Tag: Mindfulness

Let’s go surfin now

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Let’s go surfin now
Everybody’s learning how
Come on and safari with me
(come on and safari with…)

Those are the lyrics to “Surfin’ Safari” by Beach Boys Brian Wilson and Mike Love, which are my latest earworm. Maybe they can bring a little feeling of summer to this crazy-temperatured winter, swinging here in Dallas from 32 degress this morning to 76 degrees earlier in the week. Thinking about actual surfing is not my intent, however, or the impetus that embedded that song on repeat in my head.

The concept of “riding the waves”, rather, has been on my mind because of the concept of mindfulness and it’s usefulness in coping with the stresses of daily life. As we attempt to manage what life throws us, riding the waves is an apt analogy. In the midst of bad stuff, of whatever type–anxiety, grief, depression, cravings–it’s pretty human to feel that the conflict or stress will pull us under, swamp us, knock us down, literally drown us. Most of us tend to lose sight of the big picture, focusing instead on the looming tsunami of our lives. Especially if we’re prone to negative thinking, brains run on repeat: “I’ll never get over it,” “It will always be this way,” “I can’t stand it any longer.” Of course we feel overwhelmed.

Bring in the concept of surfing the waves, however, and challenges become manageable. Troubles, of whatever type, do have a natural ebb and flow. After every wave comes a trough. The power that threatens to sweep us away is replaced by the calm. In the midst of negative feelings, it’s extremely helpful to step back and notice. Watch your anxiety, even timing it with a stopwatch. You zero in on the worry, and it dissipates a bit. Examine your cravings: you must have that Krispy Kreme one moment, and the next minute your mind has moved onto something else. Charting your hunger over the course of two hours shows definite dips and peaks. Allow yourself to vent your anger, or sob through your grief for twenty minutes, and just like the waves, calm rushes in. You’re cried out–for now. Illness wrecks your week, and the next week, everyone is well.

It’s a powerful exercise to step back, notice what you notice (in the words of Stephanie Eldringhoff, a new teacher I’ve enjoyed discovering), and see that just the act of noticing can begin the shift.  Be reassured that after every pounding wave, there is that drift to calm.  Sure, sometimes the waves come faster and more furiously than we feel we can stand. That’s the point to give up on holding the stance, and ride the waves instead. We can manage so much more when we are mindful of that fact that there’s bound to be a break soon. Trust that relief will come, the intensity will lessen, and you’ll hang on and ride that surf.

Call it a mindfulness safari, and venture into it with open arms.

 

Mind wars against the flu

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News about flu season is always a little scary, bombarding us with the latest figures on how bad the flu is,  shortages of vaccine, endless “woe is me” commentary.  I don’t like to read these scary headlines, but the reality is that this time of year we are bombarded with tips about how to stay healthy. Wash your hands, take your vitamins, eat chicken soup, get your flu shot, see your doctor within the first 48 hours of symptoms to try and rein in the toll.

One of the most fascinating–and accessible–answers this year has been a study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin. Bruce Barrett, MD, PhD and his colleagues had three groups of participants. One group exercised, one group was simply observed in their regular lives, and one group took a mindfulness-based meditation course.  Participants were then monitored by telephone, and tested for illness if they reported “I feel like I might be getting sick.” When participants in the mindfulness course did get sick, the duration of illness was shorter and they recovered more quickly, missing 76% less work than those in the other groups.

Anyone can practice mindfulness. Take time to sit, breathe, rest, practicing being in the moment. Tune into one bodily sensation for just one or two minutes. Teach the red light meditation to your kids: every time you’re stopped at a red light, pick one of the five senses to zero in upon for the duration of the light. Search Youtube and you’ll find lots of ways to introduce yourself to mindfulness. Or stay tuned for the commercial message: Level I and II mindfulness meditation groups are beginning in my office in the first week of February. We practice mindfulness from the very first session, learning to integrate it into your daily life in a way that works for you.

Face Your Fears Day

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Fears. We all have ’em. Fear of public speaking is the most common. Fear of missing out is the newest I’ve heard, with a handy acronym: FOMO. Fear of failure. Fear of success. Fear of spiders. Fear of being alone. Fear of flying. Fear of messing up as a mother. You name it. Facing our fears is the basic human condition, as pointed out in one of my favorite films, Defending Your Life.

When the clock radio turned on this morning, the DJ announced that now, to address this most basic human state of anxiety, we have a day dedicated to facing those fears. Face Your Fears Day. Today’s the day, the second annual to be exact. In that spirit, I’d like to toss out my favorite mantras for doing just that.

Fear lies!

And the corollary: Don’t believe every thought you think.

Feel the fear and do it anyway.

It’s just anxiety, not reality.

Self-compassion is a good place to start, loving yourself, fears and all. Giving yourself that validation, rather than chastising yourself for being fearful, aka for being human, means you can drop the ‘second dart’ of self-criticism. The first dart is the visceral fear; the second dart, unnecessary, is that judgment you impose upon yourself. I don’t know that many people who don’t have a few, steering their lives, even if the fear is lurking deep below the surface. And the fact that we’ve dedicated a day to the concept is further proof that fear is a pretty universal condition.

And my second favorite way to cope: exhale. Everyone touts deep breathing as a way to calm yourself. Even these supposedly simple directions can add stress: fear of breathing wrong! Or not finding time! The bottom line, in terms of the nervous system, is that taking a great big deep breath IN actually activates the alarm system of the body, telling your body to prepare to fight or flee. Let out a big deep EXHALE instead, and you send a message to your nervous system that there is no danger, and it’s safe to relax. That’s it. One move. Repeat as needed. Simple. Practice it just like blowing out birthday candles; we all conquered that skill when we were three.

What are your fears? What’s your favorite way to conquer them?

 

 

 

Daily gratitude practice, updated.

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The recommendation to make a daily gratitude list has become so common that your brain might be shutting down right now.  Yeah, yeah, you grumble.  The research is clear that sitting down each evening to list blessings in your life can increase happiness and well-being. And everyone older than three or younger than ninety knows it. “Lay off us, we’ve heard it before,” you may be thinking.

I struggle with it too. I know reciting my gratefulness can enrich my life, tempering the days I spend listening to woes galore. But do I do it? I’m just a lowly human being, and maybe this struggle is another way psychologists are just like you! When I’ve tried, I quickly get into a “CD on repeat”-type litany, writing about the same loved ones, health, strength, and security day after day. Starts to sound like blah, blah, blah in my head, and I doubt how that low level rumble can even make a dent in my psyche.

Doing my duty as a psychologist, making an effort to improve my skills, I was listening to an online seminar in my car. Selfishly, often: I want to improve my bag of tricks for clients and blog audience, but I also like to make my life easier. The name-escapes-me-today (see, I forget, just like you) speaker said that, in an effort to fulfill his own gratitude practice, he tries to find a new experience or moment to savor each day. This motivates him to move through his day mindfully, given that mindfulness also enhances our perception of living a good life. Throughout the day, he checks in routinely, keeping part of his brain attuned to new experiences or moments to appreciate.

I liked this. In even the worst days, there is at least one thing that lights me up, makes me smile. A kindness, a compliment, a hug. Often, there is one small item that makes me smile–or laugh out loud. I often text these ‘finds’ to my daughters, as a fun way to keep in touch.  I think I could do this. I set out to add this to my practice of bits of life to notice.

Meanwhile, the other challenge in my head lately is exactly how to jump into Twitter. The promise is that Twitter could increase my exposure, help me share my expertise, build my business. Since I announced my intention to do so, it’s been like learning to drive a car with a clutch.  Shift, stall, grind the gears. NOT quite as bad as sitting in the ’67 VW at the top of a hill with my dad alternately cajoling and yelling at me. But a struggle, to figure out what might shine even a tiny bit in the vast Twitter universe, making my comments worth a follow.

Grind, grind, go the gears in my head, chewing up gratitude ideas with tweets. The result that spewed out is my new daily gratitude practice. Each day*, my goal is to notice and tweet one event that made me smile. Since it appears that a clothing company already has a campaign linked to the hashtag #dailysmile, I’ll be using #dailysmiles.

Join me, won’t you? Follow and retweet–or let me inspire you to notice and tweet your own daily smile.

 

*(hey, I’m warning you, I’m only human.)

Mindful management for the holidays

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Kudos to you! Taking time to read this in the midst of the pre-holiday “make it happen” rush, showing up for a moment for yourself when we’re counting down to the biggest holiday of the year! Give me a minute–that’s all this takes!

You are one big battery, buzzing through the holiday prep. How many activities zap you, drawing energy, as you aim at multi-tasking? Consider this recent research: we only have so much energy. Energy that you direct to goal #1 (wrapping?) takes away from goal #2 (cheerfulness?). You become less efficient. Pretty soon you are drained, and the lights begin to dim as you exhaust your energy. Or you implode in the grocery store line.

The fix is easier than you think. Focus on one task at a time. Ask if you are mindfully putting your energy where it really matters. Is this really the task you want to emphasize? Apply the “when I’m 80” test. When you are 80 years old, is this where you will be glad you poured out your precious energy? If yes, carry on. If not, stop and revise.

To hone your ability to be more mindful in each moment, help your brain develop the mindfulness habit with one of these three focusing-in-the-moment tricks:

1) At every red light, stop and breathe, notice your body, tune into each of your senses in turn.

2) Before you answer the ringing phone, take a breath, count to three, and smile. Your “answering voice” will be transformed.

3) As you reach for any door, pause as you breathe in as you count 1, 2, 3, hold for 1, 2, 3, and breathe out as you count 1, 2, 3.

Pick one. Practice it. In the total scheme of even the busiest days, you have the 60 seconds this might take. We all have daily triggers to remind us to be mindful in the moment. And with each mindful moment, our brains develop the habit, easing into this brief coping respite more smoothly.

It’s a positive spiral, increasing your stress management skills, offering great return on minutes invested. Saving your energy for what matters.

The Zombie epidemic

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You know the experience of mindlessness: you arrive at your destination, with a sudden flash that you simply don’t recall the drive. Or you walk into a room in your home and come up blank on your purpose. Or my personal Achilles’ heel: you are cooking dinner and suddenly realize you’ve polished off half a box of crackers. Multi-tasking, that supposed skill essential to accomplish ALL, feeds right in to mindlessness.

The autopilot mindset that is mindlessness is rampant. Cultural forces (from ever-present technology that fosters work addiction to sleep deprivation) threaten to suck out our brains like so many zombies. You know this is true when the comic strip Doonesbury devotes a whole week to the topic, as it did January 31 through February 4. (Enjoy it by clicking here.)

Why is this a problem? Extra calories and pounds, accident potential, and the frustration of standing in a room wondering what you were going to do next aside, so what? Why not drift through life, oblivious?

The opposite of mindlessness is mindfulness. Mindfulness connotes awareness, attention, and remembering. Implicit in healthy mindfulness is an attitude of acceptance and lack of judgment. It is popularly talked about as ‘being in the now’ or ‘living in the moment.’ Mindfulness directly translates into what Oprah calls “living your best life” or Gretchen Rubin, in The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun, calls “living the right life.”

Mindfulness enables us to:

  • see and accept what is
  • be less self-obsessed
  • experience the richness of life in each moment
  • act more purposely to get what we want
  • smooth interactions with others

Mindfulness makes us less likely to drift through life at the whim of random forces. With mindfulness, we can fully live our lives, the master rather than the servant; the driver, not the driven.

Mindfulness, while seemingly not innate given cultural pressures, isn’t hard. It doesn’t take much time–but it does take practice to develop the skill. In the words of John Teasdale, founder of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy: “mindfulness isn’t difficult. What’s difficult is to remember to be mindful.” Your grandmother was talking about mindfulness when she said “stop and smell the roses.”

To develop this skill, just truly notice. Check in with your five senses: touch, taste, smell, sight, hearing. Where are you? What is your body doing? What are you feeling? What are your thoughts? If you sense your sixth sense, trust that intuition as well. Let these perceptions register–remember that just 20 or 30 seconds at a time can enable your brain to develop this skill.

Here’s the hard part: offer yourself acceptance, not judgment about where you are, what you are feeling in each moment. Speak to yourself as nicely as you would a loved one. Acknowledge that we are always doing the best that we can do. Embrace your humanity. It’s just what is. Take a deep breath and move forward with change, if needed, ever mindful of controlling what you can and letting go of the rest.

Best way I know to forestall the Zombie apocalypse.