Mindfulness

I mentioned mindfulness in an earlier post. I truly believe that mindfulness is key to my mental health. Mindfulness is not just a key practice in my spirituality but also in the Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) that I am working on.

So what is mindfulness? Mindfulness is very simply the practice of being fully present in the present moment. You may have heard the saying that depression arises from worrying about the past and anxiety arises from worrying about the future. If you suffer from either or both of these then you probably know the relief you feel when you are so engaged in some activity that your mind must focus on the present, and for even a moment you are given a reprieve from thinking about your past or future. For me, when I play basketball, which I used to do a lot more than I currently do, I get so focused on the game and what I am doing that I forget about everything else. Nowadays a really good book can also give me that bit of escape from my own worries.

Most of the time, however, we do not usually have the sort of time to escape from life either through a good book or a basketball game. We have things we need to get done, life events and obligations that must be addressed. So how can we stay grounded in the present moment so that we do not become overwhelmed by thoughts about the past and future? I will put forth a few practices that I use and that you might try. 

The most basic mindfulness practice that is taught and is always available is paying attention to your own breath. Paying attention to your breath does not mean changing how you are breathing, but simply recognizing each breath that you take. Feeling each breath come into your body and then as it leaves your body. You might focus on a place in your body where you feel that breath, as it passes your nostrils or as it fills your chest. There is no need to count the breaths. Just take a moment to close your eyes and pay attention to your breath. Feel each one arise, feel it enter your body, and feel it leave your body. Do this for one minute.

Once you are practiced at paying attention to your breath like this for a minute or more, you might look into meditation. A simple meditation is simply being in a comfortable position and paying attention to your breath as you just did. You need not worry about "emptying your mind" or "thinking about nothing". Thoughts will arise, but when your focus is on your next breath, they will quickly and quietly fade into the background.

There is another skill I use that does involve changing up how you are breathing. With this one I concentrate on inhaling for four counts and exhaling for six counts. It feels slightly uncomfortable to exhale for longer than I inhale and takes a bit of effort, that extra bit of focus that keeps me grounded in the present moment. A minute or two of this is usually enough for those negative thoughts that I had been thinking to fade into the background.

Another activity I like to use is to give my brain a challenging task. Perhaps it is multiplying two three-digit numbers in my head. I really like those mindfulness coloring books, the ones with mandalas or animals or scenery made up of little geometric shapes. I use my left hand, which is my off hand, to color in the shapes. It takes concentration. Another thing you might try if you do not have a coloring book in front of you but have some other printed material at hand is to fill in all the o's and g's and parts of other letters where a space is enclosed by the letter.

One final skill that helps me focus and is quite relaxing is to do muscle relaxation. Starting with my feet I tense up muscles for several counts and then allow them to relax. Once I have moved all the way up to my head I feel more grounded and relatively more relaxed. You begin this by scrunching up your toes and holding it for several seconds and then allow those muscles to relax. Then try and tense your calf muscles and allow those to relax. Then your thighs, your butt, your abdomen, your hands, biceps, shoulders, neck, mouth (smile really big and then relax!), and finally scrunch up your forehead and let that relax.

Each of these skills is usually readily available and can bring you back to the present moment when worry, either about the future or the past, begins to creep up.