by Gill Washington | Jul 31, 2022 | Mindfulness Practice, Mindset
Can mindfulness help with sleep? Why no try it and find out.
This is the sixth of a 15 part series of mindfulness posts. One will be posted every other day for 30 days, so keep checking back.
A very common problem I come across when talking to clients and friends, and when looking at social media, is a chronic lack of sleep. There are frequent references to ‘the 3am club’. This seems to increase as people are over 50, but can affect anyone.
I have myself suffered with insomnia. Having made some adjustments to my lifestyle and bedtime routine I have gone from getting between four and five hours sleep per night to between six and seven hours. Some nights I even mange over eight hours. My average now is seven hours per night, and I feel so much better for it. Mindfulness meditation has been a huge part of this.
Long Term Health And Wellbeing
Sleep is immensely important to our long term health and well being. A lack of sleep can cause many health problems, including anxiety, depression, heart disease, obesity and diabetes. It is therefore extremely important to do all we can to increase the amount and quality of sleep we get if we are not getting the recommended 7 – 9 hours of sleep per night.
How Can Mindfulness Help?
Mindfulness meditation and other mindfulness practices induce a sense of wellbeing and relaxation. When you are stressed and tense, the likelihood is you will find it difficult to fall asleep. Then, when you do get to sleep it is likely to be restless and disturbed. Just 5 minutes of meditation per day can help to bring about a more relaxed state.
Meditation Before Sleep
If I don’t do any other meditation in a day, I always do a few minutes when I first wake up (before I even open my eyes), and last thing at night before going to sleep. These are two really valuable times to meditate. The veil between the conscious and the subconscious mind is lifted, and insights can easily pop up. Agitated thoughts can calm down, and heart rate and blood pressure can lower.
I prefer to just follow my breath for the early morning meditation, as I don’t want to open my eyes or look at my phone and break that wonderful half awake, half asleep, state. If you prefer, or if you find it difficult to just follow your breath, you can listen to a guided meditation.
There is a three minute breathing space meditation you can download for free here.
There are also lots of videos you can listen to on YouTube and other places online. Find a voice that is restful for you. You don’t want an annoying voice disturbing your relaxation. I always listen to a minute or two before downloading.
If you would like to get one to one help from me with your meditation, consider booking a power hour with me. You can read more about how it works here: gillwashington.co.uk/power-hour
During a meditation power hour, as well as working through your pressing issue, we will do some meditation together.
If you’re struggling with getting to sleep, staying or sleep, or poor quality of sleep, why not just try a couple of minutes at the start and end of your day. Keep a journal if possible of any insights and feelings that pop up, and keep going for 21 days. Then compare your thoughts and feelings from day one, with day twenty one. I’m sure you will have noticed an improvement in your sleep, and other areas of your life too.
Mindfulness For Busy People
Check out my 21 day email course Mindfulness For Busy People if you would like to get started with a mindfulness practice but always feel like you don’t have time or don’t know where to start.
Happy Meditating!
Gill Washington does not provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. See additional information
by Gill Washington | Jul 28, 2022 | Mindfulness and Mental Health, Mindfulness Practice, Month Of Mindfulness
This is the fifth of a 15 part series of mindfulness posts. One will be posted every day for 30 days, so keep checking back.
There was something I noticed a few years ago, when mindfulness was seemingly everywhere. Lots of articles started popping up on my newsfeed that were anti-mindfulness. This surprised me and I decided to do a little investigation.
What I learned is this is a marketing technique. I found people who were recommending to their clients that they write content dissing something that was extremely popular, such as mindfulness. The theory is this will get lots of hits as there are so many people searching around the topic.
Personally, I find this dishonest and distasteful, whatever the topic.
Genuine Concerns
Are there any genuine concerns about practicing mindfulness? First of all it is important to distinguish between meditation and mindfulness. These articles always seem to address meditation and not other mindfulness techniques.
I have seen various stories recounted, but I would say the possibility of having a really adverse reaction to practicing mindfulness sensibly is very low indeed. Those who do have such a reaction most likely have underlying mental health issues.
Mindfulness And Meditation
Some people start off and think mindfulness is all about meditation. It isn’t. Some think we have to battle our mind to completely silence it. We don’t. Some people start off sitting for 20 minutes, 40 minutes or even hours at a time. I wouldn’t recommend this if you have never meditated before, and you are very likely to give up very quickly.
Mindfulness And Mental Health
If you suffer from clinical depression or have other mental health conditions, speak to your doctor before you start any meditation or breathing exercises. Check with them that it is ok for you to start. A caveat, ask someone who isn’t anti any kind of self-help or alternative therapies. A lot of doctors are more open minded now, but some still have very closed minds and think the only answer is a prescription. Don’t stop taking any medication without discussing this with your GP or consultant. However, medication is not the only help available.
Start Slowly And Mindfully
There is no doubt that mindfulness brings about big changes. And let’s face it, is usually because we want things to change that we begin a mindfulness practice in the first place.
Meditation in particular can bring up a lot of unexamined past experiences and possibly traumas. This is very, very unlikely to happen if you start off as I suggest. Just a few minutes meditation per day is enough to feel the benefit, without bringing up major issues. And you can steadily progress.
Journaling as an accompaniment to meditation can help you to get your thoughts onto paper and out of your head. I recommend this. If you want help getting started, download my FREE PDF workbook Introduction To Journaling.
If at any time you feel panic or fear, just stop immediately. Speak to a mindfulness or meditation teacher who can help you with what you are feeling. Speak to your doctor about what came up for you. Consider joining a group in person or online, where you can discuss your experience with others.
If you have deep seated, unhealed trauma, meditating alone, especially for long periods, is not recommended and you will likely need some form of therapy.
However, if you feel low, lack self esteem, suffer with anxiety and stress, there is every chance mindfulness will be extremely beneficial, as it has been for millions of people.
Take a look at my post Mindfulness Practice – How To Begin and consider signing up for my course Mindfulness For Busy People. It is a gentle introduction to mindfulness, with an email delivered every day for 21 days helping you integrate mindfulness easily into your busy life. It’s just £47 and includes support from me. Learn more here.
Start slowly and sensibly, stop if you have any adverse reactions while meditating, and you can reap the rewards of mindfulness as so many have.
Gill Washington does not provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. See additional information
by Gill Washington | Jul 26, 2022 | Mindfulness and Mental Health, Mindfulness Practice, Month Of Mindfulness
This is the 4th in a 15 part series of Month of Mindfulness posts
With mindfulness we are able to be aware of our emotions and observe them without being overwhelmed by them.
Being mindful enables us to take a step back from the emotion and understand it without fearing it or struggling with it.
This can also help to lessen distress, although the aim is to simply observe the emotion non-judgmentally rather than lessen it.
Know Yourself
When working with emotions it can be helpful to observe desires.
From: “I AM THAT” by Nisargadatta Maharaj
19.
“Use your mind. Remember. Observe.
You are not different from others.
Most of their experiences are valid for you too.
Think clearly and deeply,
go into the structure of your desires
and their ramifications.
They are a most important part of your mental
and emotional make-up
and powerfully affect your actions.
Remember, you cannot abandon what you do not know.
To go beyond yourself, you must know yourself.”
How Are You Feeling
When you are feeling an emotion, try to take some time to just focus on your breath. Take your attention to where you are feeling the emotion. It could be in your tummy, your chest, your throat or elsewhere. Don’t try to change it, just be aware of what and how you are feeling.
What emotion is it?
It may be anger, sadness, anxiousness, irritability, fear, frustration.
Accept the emotion. We all have emotional reactions, it’s normal.
Try to understand how it came about. Did something happen, or someone say something? Maybe an old memory popped up and you were triggered.
Just observe the emotion, and how it is making you feel.
Once you’ve named the emotion, investigate it.
How intense is it?
Is your breathing fast or slow?
What are you feeling in your body? Where do you feel it?
Observe your posture. Has your head dropped, or have you crossed your arms?
Are your muscles tense? Where?
What’s your facial expression? Does your face feel tense?
Is the emotion changing? Getting stronger or lessening. Remember to observe without judging or trying to change anything.
Watch Your Thoughts Come And Go
Watch your thoughts come and go without judging them. Remember it’s normal human behaviour to have these thoughts and emotions.
Just notice whatever is happening, and bring your attention back non-judgmentally to your breath, and to the physical sensations of the emotion. If it helps, you can say something like, ‘it’s just a mind full of thoughts’.
It can be helpful to use this technique with lesser emotions at first, such as a bit of irritation or with happiness. When you are more experienced, you can use it with intense emotions.
As you bring mindfulness to your emotions you learn that emotions themselves are not the problem: your difficulties come from your relationship to them. You can bring a mindful and kind attention to them all, even the difficult ones such as fear, grief, hatred and jealousy. But focusing on difficult emotions alone can become one-sided. Notice the happy ones and the beautiful ones as well as the painful ones.
– Jack Kornfield
Rumi The Guest House
Rumi wrote some wonderful words about emotions. This version is by Coleman Barks in The Essential Rumi:
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
You can find more poems from Rumi on allspirit.co.uk
These words are really useful for understanding that whatever comes is just part of the human experience. Welcome whatever it is, and learn the lesson it has to share.
Gill Washington does not provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. See additional information
by Gill Washington | Jul 23, 2022 | Mindfulness and Mental Health, Mindfulness Practice, Month Of Mindfulness
This is the third of a 15 part series of mindfulness posts. One will be posted every day for 30 days, so keep checking back.
Stress happens when your mind resists what is… The only problem in your life is your mind’s resistance to life as it unfolds.
– Dan Millman
How mindfulness reduces stress is what we will look at in this post.
The British Safety Council state, ‘15.4 million working days were lost to work-related stress, depression or anxiety in 2017/18 (Labour Force Survey)’. A massive 57% of all work days lost to ill health were due to stress and anxiety.
What Is Stress?
Stress is how the body reacts to danger or pressure. It can be useful in protecting us from danger (the fight or flight reaction). And can motivate us to get things done. Think of how much work gets done with a looming deadline.
It becomes a problem when our bodies are continually flooded with stress hormones. and can lead to overwhelm and burnout. That is where mindfulness comes in.
You can find out more about stress from the NHS here.
How Mindfulness Can Help
We all tend to think that if we had more money, a new car, a great relationship or other ‘things’ that we would be happy and stress free. In Buddhism, this is the realm of the hungry ghosts. As soon as we have one thing we begin to desire another. Once we see this, the allure of getting more and more ‘things’ begins to lose its appeal.
When we practice mindfulness regularly, we realise that our thoughts and attitude have great bearing on our mental wellbeing. We realise that we are not trying to ‘fix ourselves’. We are just observing, compassionately and non-judgmentally how it is.
In any stressful situation, it is beneficial to just bring the attention back to the breath. Even three deep breaths can help us to focus on what is happening, and our own reaction to the situation. If you are dealing with a difficult person, this can help to calm things down.
Once Mindfulness becomes regular, one of the benefits will be that you will recognise feelings or stress or anxiety before they have had a chance to take hold, and before you have reacted from ego. What we are looking for is a Mindful response to the situation, not an egoic reaction. Again, if you do react, don’t be harsh with yourself, just come back to the breath and concentrate on the present moment.
Paying Attention To The Present Moment
“Focus on opportunities not setbacks. Focus on what you can do, not what you can’t. Focus on the present moment, not the past or the future. Empower yourself!”
― Akiroq Brost
According to an article on apa.org, “Researchers reviewed more than 200 studies of mindfulness among healthy people and found mindfulness-based therapy was especially effective for reducing stress, anxiety and depression”.
If you can become fully aware in the present moment, stress will not be able to take hold. Train yourself to notice your own reactions to stress. You may feel it in your abdomen, or shoulders. Maybe you get tight muscles or butterflies in your tummy. You may flush red or well up with tears. Whatever happens for you, become aware and when you feel those feelings know that you are getting stressed. Focus on your breath until the feelings have passed.
You can then calmly figure out what is causing the stress and work out how to alleviate it. Ask for help if necessary.
Clear Your Clutter
Clutter in both home and workspace can be a major cause of stress. Download my free PDF
to help you clear it.
Practice Makes Perfect
At first it may seem impossible to be aware of impending stress, but the more self-aware you become, the easier it will be to spot the signs. Just like driving a car seems impossible at first, but you are soon steering, changing gears, adjusting your speed all effortlessly. It is the same with awareness.
Try to do at least a few minutes meditation every day. Journal if it helps you to become more self-aware and get to the root of your stress. Adapt and adjust, and enjoy your less stressed life.
Gill Washington does not provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. See additional information
by Gill Washington | Jul 21, 2022 | Mindfulness Practice, Mindset, Month Of Mindfulness
What You need To Know About Using Mindfulness To Overcome Depression
This is the second of a 15 part series of mindfulness posts. One will be posted every day for 30 days, so keep checking back.
Over 30 years ago I paid a visit to my GP with a list of health problems. He told me, ‘invariably, when anyone comes with a list they are depressed’. He gave me a prescription for antidepressants and sent me on my way.
I have spent the thirty years since figuring out ways to improve my own mental health, and helping others to do the same. Mindfulness has by far been the most effective way I have improved my mindset. Below I will share some of the things that have helped me.
The Mindful Way Through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness
The Mindful Way Through Depression is a book by Mark Williams, John Teasdale, Zindel Segal and Jon Kabat-Zinn. It helped me a lot in understanding depression and holding it at bay.
The book explores the reasons for depression, and offers useful tools for overcoming the tiresome ruminations that are so often a part of depression. It also comes with a CD of meditations you can use to practice. These can also be downloaded online. Searching on YouTube will bring up related information.
The authors also created The Mindful Way Workbook: An 8-Week Program to Free Yourself from Depression and Emotional Distress. This takes some commitment, but I would definitely recommend it if you are determined to overcome depression.
These two books are also useful if you are someone who helps clients with depression.
How Mindfulness May Change the Brain in Depressed Patients
There is an excellent post in The Harvard Gazette about how a mindfulness practice may change the brain. It details the work of Benjamin Shapero, an instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and a psychologist at Massachusetts General Hospital’s (MGH) Depression Clinical and Research Program and Gaëlle Desbordes, an instructor in radiology at HMS and a neuroscientist at MGH’s Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging.
“Individual cognitive behavioral therapy is helpful for many people; antidepressant medications help many people. But it’s also the case that many people don’t benefit from them as well. There’s a great need for alternative approaches.”
– Benjamin Shapero
Desbordes performs fMRI’s on patients before and after an eight-week course in mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, or MBCT, to determine the benefits.
Once we know which ingredients are successful, we can do more of that and less, maybe, of the parts that are less effective
– Gaëlle Desbordes
This is interesting work to keep an eye on.
Top 3 Beginner Meditations For Depression
There is another excellent article on mindfulness as a treatment for depression on flowneuroscience.com. This article includes 3 meditations that help with negative thoughts and feelings.
They also offer an app which could be worth a try. I haven’t used the app, but they do say it is 100% free. Let me know how you get on if you use it.
Recommended Mindfulness Practices To Overcome Depression
Below are the techniques I would recommend if you are starting out using mindfulness to overcome depression.
1. Meditation
If you are just starting off, try a three minute breathing space meditation. I have a free one you can download here. You could also use the meditations included with The Mindful Way Through Depression book if you have that. There are also many meditations on YouTube.
Don’t start off with long periods of meditation if you have never meditated before. And stop for a while if you start to feel worse. Trying a local meditation group can be really useful. I find doing a few minutes of following my breath a great help. Try this before opening your eyes each morning, and as you close your eyes to go to sleep each night.
2. Yoga
Yoga is a wonderful way to exercise both body and mind. Just practicing some asanas each day will be helpful, but the more you can incorporate the principles of yoga into your life the more beneficial it will be.
Try to find a local class. This is better than an online class, especially if you are a beginner. You can then practice what you learn at home. It would also be helpful to find a class where the teacher lives yoga as a way of life, rather than just doing a set of exercises.
Just 15 minutes daily practice can help to reduce depressive symptoms.
3. Breathing Exercises
I gave a brief introduction to breathing exercises in the first post in this mindfulness series, How Mindfulness Helps Reduce Anxiety. Your breath is a way you can instantly take your mind of whatever you are ruminating about and just return to the present moment. When you find your mind has wandered off, just gently bring yourself back to your breath.
The importance of using the breath in this way can’t be overstated.
You are where you need to be. Just take a deep breath.
― Lana Parrilla
4. Mindful Walk
Go out for a walk and try to really pay attention to everything you see, feel, smell, and touch. Oh, why not consider leaving your phone at home. or at least put it on silent mode.
Try to keep your head up. So often people walk with their gaze down to the ground, especially when feeling low. Just lifting your head can actually lift your mood.
Walk slowly, and look at everything you pass. Maybe you will notice something you have never noticed before, even if you’ve walked that way for years.
Feel the sun or the rain on your skin. Feel the wind in your hair. Listen to the birds.
Just enjoy what is.
Gill Washington does not provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. See additional information
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