Can learning to mindfully notice our thoughts and feelings help us to live our lives with clearer purpose?

By Georgia Watkins-Allen

I’m an experienced clinical psychologist, but I’m also someone who is naturally impulsive… I’ve spent too much time over the years pulling my foot out of my mouth, or regretting my actions after reacting hastily, rather than responding in a way more true to my personal values. Like many of my clients, I have often felt frustrated and tangled in my inner turmoil instead of being fully present with the people and things around me that I care about. Bogged in my anxieties, my frustrations.

Luckily, a benefit of my clinical work with clients struggling with their anxiety and depression is that I can directly experience and learn a lot from paying close attention to the ways they also get stuck. In doing so I also become a better psychologist – helping my clients flourish, teaching skills to connect more with their values, and more effectively handle their difficult situations.

My children and my friends are quite naturally among the most important things in my life. Spending time with them is truly a treasure. One beautiful Saturday morning I was down by the bay with my kids and a couple of girlfriends from work. It was a rare opportunity for us to be together. I really wanted it to be a special day. But my mind had other ideas! Being with workmates triggered angst about a mutual colleague who had been making our lives at work very difficult. How I fought with my mind! It seemed this person’s name was rising on the wind trying to chase me down. After a bit I began to notice how my worries were ruining my time with these beautiful women and our children.

I grew more and more annoyed with myself, with my mind. I struggled to be present with my girlfriends and kids and enjoy this precious time. Becoming aware, with mindfulness, on purpose more fully in the moment, I spotted the battle. I named the fight with my thoughts, observed the tension in my jaw and muscles. I noticed my frustration as sensations in my body. In doing so I became able to “step back” from the battle. I gently smiled at myself for getting hooked, like a fish struggling on a line. Being with my workmates had simply cued my mind to  “fix the problem” of our difficult colleague.

But this was not the best time to fix a work problem! All of us need a break from such problems at times, to simply BE in our relationships and nurture ourselves. So I thanked my mind for trying to help, gave myself permission to let go of this concern until back at work on Monday. I spoke up, and shared the battle I had been in with my girlfriends. I gently suggested we take a few moments to ground ourselves.  To focus on our senses. To connect with each other on this beautiful day. As mothers and as friends.

So I really noticed the cool sand on my feet. The dappled warmth of the sun as it shone through the leaves on my back. The laughter of our children playing. The fragrance of the pine needles and the salty air. The bickering of seagulls. The soft breeze as it stroked my skin. Once I had compassionately named my struggle and focused on my senses I was more able to gently step aside from the battle and move towards those around me that I value so dearly.

It’s not about trying to change our anxieties, our frustrations, our negative thoughts about what’s happening in our lives. It’s about not fighting it. Not using the harsh strategies of struggle, those of war. The more we fight our thoughts, the more they tend to fight back! By self-compassionately stepping back from the battle to simply notice difficult thoughts drifting in and out of our minds we can return to being here and now. To be with what really matters.

It sure can be tricky, this mindfulness stuff! Training yourself to simply notice challenging thoughts and feelings can take some practice. Like any skill, finding an expert coach can make a huge difference. I’ve certainly noticed that in my own life.

And you really can learn to simply notice what’s happening in your mind and your body and use mindfulness to more skillfully come back to the present. You CAN use these skills to notice what’s happening inside you – and make much better choices. To live a more fulfilled life – more like the person you want to be, instead of being hooked by unhelpful habits.

Can you identify with some of what I’ve experienced? Would you like to spend more time moving towards the people and things you care about, and less time battling with your inner struggles? Take a step toward that life! Call Brisbane ACT Centre on 3193 1072. Find out how I can help you with effective skills to more easily choose to move toward the people and things YOU care about in life, even in the presence of your inner obstacles.

Is perfectionism your friend or foe?

By Tunteeya Yamaoka

Recently I conducted a Facebook Live Seminar with a group called “Empowering Women in Property”. These women identified with being perfectionists and over-achievers, which helped them to accomplish results. However in getting caught up in thoughts about having to achieve impeccable outcomes, they found it difficult to engage in the present moment. Having a perfectionist inner critic, constantly judging their own and others behavior was exhausting.

Most high performing individuals would argue that the reason why they can perform at such a great standard is because they are perfectionists. However, sometimes perfectionism can be draining as nothing ever seems to be good enough. Is there a way to let perfectionism be our friend without letting it control us?

When we can learn to observe when perfectionism is present and notice when it is taking us away from what’s important to us, we are immediately gaining some separation from our thoughts, allowing us to make more choices about how we are going to let perfectionism influence our behavior.

Learning to notice and become mindful of our thoughts allows us to create some flexibility with perfectionism. We can let perfectionism support us when we want to gain results, but we can also let it go when we need to connect with what is important to us, such as our loved ones, our hobbies and our health.

Just like there are times when perfectionism can be our ally when we need to perform, there are times when it can take us away from our values. It is important to bring awareness to our thoughts and notice whether perfectionism is supporting the life we truly want to live, whether it is fulfilling our hearts greatest desires.

If perfectionism is not adding quality to your life, we can learn to change our relationship with it by accepting it as our “personal assistant”. Notice when that personal assistant is being extremely hard on you, notice your reaction to it, is it helpful or unhelpful to struggle with it?

You can simply thank your personal assistant for supporting you, because it wants to help you. It may continue to criticize you throughout the day, but you have a choice to get caught up and argue with it (you know it always wins), or simply acknowledge it and let it be.

For help with taming your perfectionistic inner critic and instead accepting it as your “personal assistant” to be thanked and listened to, or politely ignored, get in contact with me by calling Brisbane ACT Centre or email tunteeya@brisbaneactcentre.com.au

Tunteeya Yamaoka

Reference: ACT Made Simple: Dr Russ Harris

How to Bring More Mindfulness into Parenting

By Marcela Costanzo

Have you ever wondered about what it means to be a mindful parent? You probably have heard that mindfulness means to be fully present in whatever you do, devoting your full attention to the present moment, without worrying about the future or ruminating about the past. So how can we incorporate this practice to the set of skills that makes us even better parents? Firstly, we should be realistic – our minds WILL worry about the future of our kids, and WILL sure as heck dwell on things we might, as parents, have done better. So first acknowledge this – it’s entirely normal, and completely human – next do our best to forgive ourselves, and then…

Here are three simple questions you can ask yourself to check that you are fully present with your child:

What is my child experiencing in this particular moment?

What does my child feel? How is s/he feeling right now?

What are my needs as a parent/carer right now?

If your mind is anything like mine, as you read the above, it will start telling you things like: ‘Life with children is busy and fast’, and ‘Raising children is challenging’, ‘I have so many things to do with cooking, driving them to activities’, ‘This is another thing I have to do now’, and so on. Then, don’t forget to thank your mind for reminding you of all this…. AND take the opportunity to think of the many advantages of mindful parenting, such as a stronger relationship with your children, a calmer state of affairs, and more enjoyment of parenting just to name a few.

So I would like to invite you to use mindfulness in your parenting more often. As therapists often say you can incorporate mindfulness in anything you do and a really great way to start is by paying attention to your breath. Why don’t you start experimenting what happens when you stop something you are doing, pay attention to your breath, and notice what your feelings are and where the needs of your child lay.

And remember your mind will wonder because this is what minds do, so when this happens there is no need to stress or criticise your practice, just notice, then bring your attention to your breath and notice what your child is doing. Remember to make room for your feelings and treat yourself with compassion. Happy mindful parenting!

The Sleep Paradox - How Working Harder on Your Sleep Makes it Worse

By Dr. Nga Tran

As a psychiatrist sleep problems are one of the most common issues people come to me for help with.  It may be the primary problem.  More often, it occurs hand in hand with depression, anxiety, substance abuse, major mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder or psychosis, grief, major life changes, medical illnesses, pain, or basically any mental health problem.

What do the best sleepers do to get to sleep?  Nothing – they just lie down and off they go.

What do those of us who can’t get to sleep do?  A long list of things including special routines involving baths/warm drinks/music/pyjamas, a variety of over-the-counter or prescription medications, tossing and turning, searching for various pillows/beds, adjusting their fans/air conditioning, sticking to rules about whether to get out of bed or how many hours to aim for, reading books/watching TV, etc. The list can be very long.

Yet sleep is not something one can switch on or off under conscious control.

Could it be that in all our well-meaning efforts to find ways of controlling how much we sleep, we actually create conditions where it is less likely to occur?

Your likelihood of falling asleep depends on two things:

  1. The circadian rhythm – your body’s inbuilt clock which affects the timing of sleep and is co-ordinated with the day-night cycle
  2. Sleep pressure/sleep drive – this is like a timer or counter.  The longer you have been awake, the stronger the desire and need to sleep

However, sleep is not like a tap or switch you can turn on at will.  We need to think of sleep like a guest we’re inviting to a party, and all we can do is create conditions where it is likely to come and stay as long as possible!  Yet we cannot dictate it to come, and the more desperate we are for it to visit, the more it’s likely to stay away.  That is the paradox.  This can be illustrated by this example:  if I  connected to you a sleep detector, held a gun to you and said that I will shoot unless you fall asleep, you can see how this would be impossible for you to achieve.

High arousal or stress is not conducive to sleep.  This explains the phenomenon of nodding off when you give up trying to sleep.  If you have had trouble sleeping, it seems intuitive that you want to work harder to make sure the problem gets solved.  However in trying to fix sleep, we can paradoxically set up a pattern of stress and high arousal around bed time which further exacerbates the problem.

Here are some ways that we can inadvertently make it harder to sleep:

  • Creating certain routines or conditions which we feel must be in place to get to sleep
  • Having mental rules about what type of sleep or how many hours we should get
  • Trying to go to bed early to ensure it occurs
  • Turning down social or meaningful activities to focus on getting sleep
  • Getting angry about not being able to sleep
  • Worrying about the consequences of not being able to sleep – eg “I won’t cope tomorrow”, “I really need to sleep now”, “this is not good for my health”

Here are some suggestions to let go of the battle and change your relationship with sleep (and therefore reduce arousal):

  • Don’t build elaborate routines or set up strict rules
  • Ensure you spend your day and evenings doing what you care about and is meaningful to you
  • Know that there is no “normal” sleep, and let go of expectations of what that should be
  • Learn to be flexible and accept whatever occurs
  • Practise noticing your bodily sensations, breath, sounds or thoughts that are present if you are not asleep, and learn to be with what is there – there are many mindfulness apps that can help teach you this
  • Commit to doing what you can the next day, regardless of how your sleep was the night before
  • Be kind to yourself with yourself when tiredness impacts on what you can do during the day

Here are some general things which can get in the way of sleep to be aware of:

  • Caffeine or other stimulants
  • Strenuous exercise late in the evening
  • Mentally stimulating activities late in the evening
  • Electronic screens of any sort, especially if this involves high arousal activities such as posting on social media, planning or purchasing

Once you take this approach, the natural circadian rhythm and sleep homeostasis can be free to do what they naturally do.  This explains how the good sleepers do it – without trying.

Where’s Your Head At? Connecting to the Here and Now to Focus On What’s Important (Video)

Where’s Your Head At? (Video)

Connecting to the Here and Now to Focus On What’s Important

Would you like to improve your performance, reduce feelings of stress and increase your satisfaction with life and work? These are the three key benefits offered by mindfulness practice, and are well supported by scientific evidence. Mindfulness practice has exploded in popularity. Major tech companies offer mindfulness training. For instance, Search Inside Yourself (SIY)  was developed at Google along with some of the world’s leading neuroscientists. The benefits of meditation are taught and studied in academic institutions across Australia and are the subject of ever more articles and think pieces.

In late September last year the Brisbane ACT Centre’s own founder & director, Dr. Rob Purssey, presented at QLD TAFE Brisbane’s inaugural TAFE Services conference. Rob presented a warmly received talk to over 200 attendees with the title “Where’s Your Head At? Connecting to the Here and Now to Focus On What’s Important”. You can download the slides here.

The conference was held for TAFE’s education and business staff with a theme of ‘Making Connections’ – connections with students, educators, colleagues, industry partners and community. To make a genuine and authentic connection to someone we have to be present, we have to pay attention – and to be mindful. Rob’s talk aimed to give participants the tools they need to practice mindfulness in their professional & personal lives.

The slides above show the progress of the talk, Rob starts with an explanation of mindfulness and mindfulness practice and moves into using the ACT matrix as a simple and effective framework for noticing our own behaviour more purposefully.

Here’s some highlights:

Slide 3: “Mindfulness is the ability to know what’s happening in your head at any given moment without getting carried away by it.”

Slide 6: Benefits of Mindfulness in Life + Work 

  • improve focus and concentration
  • increase self-awareness
  • reduce the impact of stressful thoughts and feelings
  • build better relationships
  • catch self-defeating behaviours, and do more effective ones
  • be aware of self-defeating thought processes, and ‘let them go’

3 KEY BENEFITS: improve performance, reduce stress, and more satisfaction in work and life. (c/- ACT Mindfully training by Russ Harris)

Slide 8: “Consciously bringing simple awareness to your here-and-now experience, with openness, interest and receptiveness.” (The Happiness Trap – Russ Harris)

Slide 14: Mindfulness (& meditation) isn’t about relaxation. It can be boring, frustrating, anxiety inducing – which is normal and ok – just notice and refocus. Simply focus on something (eg the breath), when you notice that you’ve wandered bring the focus back. It’s a skill, like anything else.

Why is breathing so often used? Convenience, simplicity & cuts down distraction.

Slide 25: Introducing the ACT Matrix

The ACT Matrix is a tool, a simple point of view, used to help you to be the person you want to be more often, even when you’re under stressful situations. You can use the matrix point of view to notice and sort your behaviour into the matrix. Simply pause and notice then sort your behaviour into 4 quadrants – values and purpose, hooks that are showing up, towards moves that are moving you towards the kind of person you want to be, and away moves that are normal actions to avoid painful stimuli – but which we can overdo.

Slide 30: Mindfulness (be here now)
+ Values (know what matters)

+ Action (do what works) = Psychological Flexibility

(living your life more freely, fully, and effectively)

Being where you are and
doing what’s important… to YOU!

Conclusion

Mindfulness & ACT are valuable tools to help you be the person you want to be more often. By taking just a little bit of time to focus on the here and now you can get some fantastic benefits. If you’re interested in learning more, don’t hesitate to get in touch with our friendly staff at the Brisbane ACT Centre.

The Power of Self-Compassion

By Bernadette Devenish

We would never criticise and judge our loved ones or friends as harshly as we do ourselves. Self-compassion is something we can give ourselves when we fail and struggle, when we feel ashamed and disappointed. Self-compassion helps us to become mindful of our humanness. It is not easy to be a human, we all struggle, we all suffer and we all make mistakes at times. As the great R.E.M. song says – ‘Everybody Hurts Sometime’.

All humans experience disappointment, relationship difficulties, frustration, anxiety, rejection, illness, anger, fear, loss, guilt, and self-doubt. Giving as much compassion to ourselves as we would to a friend dealing with similar struggles helps us to lighten up on ourselves, reducing our tendency for perfection and self-imposed high standards. We expect so much of ourselves and our minds beat us up when we fall short of our unrealistic expectations. Giving ourselves compassion allows us to acknowledge with kindness that we are suffering.

Self-compassion brings us closer to others during difficult times, reducing feelings of isolation. Self-compassion and mindfulness help us to observe and notice ourselves and our actions with clarity and honest openness. Comforting ourselves as we struggle with difficult experiences enhances our relationships by helping us to face our faults, making it more likely that we will admit to and repair our mistakes. Self-compassion and mindfulness helps to interrupt patterns of negative automatic emotional reactions.

Awareness that we are suffering in this moment and allowing kindness toward our own suffering helps us to bounce back from inevitable difficult and challenging human experiences.  Self-compassion also helps us to connect with others with the knowledge that we all suffer and we all make mistakes. Paying attention to our moment to moment internal and external experiences without judgment using mindfulness and self-compassion builds our flexibility, adaptability and tolerance to the inevitable challenges of being a human and in relationship with others.

Walk Slowly ~ Danna Faulds…

It only takes a reminder to breathe,
a moment to be still, and just like that,
something in me settles, softens, makes
space for imperfection. The harsh voice
of judgment drops to a whisper and I
remember again that life isn’t a relay
race; that we will all cross the finish
line; that waking up to life is what we
were born for. As many times as I
forget, catch myself charging forward
without even knowing where I’m going,
that many times I can make the choice
to stop, to breathe, and be, and walk
slowly into the mystery.

To learn more about how to bring mindfulness and self-compassion into your life contact the Brisbane ACT Centre in Milton www.brisbaneactcentre.com.au

References

Chapman. A. (2016). The mind as a powerful storyteller. Retrieved from http://www.nzherald.co.nz/wanganui-chronicle/midweek/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503658&objectid=11629686

Harris. R. (2016) How to develop self-compassion in just about anyone. Retrieved from eBook https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1ped_h4T7Q4WW10SDd0ZS1aRnM/view?pref=2&pli=1

Is “Mindful Colouring” Truly Mindfulness?

By Dr. Russ Harris

Seems like the “mindfulness colouring book” craze is getting stronger with every passing month. But is it really practicing mindfulness, to colour in pictures in a book?
Well the answer is … it depends.

Almost any activity you can think of can be done mindfully … or not. Cooking, cleaning, making love, playing guitar, having a shower, working out at the gym, driving your car, playing with your kids: these are all activities that can be done mindfully … or not.

Mindfulness is not inbuilt into the activity itself; mindfulness is a quality of attention that you can bring into any type of activity … or not. You can colour in a book mindfully, or mindlessly. If you colour in a book in a manner that consciously develops openness, curiosity, and flexibly focused attention – we could say that is mindful colouring.
But if you are colouring in that book mainly to distract yourself from anxiety or to put off dealing with an important but stressful task or problem – then rather than mindfulness, it’s what in ACT we call “experiential avoidance” (the ongoing attempt to avoid or get rid of unwanted thoughts and feelings).

And if you are colouring in that book while lost in your thoughts or daydreaming – again, that isn’t mindfulness. It’s what in ACT we call “cognitive fusion”.
Of course, part of the problem is how we actually define mindfulness. It’s not like there’s one agreed definition. But even without a firm consensus, most authorities on mindfulness would agree on these things:

– Mindfulness is a form of attention-training.
– Mindfulness involves learning how to flexibly focus your attention to important aspects of your here-and-now experience: aspects of your inner world, external world, or both.
– Mindfulness includes qualities of attention such as curiosity and openness.

I like to summarise it thus: Mindfulness means paying attention, with openness, curiosity, and flexibility.

So we can make “colouring in” a mindful activity – if and when we infuse the process with these qualities. But how many people are actually doing this when they get stuck into their “mindfulness colouring” books?

Unfortunately, many people equate mindfulness with absorption or relaxation. But they are not one and the same. For example, we can be absorbed in reading a book or watching a movie – but these are rarely if ever mindful activities. Why not? Because if you tried to read a book mindfully – noticing the smell of the paper, the sounds of the pages turning, the texture of the paper against your fingers, the movements of your eyes scanning the words, the patterns of the ink on the paper, and so on – this would actually ruin your enjoyment; it would “pull you out of the story”. And the same goes for watching a movie or playing a video game. So just because we are absorbed in something, doesn’t mean we are being mindful.

Similarly, mindfulness does not mean relaxation. Many relaxing activities are far removed from mindfulness – e.g. daydreaming in a hammock, dozing on the beach, or ‘drifting off’ on a massage table. Furthermore, doing an activity mindfully doesn’t mean you will be relaxed; for example, when mindfully addressing interpersonal conflict, or mindfully dealing with an emergency situation, or mindfully parenting when your kids are completely ‘out of control’.

So the take home message: no activity is inherently mindful, in and of itself. If the activity is done in a state of fusion (lost in your thoughts) or as a type of distraction/experiential avoidance (trying to distract yourself from or avoid/get rid of unwanted thoughts and feelings), then it’s not mindful. And similarly, almost any activity can be turned into a mindfulness exercise, if we bring flexible, open, curious attention to it.

Yes, even colouring in pictures!

By Russ Harris.

Online Courses – www.imlearningact.com
In-Person Workshops – www.actmindfully.com.au
Public Resources – www.thehappinesstrap.com

Can Washing Dishes Improve Your Life?

By Claire Welshe

When was the last time you looked at your empty coffee mug and realised you had no recollection of drinking it?  Perhaps you even wondered if someone else drank it…. until you realised you were the only one at home!

It’s easy to go into “automatic pilot” when we’re at home, completing daily chores routinely while our minds run away with worries… such as; who you will talk to at your friend’s party tonight or whether your presentation at work yesterday was good enough.  The next thing you know, you feel so stressed that you just want to run away and hide under the doona of your unmade bed.

Believe it or not, approaching domestic chores in a deliberate, mindful way can help you manage your stress levels.

Start by choosing an activity that you do every day, say washing the dishes, and consciously set this daily task as a reminder to do some mindfulness practice.  Start simply, perhaps just by noticing the sounds made by bowls and cutlery clinking together in the sink.  Then notice how the warm suds against your hands contrast the cool evening air on your shoulders.  Smell the lemony scent of detergent mixed with the remnant cooking smells of the meal you just enjoyed.  Notice the rainbow of colours reflected off the tiny, glistening soap bubbles.  Move the dishcloth slowly and deliberately, enjoying the satisfaction of seeing a grimy bowl transform into a sparkling dish, occasionally slow-dripping clear water droplets as it dries.   When you notice your mind starting to wander away, gently bring your attention back to the dishes.  Focus solely on the task.  Don’t stop until you’re done.

Even doing a small mindfulness practise, such as the one described above, can train your mind to bring your attention and awareness under voluntary control, rather than on “automatic pilot”, when we let our minds run away with its endless list of worries.  Mindfulness simply involves moment to moment awareness of your experience, without judgement.  Despite being a simple concept to describe, mindfulness can sometimes be difficult to put into practise, especially when we have developed a habit of focussing attention on worries about the future and rumination of the past instead of what is happening right here, right now.  To help train your brain in this skill, choose an activity that you know you will perform every day and use it to serve as a daily reminder to flex your mindfulness muscle.  It can be having a shower, drinking your morning coffee, folding laundry or cooking the evening meal.

Choose one thing to start with, practice it every day if you can, and notice the greater sense of mental wellbeing, improved working memory, reduced stress, improved focus, reduced emotional reactivity and greater flexibility in your thinking that will start to follow.  The more you practice, the better you get!

Who knew that washing dishes could improve your life so much!

Mindfulness: Being Where You Are and Doing What's Important

Courtesy of: Hank Robb, PhD, ABPP

I purposely did not title this “meditation” because it seems to me the word “meditation” now has quite a number of different and contradictory meanings. One meaning is a practice that produces the “relaxation response”, the opposite of the “stress response”.

I think relaxation is a great thing, but that is not what I mean to talk about here. There are lots of good instructions to achieve a “relaxation response”. Simply focusing on your breathing and noticing that while you can control your breathing, if you do nothing at all, breathing goes on all by itself. Focusing on this continual process of inhaling and exhaling, inhaling and exhaling and bringing yourself back to the process whenever your “mind wanders” is one good way to achieve relaxation. I’ve known a number of people who use it as an aid to falling asleep. If you are tired and you “relax”, sleep will often follow.

The problem of the “wandering mind” is that you may find you simply are no longer psychologically where you are physically. That’s not so bad unless your aim is to do something you consider important. Since there is no time or place when one can do ANYTHING—including important things—except right here and right now, then psychologically, being some place other than the present moment is a problem.

Thus the aim of this article is to assist in bringing ourselves into “the present moment” or, said another way, “being right here, right now”, or said yet another way, being psychologically where we are physically.

Why? So we can better do what we choose to make important with our life.

I’m going to call this “becoming mindful”. The problem isn’t so much that one’s mind wanders. The problem is more that we go “wandering” along with it. There is a certain sense in which each of us is “our body”. However, in another more psychological sense, we “have bodies”. These are MY hands, MY feet and this is MY mouth.

From this more psychological point of view, your body is something you “possess” rather than something that you “are”. The same thing can be said of your thoughts, by which I mean those “radio programs” inside your head, or your images (by which I mean any experience with a “picture”), or your bodily sensations (I’ll just call them “sensations” for short). By sensations, I mean things like your heart is beating faster or slower, your hands feeling cooler or warmer, or your stomach feeling tense or more relaxed.

Sometimes we can control our thoughts, images and sensations. Many times we cannot. Thoughts like, “What a loser I am,” or craving sensations to use a psychoactive substance, or sexual images more or less just “show up”. We don’t ask them to be there; they just “arrive” whether we want them or not. If I ask you not to think of a white bear, my guess that you have already thought of one. You didn’t “ask” it to come… it just did!

While we may not be able to stop our thoughts, images and sensations from “arriving”, we don’t have to “believe” them when they do. There is a big difference between having the thought, “My life is awful!” and BELIEVING the thought, “My life is awful!”. There is a big difference between “surfing an urge” and “tumbling around in it”. You don’t have to avoid urges, or thoughts, or images, in order to avoid being controlled by them.

One thing that can really help in choosing whether to “buy” a thought or image or sensation is to first notice, “Hey, that’s a THOUGHT! Hey, that’s an IMAGE! Hey, that’s a SENSATION!” That “psychological YOU” that does the choosing can then better choose whether to take a thought or an image or a sensation “seriously”. YOU will make that choice much more mindfully if YOU first recognize them for what they are… namely nothing more than a bunch of YOUR thoughts, YOUR images and YOUR sensations. They aren’t YOU… YOU are the person having them.

There are some characteristics of this “psychological YOU” that are worth noting. First, the “psychological YOU” has been around for about as long as you can remember. When you were five or eight or ten and had a completely different body, pretty much the same YOU that is here now, was there back then. Secondly, this psychological YOU is a little like the eye of a hurricane. While thoughts, images and sensations swirl around and come and go, this psychological YOU remains pretty much as it always has been. The experience is a little like the way a playing field remains pretty much the same even though the many games played on it may be very different; or like the way a kitchen remains pretty much the same even though the many meals prepared in it may be very different. Sometimes it is nice to experience a sense of stability in life especially if many other places are changing. This “YOU” provides that sense of stability.

A third (and perhaps most important) characteristic is that when in contact with this psychological YOU, it is quite clear that no matter how “out of control” YOUR thoughts, images or sensations seem to be, YOU are very much in control of YOUR hands, arms, feet and mouth. No matter how much YOU have the thought, “I MUST drink,” YOU can choose to do things with YOUR hands, arms, feet and mouth other than drink. No matter how strongly YOU have an urge to avoid work, YOU can choose to do things with your hands, arms, feet and mouth that keep you focused on work. No matter how vividly YOU have an image of a short run of enjoyment, YOU can do the things that are important to you in the long run.

So, the kind of mindfulness I am talking about includes being present with YOUR thoughts, images and sensations while recognizing they ARE only a bunch of thoughts, images and sensations, and also recognizing YOU can exert control over your hands, arms, feet and mouth.

The mindfulness I am talking about also includes “being mindful” of what direction you are taking with your hands, arms, feet and mouth. It asks the question, “Am I—right here, right now—in this present moment moving my hands, arms, feet and mouth in a direction that is actually important to me?”

“If I choose to be the best student I can be, are these movements that I am making—right here, right now—in that direction?”

“If I choose to be the best parent I can be, are these movements that I am making—right here, right now—in that direction?”

“If I choose to be the best mate I can be, are these movements that I am making—right here, right now—in that direction?”

“If I choose to be the best worker I can be, are these movements that I am making—right here, right now—in that direction?”

“Whatever direction I choose, are these movements that I am making, in this present moment—right here, right now—taking me in that direction? If not, then with my very next movement, I will put my actions in line with the direction in my life that I choose to make important.”

How does a person “be where they are and do what’s important”?

Like anything else, by practicing! Our thoughts and images and sensations invite us to take a ride out of the present moment and off to… well who knows where!!! However, when we notice they are ONLY thoughts, ONLY images, and ONLY sensations, we can “let them leave the station” without us. We focus on doing—in this very moment—whatever the moment requires for us to move in directions we choose to make important with our life.

Practice, practice, practice and most likely, we’ll get better at:

1. Being mindful that our thoughts, images and sensations are only that;

2. Being mindful of our control over our hands, arms, feet and mouth; and

3. Being mindful of choosing the direction in which we exert that control.

The Neuroscience of Stress and Mindfulness 

Fortunately, the emerging field of cognitive neuroscience is making it increasingly clear that you can train your brain to support you in taking a mindful approach to stress. With practice, you can achieve a more relaxed and transcendent state of mind that will override the rigid, anxious, autopilot mode that stress creates. Even better, the mental skills needed to make this shift aren’t difficult to master, and they get stronger and stronger with practice.

In this section, we’ll give you a brief lesson in brain anatomy and nervous system physiology so you can better understand how stress affects your brain and body. The brain consists of an elaborate system of neural circuitry that functions, in part, to help you maintain an ongoing balance between your stress and relaxation responses. This balancing act is achieved through continual interactions between two different parts of your nervous system: the reticular activating system and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.

The Limbic System 

The limbic system is a complex set of brain structures that includes the hippocampus, hypothalamus, amygdala, and other nearby areas of the mammalian brain. It is primarily responsible for processing emotional responses to stress. The limbic system is integrated into an even more basic part of the nervous system: the reticular activating system.

The reticular activating system consists of the primitive part of the brain that produces emotional arousal and the well-known fight-or-flight response. This part of the brain evolved early on to offer protection from all kinds of natural threats to survival. Thus, it’s exquisitely sensitive to any kind of threat— including threats we just imagine. So you can merely think of a stress-producing situation at work or school and trigger numerous physical, emotional, and mental stress reactions, even though you aren’t actually in that situation. The branch of the nervous system that supports all of these stress-related changes is called the sympathetic nervous system (SNS). The name is ironic, because SNS activation makes you anything but sympathetic!

Sympathetic nervous system activation begins when some type of stress is detected that triggers the limbic system. Within a microsecond, the SNS initiates a cascade of changes in the body. Blood flow in the gut is directed instead to large muscle groups, to prepare them for immediate action, as well as areas in the mid-brain. The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis of your endocrine system works closely with the sympathetic nervous system and releases stress hormones, such as epinephrine (adrenaline) and cortisol, into your bloodstream. These neurochemicals have an immediate impact on blood pressure, heart rate, and skin temperature. The release of cortisol, in particular, also creates cognitive confusion— which is why people under stress often complain of being confused and having difficulty accurately processing information and making decisions.

Unfortunately, even small daily stresses can stimulate the limbic system and produce powerful stress responses. This is why an awkward interaction with a co-worker or classmate can be as stressful as having a tooth extracted. Chronic SNS arousal, a common result of ongoing daily stress, is also thought to be the underlying cause of most stress-related health illnesses, such as hypertension, heart disease, cancer, and diabetes.

The Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex 

The second part of the brain that plays a key role in our response to stress is the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. This region of the brain evolved later than the limbic system and is basically responsible for most of the higher-order functions we normally associate with being human: attention, emotion regulation, planning, abstract reasoning, and complex problem solving. This region of the brain is your friend when it comes to managing your response to stress. It’s closely linked with the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), a part of the brain that puts the brakes on all of the physical changes produced by the SNS. When your PNS is activated, your breathing rate and heart rate slow, your blood pressure decreases, and your blood supply is redirected to your brain.

The good news is that, although the effects of SNS activation are immediate and can seem overwhelmingly intense, in reality the PNS is much stronger. The SNS evolved to help us act quickly and effectively in response to a threat and then shut down once the danger has passed. The basic nature of the SNS is to shut down if it receives any type of signal to do so. Therefore, something as simple as taking one or two deep, slow breaths when you’re under stress will immediately activate your PNS and help the SNS shut down. Better yet, applying the mindfulness techniques you’ll learn in this book will help you counter immediate stress reactions and also produce states of relaxation and clarity of thought that are uniquely associated with prolonged activation of the PNS.

Guidelines for Brain Training 

As we’ve mentioned, the brain is a dynamic organ that can be strengthened via mental exercise. So the question isn’t whether the brain can be trained, but how best to train it. As it turns out, there’s quite a bit of new, research-based information on this very topic. We want to share some of the more important findings because they’ll provide guidance in creating your own brain training program and using that program to develop a mindful approach to daily hassles.

Your Undivided Attention Is Essential 

As with creating any new brain habit, practicing mindfulness techniques requires that you pay attention to what you’re doing. Research backs up this commonsense philosophy, with studies showing that the benefits for neural networks and brain structures only occur when people pay close attention while practicing a particular skill (Davidson and Begley 2012). In other words, learning to pay attention, which just happens to be the first skill needed to be in the here and now, is also necessary for any mental training to have an effect on your neural networks and brain structures. So if this approach is to be effective, you can’t be half in the here and now while the other half of you is thinking about what you’ll eat for dinner. You have to be willing to show up and pay close attention to the specific skill you’re trying to master.

Vary What You Practice 

Functional magnetic resonance imaging studies use highly sophisticated brain imaging technology to reveal the strength of electrical activation in certain areas of the brain produced while the subject is performing various mental tasks, such as paying attention, naming or responding to emotions, and observing physical sensations, to name but a few. The basic finding of interest is that the more regions of the brain that are activated by skill training, the stronger the overall effect is on brain efficiency (Davidson and Begley 2012).

For example, the benefits of practicing observing skills (which you’ll learn in chapter 4) increase when you shift back and forth between what you’re aware of externally— like objects, people, smells, or touch—and internally , like thoughts, feelings, or memories. The ability to observe external and internal information is controlled by different structures or neural networks in the brain, so repeatedly shifting focus on purpose strengthens the linkages between these seemingly distinct skills. Therefore, in this book we offer a variety of specific skills to practice; collectively, they’ll give you a greater ability to activate your PNS.

Practice Produces Immediate Benefits 

An earlier view of the brain was that it was relatively fixed and hard to rewire, which meant you might need to practice mindfulness for years before seeing any positive benefits. This made it difficult to sell mindfulness to the general public, given that most people are already overscheduled. Newer findings indicate otherwise, and one immediate implication of neuroplasticity is that changes in brain function can occur much more immediately.

One of the more astonishing findings in this respect comes from the cutting-edge work of neuroscientist Richard Davidson, at the University of Wisconsin. In one study, volunteers were taught a brief loving-kindness meditation in an attempt to compare the electrical patterns in their brains to those of experienced meditators. Remarkably, even after only minimal practice, novice meditators exhibited unique brain activity patterns that were nicknamed the “compassion wave” (Lutz et al. 2004). More recent results suggest that both emotional control and compassionate behavior toward the suffering of others are strengthened by even brief compassion meditation training (Lutz et al. 2008; Weng et al. 2013).

Practice Makes Permanent 

Although brain changes can occur quickly, they aren’t necessarily enduring. In the aforementioned study by Richard Davidson’s team (Lutz et al. 2004), novice meditators did show almost immediate changes in brain readings, but their new patterns weren’t as strong as similar patterns in the brains of experienced meditators. This suggests that extended practice does have benefits: the more you practice, the stronger your compassion wave gets. This type of finding is common in the brain training literature. The more you practice a specific mental skill, like paying attention, the more your brain circuitry evolves to support that skill. The increase in specific types of electrical activity among experienced meditators is probably the result of a far more integrated set of neural circuits and the direct result of prolonged daily practice. Again, to update the old saying, practice doesn’t make perfect; practice makes permanent!

Throughout this book, we’re going to emphasize that this is a lifestyle issue. You can’t practice “drive-by” mindfulness and expect to benefit over the long haul. Then again, why would you want to? These are health-promoting, positive, prosocial skills that can play a huge role in helping you take a more balanced, compassionate approach to yourself and those you care about. Wouldn’t you like to have even more empathy, love, and compassion than you already do? Wouldn’t that be a good thing for you?

Use It or Lose It 

A related finding is that, as with working out to build muscle, if you don’t keep up your brain training regimen, new skills can begin to atrophy. In the University of Wisconsin studies (Lutz et al. 2004), the brain wave changes observed in novice meditators were astonishing but short-lived. Several weeks after the experiment concluded, a follow-up study was conducted to once again examine the brain wave patterns of the two groups of meditators, novice and experienced. Whereas the experienced meditators continued to exhibit the compassion wave at the same strength as before, novice meditators who had stopped practicing the compassion exercise no longer showed this change in their brain wave patterns. Therefore, ongoing practice of the techniques you learn in this book is important; otherwise you might begin slipping back into a stressed-out, autopilot mode. And this type of short-term neuroplasticity means that you’re always training your brain to do something. If you don’t pay attention to what you’re doing, you could end up training your brain to stress you out!

Gentle Reminders 

In this chapter, we introduced the idea that daily stress is a huge enemy in the quest to live the way you want to live. If you avoid, ignore, or downplay the importance of daily stresses, they can pile up and have a devastating impact on both your mood and your health. Therefore, we encourage you to take a more mindful approach to daily stress by paying attention to it and embracing it in a nonjudgmental way. This will help you think clearly about what matters to you in your life and then act intentionally, in ways that reflect your principles.

The tenets of neuroscience offer a fresh perspective on how you can train your brain to support a mindful approach to daily stress. You can directly train your brain to reduce the influence of harmful physiological and mental effects of stress while also increasing your ability to induce states of mindful awareness. But brain science isn’t a panacea for problems with becoming present and following through with your mindfulness game plan. You’ll have to commit to practicing new strategies and doing so persistently over time.

In our culture, we’re bombarded by messages to exercise more often as a way to strengthen our bodies and prevent disease. Yet people often twist their faces in distaste when the discussion turns to the virtues of brain training. For most people, the prospect of coming into contact with their mind on a daily basis seems to be much more aversive than engaging in vigorous physical exercise. In the next chapter, we’ll explore why this is. In large part, it happens because the mind doesn’t necessarily want to cooperate!