

Switching from “doing” mode to “being” mode by:

• Using the mindfulness bell app starting with a duration of 5 minutes twice a day – full stops

• STOP breath – commas in your day 15-60 sec

• Consider an app to get you started

• Develop simple daily mindfulness habits

• Use the free 10 minute guided meditation

• Use the 7 minute 3-centre check in

mindfulintent.com.au

Introducing Mindfulness

Always voluntary

Tie to other institutional priorities

Make it about resilience – find ways to release the stigma

Go into the project mindfully

Welcome resistance

Building Resilience at Harvard – mindful.org

http://www.mindful.org/building-resilience-at-harvard/

Giving things attention…

Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the

attention it deserves.

Albert Einstein

Closing

Today

• We’ve tried a couple of mindfulness practices

• Discovered the benefits of developing a mindfulness practice

• Have some ideas of what you can do to live your life with greater attention and intention

• Questions?

Thank you