STOP AND BREATHE
We are inundated with a constant stream of 'noise' and information. It can be exhausting and drains our energy.
Stop and take some time out of your day to just BE.
Clear a path and make some space in your mind that allows you to detox your brain.
Over-analysing countless situations and constant self-criticism and doubt can result in loss of PEACE OF MIND.
The voice that disturbs your peace is sometimes repetitive past learning
Negative chatter in your head may be based on what you have learned and been taught by the environment around you since you were tiny. Comments and actions by unthinking parents, teachers, coaches, friends, colleagues, and the sometimes callous marketing campaigns on social media have left many of us with a battered sensory system and low self-esteem.
MINDFULNESS IS NOT A NEW INVENTION.
Jon Kabat-Zinn founded the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program at the University of Massachusetts Medical Centre in 1976. He described mindfulness as '' one way to think of this process of transformation is to think of mindfulness as a lens, taking the scattered and reactive energies of your mind and focusing them into a coherent source of energy for living, for problem solving, for healing''
Mindfulness puts us in touch with the transitory nature of our thoughts and feelings.
Negative thoughts come to all of us, but allowing them to consume us does not have to be the outcome. Let them in, acknowledge that presence, but then practice the ability to let them pass.
Happiness doesn't have to be something you have or do not have. Happiness is transient and not constant. When the sun disappears behind a dark cloud, it has not been lost forever, it will reappear. Try and picture the bad, or sad feelings and being able to let them pass in the same transient way.
MINDFULNESS has been shown to have a positive effect on many psychological and physical symptoms. It has broad effects on physical health, including the immune response, blood pressure and cortisol levels. Mindfulness can activate brain regions involved in emotional regulation as well as lead to alterations in the regions of body awareness and fear.
Victims of trauma are being taught to practice mindfulness as a tool to recovery and becoming self-aware. The variety of intolerable sensations and memories they have experienced leave many victims of trauma afraid of feeling and their sensory world is out of bounds.
Practicing mindfulness calms down the sympathetic nervous system, allowing the individual to be more present and less forced into a fight-flight mode.
BEGIN... ANYWHERE
Breathe work, mindfulness mediation, yoga, pilates, walking or running in nature and finding simple gratitude in a day may all help to detox our busy and overwrought minds.
REMEMBER, YOU ARE ENOUGH
REFERENCES
P.A Levine, 'In an unspoken Voice; How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness' 2010
J. Kabat-Zin, 'Full Catastrophe Living; Using the Wisdom of your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness' 2013 Bantam Books
R. J. Davidson, et al 'Alterations in Brain and Immune Function Produced by Mindfulness Meditation'