Mindfulness- anyone about to start?

[dizzy daisy]

Hi all
I'm about to begin a mindfulness program. It was suggested by my counsellor. It's not formal group, I'll be doing it alone over 8 weeks really.
Anyone else about to start with this?xxx

[Traceypo]

Not about to start but I did some with my therapist. I was amazed that I started to recognise the trees and other things driving into work, my usual drive would be me worrying about what the day would bring.
Takes a lot of practice, but definitely worth it. Xx

[dizzy daisy]

Thanks Tracey. I've noticed that I no longer notice trees, flowers or most things these days which is horrible in itself. That's why I need to give this my best shot. Wish me luck xxxx

[swgrl09]

There's a lot of research that shows mindfulness benefits the brain and can even thicken areas of your brain that are affected by anxiety and depression, PTSD, OCD, etc. I just went to a training on neuroscience and mindfulness ... It was really interesting and informative. Good luck with your program!

[KeeKee]

This was recommended to me by my assessor recently. I'm not too keen if I'm honest but guess I'll have to give it a try.

[dizzy daisy]

Thanks Sw- I'm really going to give it my all. To be honest it sounds right up my street.
Keekee, give it a go, imagine if it works how happy you'll be. I guess it's like most things in life, if you believe in it it's more likely to work than not xxxx

[Savvy_Darling]

Heard this can be a very useful technique to master. I know the user mynameisterry has something about mindfulness in his signature so I think he may know a thing or 2 about it and has probably practices or practiced it. He also seems like a pretty level headed guy and recovering ocd. Guessing it worked out pretty good for him! Hopefully he will comment or see this thread :p

Good luck on your journey to recovery & remember the more you put your all into this the more you will be able to truly benefit. :)

[dizzy daisy]

Thanks savvy. I'll post updates on how I get on over the next few weeks xxxx

[Traceypo]

Good luck hun, use every opportunity to practice, for example, when doing the dishes focus on the smell of the washing up liquid, the bubbles in the water, the swirls of the water etc, its certainly better than thinking of the what ifs.
Another one I liked was candle watching, light a candle and stare at the flame, truly focus on it, I've used that many times when feeling anxious.
If it works for you, great, if not then nothing lost, we're missing out on some beautiful things in life due to focusing so much on our worries.
Xxx

[Savvy_Darling]

Good luck hun, use every opportunity to practice, for example, when doing the dishes focus on the smell of the washing up liquid, the bubbles in the water, the swirls of the water etc, its certainly better than thinking of the what ifs.
Another one I liked was candle watching, light a candle and stare at the flame, truly focus on it, I've used that many times when feeling anxious.
If it works for you, great, if not then nothing lost, we're missing out on some beautiful things in life due to focusing so much on our worries.
Xxx
Tracy what a beautiful thing to say! I've never thought about things that way but your right! We all need to learn to smell the roses and see how beautiful life is outside the anxiety bubble we put ourselves in. Today I'm going to do just that.. Appreciate the small things. :)

[MyNameIsTerry]

There's a lot of research that shows mindfulness benefits the brain and can even thicken areas of your brain that are affected by anxiety and depression, PTSD, OCD, etc. I just went to a training on neuroscience and mindfulness ... It was really interesting and informative. Good luck with your program!

Yes, I've posted some of the articles in the thread in my signature. It's great to see real provable results with fMRI scans. It's also great to see a timeline like the 8 week studies as it gives us some hope we can make changes sooner than we probably think, although we may not realise. It will be harder for us than people without disorders but it's still great. Have you got a typo in there though, swgrl? Thickening of the fear centre is associated with these disorders but Mindfulness has shown the thickening decrease. Or did you mean the disorders reduce the density of the positive areas?

Also, not only have they found that it reduces the density of this region but also increases the density of some positive regions hence why compassion is often mentioned. I would imagine other forms such as Compassion Meditation will also do this element as they are gratitude based and that's getting a fair bit of new press.

---------- Post added at 06:17 ---------- Previous post was at 05:30 ----------


Heard this can be a very useful technique to master. I know the user mynameisterry has something about mindfulness in his signature so I think he may know a thing or 2 about it and has probably practices or practiced it. He also seems like a pretty level headed guy and recovering ocd. Guessing it worked out pretty good for him! Hopefully he will comment or see this thread :p

Good luck on your journey to recovery & remember the more you put your all into this the more you will be able to truly benefit. :)

Yes, thanks Savanna, it did. My intrusive thoughts were resolved, my anxiety levels in general dropped but it wasn't limited there. I saw positive changes too, the kind that are not reserved to mental health issues.

I can certainly agree with Tracey too. There specific exercises aimed at learning certain elements of it e.g. eating, object handling, walking, other movement, etc. You learn that you never really focussed on things with each of your senses because we have learned to spend our days rushing around.

An important element to understand is the DOING and BEING mode. DOING is the analytical goal reaching part of the mind that is being engaged in far too much. You are taught that this mind is limited but also brings drawbacks in that it a risk assessment mode too. It will literally determine all possibilities in it's attempt to get from A-B as your goal. This can mean noticing things you didn't plan to. This is an obvious problem for us. DOING mode cannot take a problem like "I want to get rid of my anxiety disorder" because that's a massive task with many goals, it's just too big. BEING mode on the other hand is more interesting in experiencing "the now" and nor worrying about how to achieve things.

Really DOING mode helps you plan your goals out but BEING mode is essential in feeling them without engaging too much. It's just in us the balance has become skewed towards DOING mode.

I found it took me months to really feel it click in meditation. But it was helping with some relaxation earlier than that. I was conscious of my breathing so was sceptical of something that used 3 breathing inductions on my therapists recordings to get me monitoring certain elements of my breathing but it was visualisation too. After a couple of weeks I found it easier to monitor my breathing this way and it wasn't an issue anymore. So, don't be put off by things like this because you will adjust. It's an essential part to passing through into being able to act as the "curious observer".

After a few months I was out walking in the hot sun. My usual routes. But I felt an urge to sit down on the grass of an old overgrown stream on some old land inbetween housing areas. It wasn't a negative urge, I REALLY wanted to do it. I sat and felt the grass, listening to the sounds, watched insects & birds, smelled the air, etc. I didn't plan that consciously, I just felt like doing it. I felt free. I hadn't felt like that in years. It happened the next few days too and then stopped.

At 6 months I literally felt a shift in my thinking. It's hard to explain but it was like a noticeable change one day where I felt more compassionate. Others on here have talked about the shift outside of Mindfulness.

Then a year later I was ill. I must have picked up a sickness bug, I was watching TV in my bedroom and felt very nauseous. My head was swimming and tasks were difficult. I legged it to the backroom and my head was straight down the bowl (sorry, but bare with me). As I was being sick a thought popped into my head that said 'so, this is what REAL nausea feels like then'. From that day forward, my nausea had gone.

I still get the nausea at times but now it's only when food has triggered it or sometimes lack of sleep. But I handle it now and it will quickly subside. Before I was getting it quite a lot and it was less easy to control.

[Phuzella]

Mindfulness is brilliant. I've let it slip recently, I must get back into it :)

[dizzy daisy]

Thanks all for you kind words of support. My first lessons have been focusing on brushing my teeth morning and night. Just to take time to observe things like what's in the room, taste, smell, sounds etc. It's just a little taster of how simple the principle is, but at the same time how hard it is to do that. I'm building it up throughout the week. I'll let you know how it goes xxxx

[swgrl09]

I can't remember the exact names of the areas, but there is both a thickening in some positive areas of the brain, as well as reduction of the fear center. There were studies that compared meditators to non-meditators as well over the course of 15 years and among meditators, elderly people had brains of similar composition to 20 year olds!