there has been some expression of interest in mindfulness so i thought i'd post a mindfulness exercise.

MINDFULLY OBSERVING

t says (and i know he is right) that a good way to start mindfully observing is to focus on something external rather than internal. so focus on a leaf or a pen or a can of coke or a book or a sunset or a building... instead of focusing on a thought or a feeling or a body part or breathing.

(this is partly because panic is often induced by awareness of bodily states and also because it is harder to be non-judgemental about internal processes).

30 seconds is a useful timeframe initially. if you have some kind of alarm clock that can keep that sort of time and isn't too sudden and horrible with the noise it makes then that can be useful...

the idea is to focus all of your attention as best you can on the object. mindfully attend to it so you are feeling it and smelling it and hearing it and tasting it etc with your full attention. when you become aware that your attention has wandered (so you become aware of thoughts like 'this is stupid' or 'i'm not doing it right' or 'gee this leaf is dirty and icky' or emotions or whatever) then refocus your attention back on the object. your attention probably will wander... and when it wanders just become aware that it has wandered and refocus your attention back on the object. if you become aware that your attention has wandered and you become aware of thinking 'i'm so stupid i can't even focus on an object for 30 seconds' then become aware that your attention has been diverted by that thought and refocus your attention back on the object.

it isn't about successfully attending to the object for 30 seconds without your attention wandering... it is about the process of focusing on the object, becoming aware when your attention has wandered, and refocusing your attention back on the object. it is a process rather like lifting weights over and over.

for 30 seconds every day.

anyone willing to start?

(this is the first mindfulness exercise i learned in DBT group. we practiced that every day for one week. then next week we increased the time to one minute and learned another exercise - describing mindfully / non-judgementally).

if i make a committment to practice daily (and practice daily) then i find myself becoming aware of the possibility of mindfully attending during the day. when i find myself ruminating i can refocus my attention on my cigarrette or the computer screen or a tree or whatever. i have the choice. the practice helps me be aware that i have a choice whether i ruminate or not. the practice also helps strengthen my control over my attention so that i can be mindfully aware of external objects even when i feel really depressed or when flashbacks and the like are very intrusive. one needs to practice when one is in a fairly good place in order to have the 'mental muscle' to do it when one is in a fairly bad place. but still... the committment means i'll do it no matter how i feel).

anyone else want to practice with me?

[WinterRose]

I think I'll take you up on that. I often have problems loosing focus and my mind keeps going - I even get off track with myself and don't seem to be able to finish my own thoughts. This will be intersting to try and see what effect it has for me.

Any suggestion on a 30 second timer that isn't startling? Maybe I could focus on an egg timer? Then I'll know when time is up.

yeah, i have no idea about how to time this. i've been thinking about that though...

okay so truth be told when we learned the exercise in group the trainers timed it for us. i couldn't figure out what to do with the timing then so i chose to focus on my breathing... and i'd follow 20 breaths (and never mind how many seconds that is). but... that was a fairly hard exercise to get into. i've tried to get people doing mindfulness exercises with me before and i suggested the breathing exercise but the person found they would panic and had to stop doing the exercise. my t said that people who have panic attacks often find the focusing on internal body sensations exercises to be the hardest one and so it isn't really an appropriate exercise to start with... i guess the skills trainers i had were new to it. i remember that quite a few of the other group members really struggled with that exercise.

i don't see why you couldn't start by focusing on an egg timer. one might be distracted by thoughts like 'about half way' and 'nearly up' but i guess that one is going to be distracted by something at any rate...

it is good to vary the objects that you become aware of, however, so it doesn't become stimulus dependent (you want to be able to do it at various other points during the day with whatever object you have at hand).

don't know about timing... do you have a cellphone with a timed alarm? not sure what the smallest times are that you can set them for...

[withit]

Count me in! Love the idea!
In fact, I just completed my first 30-seconds mindfulness exercise by focusing on the envelope icon right above, on the bar tool.... I imagined its feel, smell, sound, taste (yech), and appearance (nice bright white). I figure I did at least 30 secs of it. I do have a kitchen timer that I can set for 30 secs, I use it to keep track of 'time-out' for my kids.

Hey Alex-- I'll be mindful with you. I'm just worried about trying to be mindful on an object without bodily awareness. If I'm focusing on an object, then obviously I'm trying to be in the here and now... I guess the point of it is to be mindful of how th e object feels, sounds, looks, tastes, etc. Not how the body feels about the object, rather the effect of the object on the focus. Exactly what is the goal of this? What should we be accomplishing in our mindfulness and how to we apply this to the "real world" ?

Oh, I see that you wrote that it can help refocus attention when one is ruminating. All I do all day is ruminate. So this could be key for me.

[WinterRose]

OK - Just tried it out. I didn't use a timer this time. It was interesting. I feel like I was able to put aside the surface thoughts, but then there were the secondary thoughts - you know how you can be thinking two things at once. That second level I had to keep pulling back from. Almost felt like going cross-eyed. I'm begining to think I'm addicted to thinking. It did seem to work better for me if I became an artistic observer and saw the object as something I wished to capture the essence of. (It was shiny so I started looking at the reflections and inside them.) I think I'll need a few more gos to get this technique. I kinda want to do it more than once a day.

[Talulah]

Alex.......YES! Thank you! I'm in.......this is so good for me...

Thank you, thank you, thank you wonderful and insightful alex.........(smooch)

Good going guys!

Withit - that sounds like a great idea with the kitchen timer. I'm going to try and figure out my cellphone. It can be really hard to estimate the time when you don't have a timer (and estimating the time can become another distraction). It is surprising how slow 30 seconds can go. Most people find that they are unable to focus all their attention without distraction for more than around 2 seconds. It does get better with practice (but then the whole idea is in the process or practice of it rather than in a end goal). That is kind of counter-intuitive because most of the time we are caught up in trying to achieve goals rather than taking time to attend to the journey...

With respect to the icon on the computer... That could be a fairly hard exercise to do! With respect to awareness of the object all you have is visual awareness (unless you actually tried to taste the icon or touch the computer screen etc). You said you 'imagined' what it would feel like and taste like etc. That is different from actually feeling or tasting the object, however. (That is okay, you can do mindfulness exercises on whatever object you choose to attend to. It might be more grounding to take an actual object that you can experience cross-modality (with different senses) though).

Pinksoil - Yeah, the notion of this exercise is to be mindfully aware of the object of your experience rather than mindfully aware of your experience of the object. (That can be a tricky distinction to grasp). One could indeed do a mindfulness exercise where the object one was focusing on was ones experiences, but that would be an internal rather than external mindfulness exercise.

As for the goal... One notion (that is somewhat paradoxical) is that mindfulness is something that doesn't have a goal. It is about being more aware of the journey for the sake of being more aware of the journey. That being said people often report other benefits from mindfulness though it is typically thought that if you only do mindfulness for the benefits then you are not likely to receive the full benefits. Somewhat paradoxical, huh.

People often report decrease in anxiety and increase in happiness. Increased ability to focus (on study or trying to figure something out). Decrease in pain (for people with chronic pain conditions). A more relaxed and optimistic view of present circumstances basically. And an increased awareness of (and acceptance of) thoughts, feelings, bodily states and confidence in their ability to manage them (by attending to other things).

But if you do it with those goals in mind you are likely to become disgruntled along the way and give up practicing. They are kind of long term benefits that regular practicers report...

I think it is more about taking the time to enjoy the journey. So much of life is focused on achieving end goals that we often don't take the time to look around and see that hey, things are basically okay right now in the present moment.

There are three different mindfulness exercises:
Mindfully observing (the exercise we are doing now). You can be mindfully aware of external objects. You can be mindfully aware of your surroundings (a sunset or a forest or a river etc). You can be mindfully aware of internal states (how your breathing feels, your thoughts, your emotions, how your body feels). I think that people benefit from all of those kinds of mindful observation. The ability to mindfully observe ones internal states is hard for most people (which is why it is nice to start with external exercises). People tend to panic or become judgemental about their internal states. If you practice with external objects then as your control over your attention becomes greater (and you have increased faith in your ability to attend without anything bad happening) and you learn to attend to the object without becoming lost in the object then attending to inner states can be useful.

Mindfully describing. Mindfully describing is describing in a way that is non-judgemental. This is quite hard to grasp... It is basically about learning to lift the judgement. One day my therapist brought in some crystalised ginger (which I don't like) and so I tried to mindfully attend to the ginger (and then non-judgementally describe my experience of ginger). Instead of judgemental descriptions like 'nasty' and 'yukky' I had descriptions like 'sharp' and 'strong'. By lifting the judgemental description... I realised that the ginger didn't taste all that bad... I prefer other things to be sure but lifting the judgement actually altered the nature of my experience. (Now that is a handy trick when it comes to describing ones internal states).

Mindfully participating. Is when you are in tune with an activity. Like a dancer or a golf player or a tennis player when they are emersed in the activity in a way that is in harmony. This is harder... But you can experience mindful participation of a walk by the river or exercise. And this is even harder... Conversations with others.

I think that after a while it becomes about simply being more aware that your attention is diverted and appreciating that you have the choice to let your attention be diverted or to take control of your attention by attending to one thing. It takes experience with attending to one thing to start to appreciate that often attending to one thing results in one feeling kind of good. Nobody has perfect control over their attention (like how no weight lifter has perfect control over the weights he can lift) but there is progress with practice... Doing the practice is what makes it the case that you become more aware of times when you aren't mindfully attending at all. In making the committment to practice daily that is something that you will simply notice... And in practicing daily you get the experience with mindful attending being a fairly pleasant thing to do (that is sometimes / most times a more pleasant thing to do than to have divided attention. You can also notice when you are feeling flustered and tense, for example (I noticed that a lot when I was doing the exercise focusing on how my breathing felt) and I was able to kind of take a deeper breath... And then focus my attention on just one thing for a bit to help ground me. So yeah, you can do it whenever it occurs to you really. But that being said it is important to practice daily so that you have the moments of awareness during the day. The more you make use of those moments of awareness (and make a conscious decision to focus) the more you are running different neural pathways...

(There have been studies on how teaching mindful attending to compulsive thoughts has resulted in people having increased ability to attend without impulsively acting and that that has resulted in the OCD circuit (neural pathway in the brain) being 'broken' - so that 'healthier' pathways are activated instead)

And increased ability to focus with ADD / ADHD...

And increased ability to relax and breathe in a calming way for panic...

And increased ability to not attend to pain (by attending to other things) for chronic pain disorders...

And increased ability to not ruminate in those negative spiraling headcircles (by attending to other things) for depression and PTSD...

Can't say enough good things about it really...

;-)

Winterrose - Yeah. When I focus on an object I usually notice out of the corner of my eye (so to speak) a bubble of thoughts and feelings. Kind of just bubbling through the threshold into my conscious experience but kind of out there on the periphery too. Sometimes I'll have moments where my attention is completely captured by the object... But I'll also have a lot of moments where I'm also vaguely aware of the bubbling as well as the object. And it is hard not to be diverted by the bubbling... And it is hard not to get pissed off at the bubbling in a '%#@&#! off i want you to go away so i can do this properly!' But in a way... Mindfulness is also about tolerance. Seems to be (fairly paradoxically) that when I tolerate / accept the bubbling... Is when I'm no longer aware of the bubbling... But of course it is a repeated process... Of aware then not aware then aware then not aware. But that is okay... That is the point really ;-)

another useful thing to do when your mind wanders is to simply and non-judgementally say to yourself "thinking". I use that in meditation and i'ts helpful and can make you smile at catching yourself. I learned this from reading "When Things Fall Apart" by Pema Chodron whose books and CD's can be found at www.shambhala.com.

There's a guided imagery that I do also that is called "Soothing Colors" (it's on a CD called Stressbreaks Two, "Natural Tranquilizers" and can be bought online at www.wholeperson.com) and it's very nice. In it you are asked what the color feels like, what it tastes like, what it smells like. Very interesting and fun to do.

just thought i'd share.

[Smilie]

Very simply and well explained.

Smilie

[Juliana]

Thanks for posting that alexandra. I'm definitely going to work on it. I have learned over the past couple of years that distraction (external focus) is my best defence against anxiety and panic attacks. I'm most likely to have an attack and feel out of control when I'm only focused on internal stuff -- like what I'm worried about and especially the physical symptoms (nausea, trouble swallowing) of my anxiety. I haven't had a panic attack since I started my new job. I attribute part of it to my medication, but I also think it's partly because I'm so busy and so focused on my work -- work that I find very stimulating and interesting. I'm focused on creativity and communication and positive things. It makes it more difficult for the anxiety to creep in.

So, I'm willing to add new techniques. I do something similar to this when I'm trying to fall asleep. I give my mind tasks to focus on. I do things like alphabetizing world capitals. I need to choose something to focus on so my negative thoughts don't take over and turn into a maelstrom of anxiety.

Early on in my CBT, my therapist had me wear my iPod when I went out. I was supposed to focus on the music. It was hard at first, but it got easier and it helped a lot. He also got me to do things like focusing on my grocery list and cross things off when I went to the store. I was extremely phobic about grocery stores at the time and having just one external thing to focus on helped a lot. I had to force myself to focus, but it helped me block out the panic and all the sensory overload of my surroundings.

I also use yoga to help with my anxiety. I'm still not good at totally clearing my mind, but it has taught me to focus on things like healthy breathing, my muscles, the power of my body, etc.

I want to work more on training my mind to focus externally, though. This exercise you shared is really interesting. I'm hoping if I practice it every day, my focus will improve. Thanks again!

[purplemoon]

Alex,

I am going to try this. I am always stuck in my head and that is not a pleasant place to be of late. This sounds very interesting. I will let you know how it goes.

[biiv]

Juliana: i also use yoga to calm anxiety (sometimes when im not too depressed too) and find it works so very well. i do ashtanga yoga which is actually pretty aerobic (for me at least ) and its incredible the way the breathing and the use and then relaxing of the muscles as well as the constant focus on the voice of the trainer (on dvd for me - scared of people) works to get me out of my mind as well as giving my body a great work out and chance to relax.

alex: im not sure if this is a mindfulness exercise or a meditation or both but its something i picked up (i think it was from an oprah magazine ) that i find really helps. i place a digital clock in front of me that counts the seconds, sit very still in a chair (apparently its better to sit cross legged but i cant because of back problems) with my left hand resting in the right and holding a crystal and then breathe in for four seconds, hold for four sets of four seconds and then release. to count the four seconds i say 'sah tah nah ma' and when i release i say 'wahey guru'. lol. i know its nuts but the words give me something to focus on and i think the solid vowel sounds must be soothing. this keeps my eyes and mind occupied and after at most 10 minutes of doing this i feel my eyes closing so i start to imagine some peaceful scene in my head and adapt that scene so that the sets of four are replicated e.g. in the flow of water through my mind or wind or whatever.
it often works to relax.
a warning though - if i do it more than 30 minutes i tend to get a little lightheaded so its not good to do it more than that. well for me anyway. at the end of whatever time you give it take as deep a breath in as you can (im usually surprised how deeply i can breath after relaxing like that), hold for ten seconds, breathe out comfortably and completely and then breath as normally anb comfortably as you can for one minute.
i personally am in love with this technique. i would really like to know if what it actually is as a technique though and alex you seem to know a lot about it?
good luck everyone with following alex's lead!

[lauren_helene]

I think I'm going to try this...!