Mindfulness.

[ZoWeeMcfly]

Mindfulness by John Kabat-Zinn is a great way of relaxing. It's a Buddhist form of meditation where you focus only on your breathing and nothing else. Youblock out all sounds, objects and thoughts and concentrate on breathing alone.

It's pretty difficult to begin with, it's really hard for your mind not to wander and it takes practice, but you will feel great afterwards.

Either look him up on youtube or try buying one of his CD's. I got given a few of them by my old teacher in High School but I guess you could try ebay or amazon or somehing to get one

[bottleblond]

Mindfullness is not about concentrating on your breathing.

Mindfullness is when your mind wanders away from what you are doing/feeling at the time. Ie: if you are making a cup of tea and your mind wanders on to other things while you are doing it. You have to gradually train your mind to concentrate on exactly what you are doing, like taking the cup from the cupboard, taking the coffee from the jar, getting the sugar ect...being mindfull is about bringing your concentration to what you are doing right there and then and not allowing your mind to wander away from that.

It helps with people with anxiety ect as we (predict) each situation is going to cause us harm or discomfort. Ie: if you are in a supermarket and we start to think, god i need to get out of here, someone who has practiced mindfullness would concentrate on each product they are putting in their trolly, feel the texture of each thing they picked up, the colour of things, the smell in the different isles etc.

Sorry to jump on your post but your description of mindfullness is incorrect.

Lisa

[Carrera74]

Thanks for the clarification Lisa. I have had a second session with Occupational Health today and the counsellor said mindfullness is very useful. I did wonder for a moment if there are different types of mindfulness but she described it as you do.

I predict all sorts and also think what if's etc and I think it will help me, once I get into doing it. Practice makes perfect

[ZoWeeMcfly]

Ah - sorry, it's just that the mindfulness CD I have is mindfulness of the breathing, I didn't realise that there was more to it !

Thanks for the clarification, sorry for the wrong definition !

But yeah, no matter what the definition, it's a good thing to practice !

[bottleblond]

If you are concentrating on your breathing then you would be mindful about that. Like only concentrating on that. It really does take some getting used to but it does help.

Think you started a good thread though Zo because so many people don't know anything about this.

Sorry if i offended you hun. I really didn't mean to




Carrera

I have been working on this with my CPN and i am beginning a course on it on Thursday. I will pass on any helpfull information and maybe we can kinda help each other to get used to it.


Ladies

Lisa
xxx

[ZoWeeMcfly]

course you didnt offend me ! It's a good thing that someone pointed out my mistake at the beginning of the thread !

I think more people should definately know about it though, it really works and I always feel calm and relaxed and like nothing matters after doing some mindfulness

[bottleblond]

Well that goes to prove you are getting it right. Breathing and relaxation is so good if you can get into it.

Well done hun

xxx

[Carrera74]

My first session was mindful meditation where she talked me through my breathing. That might be similiar to what you said Zo? I might try one of the CDs for my early hours wakenings ....

It felt so weird being relaxed in just one session. I felt like I had turned into a zombie. I didn't realise how tense my neck was until I opened my eyes!

Sounds good Lisa! xx

[expecto patronum]

I used a book called 'The Mindfullness and Acceptance Workbook for Anxiety'; it's quite hard but very good, it combines mindfullness and Acceptance and Commitment' Therapy