Mindfulness: a cheat's guide to achieving it
By Radhika Sanghani
3:12PM BST 06 May 2014 The Telegraph
Mindfulness: a cheat's guide to achieving it
As bankers become the latest Britons to invest in mindfulness, a technique to 'stay in the present moment' and de-stress, Radhika Sanghani speaks to two practitioners to find out how to actually achieve it.
Chances are that you know what mindfulness is. After all, the ancient Buddhist meditation has been around for centuries, and lately it’s become so popular that large City firms are now recommending it to stressed-out bankers. Schools, too, are adopting the practice to help children focus. The US military offers mindfulness trainings to marines, and it’s even taught at Harvard.
But, if you have somehow missed the whole movement (tsk… not very mindful of you) it is essentially a technique where you focus your mind on the present. By focusing on sights, sounds and physical sensations, you can achieve mental clarity just by being aware of what’s actually happening. It helps with pressure, stress, anxiety and the modern compulsion to check your smartphone for notifications every six and a half minutes.
Most people practise it through meditation offered on various courses throughout the UK, but it’s also something you can achieve on your own. Autumn Totton and Alexandra Frey, co-founders of The Mindfulness Project, which teaches secular meditation in London, agreed to talk me through various tips and exercises to become more mindful – but they do stress that it’s impossible to have an “idiot’s guide to mindfulness” (damn) and that none of these tips are quick fixes…
1) Do a body scan
Mindfulness is all about turning off your mind to come back to the present moment, and Frey explains that the most accessible gateway is through our senses.
She says: “You pay attention to your body and scan through it, noticing what’s going on in a very non-judgemental way. Notice that there’s an itch on your ear and don’t try to change it. It’s about not trying to make things different.”
2) Do you actually want to be on the phone?
Most of us are borderline addicted to our smartphones. We use them constantly; rely on several apps to have a normal day and teenagers now prefer using smartphones than having face-to-face contact. But it’s not the smartphones that are bad; it’s our compulsive behaviour.
Frey explains that we don’t need to stop using our phones, we just need to think about what we’re doing when we’re about to reach for them. “It’s about creating the choice,” she says. “Do I want to check my phone now, or am I compulsively checking it?”
It’s the same principle with having a glass of wine every evening, and Frey says: “We’re not against phones and wine. But it’s about do you want to have this wine right now, or maybe you shouldn’t? It’s creating this space between the stimulus and the response.” In that gap, that moment where you stop and think, is where we free the mind.
3) You can’t escape meditation
So now we know we have this automatic pilot where we do things like check our phones without thinking, how do we ditch that?
“The first step is always awareness,” says Frey. “Then try mindfulness meditation. It’s a way to look at your behaviour in almost like a laboratory condition. I sit and I notice I have angry thoughts. I don’t want to be sitting but I’m going to sit and observe.
“Actually I maybe feel really angry about sitting for 20 minutes with my eyes closed, but I stay with this unconformable feeling and I notice it.”
>> Read: How to meditate on the go: a guide for the busy working woman
4) Do you actually want to shout?
One of the most common examples of where mindfulness can really help is when you’re with your family. Frey sets a scenario of someone fighting with their dad, and then getting angry and reacting as they always do; by shouting.
She says you need to think: “But can I just be for two seconds and notice the anger and choose. If you still want to scream back, then do it, or maybe you choose a different response. Over time and practice, you can learn new pathways.”
5) Don’t just grab your work phone
If you don’t work in one of those big firms that offer 'mindfulness breaks', chances are you’ll be quite stressed at work. So, Totton and Frey suggest that you take a few seconds here and there to centre yourself throughout a busy day.
“When the phone rings, wait two or three seconds,” says Frey. “Just consciously breathe and bring yourself to the present moment. Your phone call will be more efficient if you gather yourself.”
6) Be kind to yourself
If you’re in a difficult work meeting, or going through a hard time, the most important thing to remember is to show compassion to yourself.
Frey says: “When you’re not having an easy time, you start to criticise yourself. Mindfulness emphasises acknowledging that we are feeling bad and encourages you to take care of yourself. Have compassion for yourself. Being aware that you’re feeling uncomfortable or stressed. We’re human beings – we don’t have to be perfect.”
7) Keep on practising
People say that mindfulness is for the brain, what the gym is for the body. In other words, as Frey says: “You wouldn’t go once and then expect to have awesome biceps.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-health/10810893/Mindfulness-7-ways-you-can-achieve-mindfulness.html