Many of us are carrying the weight of the world’s suffering right now. How can we acknowledge the immense suffering around us, and our own—and still tend to our hearts, minds, and bodies in a way that keeps us grounded and able to take compassionate action?
Social psychologist Mathew White conducted a study at the European Centre for Environment & Human Health involving 20,000 people, the findings of which suggest that those who spent at least two hours a week in green spaces were substantially more likely to report good health and psychological well-being than those who did not. This was true regardless of variables such as gender, occupation, ethnic group, SES, area of residence, and regardless of whether they were living with chronic illnesses and disabilities at baseline. This is just one of many studies presenting such findings, and so the goal of today’s mindfulness exercise is to help bring our attention back to our connection with nature throughout the day, to let it nurture us.
One topic that seems to keep coming up in recent weeks has been compassion. It is something that we would all benefit from giving more of to ourselves and to those around us. When Mindfulness Monday last covered this, we discussed the work of psychologist Kristin Neff, who studies compassion. She tells us “Self-compassion involves acting the same way towards yourself when you are having a difficult time, fail, or notice something you don’t like about yourself as you would act toward other under the same circumstances. Instead of just ignoring your pain with a “stiff upper lip” mentality, you stop to tell yourself “this is really difficult right now,” how can I comfort and care for myself in this moment?”
When you see, hear, touch, or taste something, sensory information first heads to the thalamus, which then sends that information to the relevant brain areas including the hippocampus for memory-related tasks and the amygdala, home to a good deal of our emotional processing. But with smells, it’s different. When it comes to olfaction, scents bypass the thalamus and go straight to the olfactory bulb which is directly connected to the amygdala and hippocampus. This helps us understand why the smell of something can so immediately trigger a detailed memory or even intense emotion, and why we are focusing on this sense today.
Today, our mindfulness exercises focuses our present-centered attention on the ordinary, to offer it our appreciation. As you listen along here, or as you go about your day, choose any 5 commonplace things in your life. The things that sustain you, that have become such a given that we rarely notice them, but without which our lives would be more difficult or less meaningful.
As you go about your day, keep tabs on these things. Take note of their inner workings, how they are benefit you and perhaps those around you, notice the finer, more minute details.
Often times we find ourselves so focused on the next thing that we lose sight of what is right in front of us. The purpose of this exercise is to help you to cultivate contentment with the present moment.
Today, pick a chore or a routine task. One of those things you “have” to do, something you usually try to rush through to get done before moving onto the next thing. Today, challenge yourself to treat this is a completely new activity rather than the chore it has become.
A good example is washing the dishes, or simply washing your hands. While doing this, you can observe the job through your five senses. You can notice the feeling of the water on your skin, the sound it makes as it hits the sink. Perhaps you can observe the smell of the soap, and visually attending to the lather as it builds, and then as you wash it off, aiming for specific areas of your hands as you clear the later.
Get creative as you discover new experiences within the familiar!
Can you go from feeling stressed to calm in under 30 seconds?
Phil Boissiere shares his simple technique, 3 by 3, to bring mindfulness to your busy life, any time, anywhere.
He is an adult ADHD and couples counseling specialist based in the San Francisco Bay Area and an expert in brain science, the Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics (NMT), and adult ADHD.
He also founded Beyond Focused, a web based video learning series for adults with ADHD and others who are looking to achieve optimal cognitive, occupational, and personal success.
While the ways in which we engage in work, school and our personal lives have significantly changed over the last year the demands placed on us throughout the day have remained steady, if not increased. While it may be easy to bring our bodies from one physical space to another, or click over from one video conference to the next, or minds are often elsewhere – either hung up on things discussed in a previous appointment, or dreading some upcoming task. This prevents us from being focused on the task at hand and can leave us cognitively and emotionally drained. This is why companies like SAP encourage what they call the “Minute to Arrive,” which is based on the mindfulness practice of Simply Stopping, and which is the focus of today’s exercise.
It’s common to experience a barrage of planning thoughts throughout the week, and even on the weekend as it creeps along. This meditation will be dedicated to, and focused on, grounding yourself in the body. It’s from this foundation that we can move forth, in both body and mind, into the week.
As you work toward building your mindfulness practice, sometimes it is helpful to start your day with a brief, 5 minute exercise. This meditation, from the folks at MindfulPeace, is meant to gently ease you into your day.
We are now many months into the Mindfulness Monday series, and have experienced a variety of mindfulness exercises. But as any long term practitioner will tell you, no matter how long you engage in mindfulness, revisiting the basics will always be needed to keep you skills shape. As such, this week will be our third session in our return to basics series.
Many of us have taken to indulging ourselves in greater quantities of our favorite healthy foods, or more calorie-dense treats over the last year. The holidays did not help. One evidenced-based means of reversing this process is through mindful eating, which is the topic of today’s exercise from the website MyLife and their Stop, Breathe, and Think series.
We are now many months into the Mindfulness Monday series, and have experienced a variety of mindfulness exercises. But as any long term practitioner will tell you, no matter how long you engage in mindfulness, revisiting the basics will always be needed to keep you skills shape. As such, this week will be our second sessions in our return the basics, with another fundamental element, progress muscle relaxation (PM&R).
We are now many months into the Mindfulness Monday series, and have experienced a variety of mindfulness exercises. But as any long term practitioner will tell you, no matter how long you engage in mindfulness, revisiting the basics will always be needed to keep you skills shape. As such, this week will be our first return the basics, starting with the most fundamental element, breathing. This week, our exercise is lead by John Davisi.
The events that took place January 6th in our nation’s capital have left many of us even further shaken after an already difficult 10 months of pandemic related stress and racial turmoil. These events were fueled by fear and anger, two emotions that, while natural, can be very dangerous when left unchecked or, in an even worse case scenarios, exploited. The problem is not the emotions themselves, of course, but the behaviors that we choose in reaction to them. Unfortunately, bad actions on one part are likely to spark fear and anger on the part of others who, in turn, engage in unhelpful behaviors in the face of their own emotions and so on, and so forth, until everyone is hurting. So what do we do?
Sadly, there is no simple solution. The problems laid before us have existing throughout much of our history and have been looming larger with each passing year. To really see change will require intervention at every level of society but, as with most things, we can start with ourselves. Today’s mindfulness exercise, known in the mindfulness community as “Loving-Kindness” is meant to help with that. So let’s begin.
For many of us, the new year means a resolution to change our eating habits and lose weight, often driven by the extra pounds put on during the holidays. While there is often an initial burst of efforts in the form of restrictive dieting or intense exercise, research tells us one of the best ways to lose weight and keep it off it to start by building small, sustainable habits. In the world of Behavioral Weight Loss, one of those habits is mindful eating, and that is the skill we introduce today.
Before you hit play, be sure to grab a small piece of food to use during this exercise.
To manage the ever growing list of demands we are all facing these days, today we will be trying any exercise designed by New York Times bestselling author and teacher of Buddhist meditation practices Sharon Salzberg. Before we get started, grab a piece of paper or open a new word processing document on your computer, they will be needed for this exercise. Ready? Let’s jump in!
Tara Brach is a psychologist, author, and proponent of Buddhist meditation. She is a guiding teacher and founder of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, D.C. Dr. Brach is an engaged Buddhist specializing in the application of Buddhist teachings and mindfulness meditation to emotional healing. She has authored books on these subjects including Radical Acceptance, True Refuge and Radical Compassion. Today, she leads us in an exercise of Opening and Calming.
In an ongoing effort to help you incorporate mindfulness into your existing daily routines, this week’s exercise focuses on one of the most basic and common activities of the day, standing. Recognizes the many demands on your time, this is also a brief exercise, clocking in at exactly 5 minutes. To that end, let’s jump right in!
2019 data from the American Psychological Association found that 38% of Americans reported increased levels of stress over the holidays, while data from Healthline suggests those number may be as high as 62%. With many unable to be with family and observe usual traditions, we can expect those numbers to increase in 2020. Psychologists are offering a number of ways to address this, including creating new holidays traditions, connecting with family virtually, and perhaps most importantly, focusing on self-care. We have discussed the role of gratitude in promoting self-care and overall good mental health in previous Mindfulness Monday posts, but its importance cannot be understated. Noting its importance, and as we approach a day meant to put giving thanks front and center, this week’s exercise again focuses on cultivating gratitude.
From all of us here at the RRT, we wish you a safe, happy, and healthy Thanksgiving.
One of the aspirational goals of mindfulness is cultivating equanimity, a state of mental calmness, composure, and evenness of temperedness, especially during difficult situations. Unfortunately, many of us only strive toward equanimity during such trying times when, in reality, we would benefit from working toward this at least a little bit each day, as we start our day. Learning to do this will help you respond rather than react to your thoughts and emotions. While you cannot always control the mind, you can encourage it to be more at ease, and this is the goal of today’s exercise, so let’s begin.
In “The Book of Forgiving”, South African Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu describes the choice humans are faced with when we encounter the pain of being hurt by one another. He describes pain as a pivotal moment during which we can choose to enter into a cycle of revenge or begin a path to forgiveness. Forgiveness involves embracing our shared, flawed humanity, and realizing that we, too, have likely hurt many throughout our lives. While these weekly mindfulness exercises have been targeting aspects of our lives directly impacted by the pandemic, we must acknowledge that the current political climate has been every bit as distressing at times and by its very nature caused significant pain and suffering, and so it seems appropriate to focus some of energy on healing the pain that this has brought, and so we start with forgiveness. The hope is that practicing forgiveness, while difficult and at times feeling unfair, will help you let go of these painful experiences and offer you some degree of freedom, so let’s begin.
Welcome to this edition of Mindfulness Monday with the Resiliency Resources Team..
Beginning in March and through to the present, the RRT visited many of the inpatient floors and ambulatory clinics extolling the virtues of mindfulness to overcome distress and promote overall wellness. But what happens when you simply can bring yourself to engage in a mindfulness-based practice? Do you feel like mindfulness just isn’t for you? Today’s exercise is meant to address those very issues, so let’s jump right in.
There is a popular quote attributed to The Reverend Fred Rogers, better known to most as beloved PBS mainstay Mr. Rogers, that will appear across social media during tragic events, and that was quite popular in the early days of the pandemic. To paraphrase, Rogers says that, when he was a boy, and he would see scary things in the news, his mother would tell him to look for the helpers, that even in the darkest of times you will always find people who are helping. While it may not always feel that way, there is a strong truth to this sentiment, and so it may be helpful from time to time to cultivate gratitude for the helpers. This is especially true in medical settings, where many if not most of us want to be the helpers, and never the helped. To that end, today’s mindfulness exercise is meant to bring your awareness to those who have helped you get to where you are today and who will continue to walk with you going forward. Let’s jump right in.
Every Monday, the Daily Dose is dedicated to starting your week right with a brief guided mindfulness exercise. Today, we focus on compassion. Psychologist Kristin Neff, who studies compassion, tells us “Self-compassion involves acting the same way towards yourself when you are having a difficult time, fail, or notice something you don’t like about yourself as you would act toward other under the same circumstances. Instead of just ignoring your pain with a “stiff upper lip” mentality, you stop to tell yourself “this is really difficult right now,” how can I comfort and care for myself in this moment?” Today’s exercise is meant to help us with this, so let’s begin.
Today’s Mindfulness Monday exercise brings our attention back to our body. We recognize that incorporating mindfulness into your already busy day can be a challenge, and so we like to occasionally offer very brief mindfulness based interventions to help you on your way.
Today, we offer and abbreviated version of one of the most common mindfulness-based exercises, the body scan. The purpose of the body scan is to purposely shift your attention to what is going on in your body and, in doing so, reconnect to your physical self rather than the multitude of stimuli and demands in your environment. In this practice, we try to simply and notice any sensations we’re feeling without judgement. While some may find the body scan relaxing, relaxation is not always the primary goal. The goal instead is to train your attention as to become more open and aware of your sensory experiences, recognizing what is happening in each sense, and accepting it just as it is. With time and practice, the body scan can boost your ability to focus and be fully present. Let’s begin.
Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl said “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” This concept is at the heart of the RAIN technique for managing distress. Philippe R. Goldin, Ph.D. is associate professor at the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at UC Davis, where he teaches, conducts research and mentors students in the areas of health promotion, clinical psychology and cognitive-affective neuroscience and has contributed greatly to literature highlighting the efficacy of this approach. You can follow along with the below video, and details are available below the video.
R = Recognize. Recognize the emotions or thoughts that are troubling you. Notice them without judgment. Naming them can also help shrink them to manageable size: “Story of how my friends will all desert me.” “Worry about my son again.” “Despising self for how I acted.” Just noticing and naming the passing parade of your thoughts, feelings, and sensations can provide some immediate relief. “Oh, so that’s what’s on my mind.” You may even notice that your painful feelings disappear after a while. “This too shall pass” can become words to live by.
A = Acknowledge, Accept, Allow. The next step is to acknowledge your distress and accept it as your present reality. Accepting the pattern does not mean you like it; it only means that you are able to put these unpleasant mental contents front and center, rather than allowing them to strum unconsciously under the surface of your mind. You might say to yourself, for example, “Yes, I’m worried about money again.”
I = Inquire, Investigate. At this stage of the process, you can use your natural curiosity to delve more deeply into your distress. You can ask yourself: What triggered this current bout of distress? When have I felt this way before? What thoughts, feelings, and sensations are connected to these feelings? How realistic is my thinking? Are there actions I could take to help myself or another person? What do I need?
N = Non-identification. Your painful thoughts, feelings, and sensations are not you. Instead of identifying with them, you can mentally “step to the side” and watch them scroll by like a newsfeed.
S = Self-compassion. Self-compassion means offering yourself some friendliness, generosity, and sympathy. It is not self-pity; rather, it is a recognition and acceptance of your humanness, your imperfection, and your suffering. It is empathizing with yourself the way you might for your best friend or love partner. You might say to yourself, “It’s hard for you when you feel so self-critical,” for example. In her book, Radical Acceptance, Tara Brach puts it this way: “Instead of resisting our feelings of fear or grief, we embrace our pain with the kindness of a mother holding her child.” (Note: Brach updated the RAIN meditation acronym in 2019 in her new book, Radical Compassion. In her revised acronym, the “N” of RAIN has become “Nurture.”)
Every Monday, the Daily Dose is dedicated to starting your week right with a brief guided mindfulness exercise. This week, we meet the director of Johns Hopkins’ Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program, Neda Gould, Ph.D., who is a clinical psychologist and Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences as well as Associate Director of the Bayview Anxiety Disorders Clinic. Dr. Gould and her group lead us in a Guided Imagery exercise appropriate both for adults and children.
Every Monday, the Daily Dose is dedicated to starting your week right with a brief guided mindfulness exercise. This week, we recognize that many have children that are headed back to school, no matter what back to school looks like this year. There is extensive research suggesting that teaching students mindfulness skills improves attention and reduces behavioral issues and, in turn, can boost grades. To help promote mindfulness in yourself and your children, check out this brief explanation and exercise from the folks at AboutKidsHealth:
Every Monday, the Daily Dose is dedicated to starting your week right with a brief guided mindfulness exercise. We recognize that as you build your mindfulness practice it may be easier to incorporate exercises into the beginning or end of your day, whereas building it into the workday may be more challenging, though that is often where mindfulness is needed the most. Today, instead of reaching for a coffee when you’re feeling tired in the afternoon, try the Calm.com Afternoon Reset. You can do this mindful movement session at your desk!
Every Monday, the Daily Dose is dedicated to starting your week right with a brief guided mindfulness exercise. One emotion many of us are hesitant to acknowledge, especially in the moment, is anger. Like any emotion, in small doses and the right situations, anger has a job to do and can be beneficial. It is meant to motivate you and others to find solutions to problems. Tara Brach teachers us that, when anger is held in mindfulness, it can energize us to respond wisely to challenging situations. This meditation guides us in meeting personal or societal anger with RAIN – recognize, allow, investigate and nurture.
Self-soothing is something many of us learned to varying degrees from the time we were infants, through childhood, and something we refine throughout the rest of our lives. The core question when self-soothing is what simple thing can we do to make us feel better? These are usually based in the physical world, appearing to our five senses. The goal is to use them both proactively as well as when we are feeling distressed, when you feel that you cannot tolerate a situation anymore and cannot leave it. Today’s mindfulness exercise is brought to us by Tamara Levitt at Calm.com, who guides us through a 10-minute mindfulness meditation that can serve as an introduction to incorporating self-soothing into your day.
Every Monday we bring you a mindfulness-based meditation to start your day and week off on the right foot. This week, we recognize that so much of what is going on can take our attention away from the present moment, and we miss out on important things. In this exercise, Tamara Levitt from Calm.com guides this 10 minute mindfulness meditation to restore and re-connect with the present moment.
Every Monday we bring you a mindfulness-based meditation to start your day and week off on the right foot. This week, we recognize that so much of suffering is magnified by holding on to those things that cause the suffering for want of control. Understanding that we are sometimes limited in our control, it can be helpful to learn to let go, which is what this exercise targets.
Every Monday, the Daily Dose is dedicated to starting your week right with a brief guided mindfulness exercise. Today we ask the question, how can we best deal with difficult or negative thoughts? Dr. Steven Hayes discusses language, cognition, and the science behind putting on the mental brakes, with mindfulness as the gateway.
Every Monday, the Daily Dose is dedicated to starting your week right with a brief guided mindfulness exercise. For those of you who have jam packed schedules and feel that it is difficult to fit mindfulness in, today we offer a very brief and very effective exercise. The goal of this activity is to notice when the hectic nature of the day is seeping in and to hit reset – spending a few minutes focused on your breathing. This exercise comes courtesy of the app Stop, Breathe & Think.
Jon Kabat-Zinn is professor emeritus of medicine and the creator of the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. The stress reduction program created by Kabat-Zinn, mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), is offered by medical centers, hospitals, and health maintenance organizations. Today’s mindfulness exercise is representative of his approach toward mindfulness.
Every Monday, the Daily Dose is dedicated to starting your week right with a brief guided mindfulness exercise. This week’s exercise comes to us from Jonathan Fisher, MD, a clinical cardiologist. This week Dr. Fisher leads a mindfulness exercise targeting feelings of anger, fear, confusion, guilt, and restlessness.
Every Monday, the Daily Dose is dedicated to starting your week right with a brief guided mindfulness exercise. This week’s exercise once again comes to us from Dr. Philip Fizur of Cooper Behavioral Medicine. This week he invites us to consider turning toward, and not away from, difficult emotions and provides a skillful approach to doing so.
Every Monday, the Daily Dose is dedicated to starting your week right with a brief guided mindfulness exercise. This week’s exercise comes to us again from Dr. Philip Fizur of Behavioral Medicine. Recent studies have provided evidence of the positive impact being grateful has on our physical and emotional health. Being grateful is a skill to build and is the goal of today’s exercise.
Every Monday, the Daily Dose is dedicated to starting your week right with a brief guided mindfulness exercise. This week’s exercise once again comes to us from Dr. Christina Goodwin of Cooper Psychiatry. This week she invites us to consider and internalize the peace we might experience from time in the mountains.
Every Monday, the Daily Dose is dedicated to starting your week right with a brief guided mindfulness exercise. This week’s exercise comes to us again from Dr. Christina Goodwin of Cooper Psychiatry. While our physical access to the shores of New Jersey may be limited right now, that does not prevent us from going there in our minds whenever we need a break.
