It doesn’t happen so often now but I have to say it makes me laugh when I hear people say things like “Oh I don’t believe in that sort of stuff,” when referring to mindfulness. It’s as though you’re pedalling some sort of weird and magical, new-age type of voodoo. It has to be said, it also makes me a little sad. Sad because they obviously don’t realise what a huge amount of research into mindfulness has been carried out for years, and it has been proved to be effective in many areas; and sad because they don’t know what they’re missing out on! You see, Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) have a strong scientific evidence-base. And it makes you feel good! It also enables you to have skills to deal with all sorts of issues that might come up in your everyday life. Everyone’s life is full of ups and downs. Sometimes it’s great. And sometimes it’s not. Whenever mindfulness is practised it can help you to learn how to deal with the ups and downs together.

Jon Kabat-Zinn (founder of the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Clinic in America) famously says:

“You can’t stop the waves but you can learn how to surf.”

 
So to all the people who have ever said “Oh I don’t believe in that sort of stuff,” well actually, you don’t have to believe in it because it’s scientifically proven. It would be a bit like saying “Putting the fire on to keep warm? Oh I don’t believe in that sort of stuff.”

 
Mindfulness works because of something called NEUROPLASTICITY. The neuro represents neuron or the nerve cells that are present in our brain and nervous system. Plastic means that something can be changed or modified. Hence neuroplasticity – brains that can change.
 

MRI scans in empirical research studies have shown that the part of the brain responsible for ‘good’ feelings such as relaxation, self-esteem, creativity, empathy (the hippocampus) increases in size whilst the part responsible for all the ‘not so good’ stuff such as stress, anxiety and depression (the amygdala) – decreases in size in people who meditate regularly.
 

Mindfulness can work wonders (and all without the side effects that are possible when taking medication) and research is being carried out continually across the world, in all areas of health care from depression and mental health issues to oncology, immune response, and heart disease, to name but a few. 
 

But don’t just take my word for it. Here are some nuggets of wisdom from people and organisations who hold a bit more sway than me:

 

For over a decade, the UK’s National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has been recommending Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy as a treatment of choice for sufferers of depression relapse.

                                                                                       - National Institute of Health and Care Excellence

 

Mindfulness has been proved to be at least as good as medication for the treatment of clinical-level depression.

                                                                                                                    - Burch and Penman (2013)

 

When someone meditates regularly:

• Symptoms of anxiety and depression decrease
• Chronic stress symptoms, such as high blood pressure, decrease
• Chronic pain can be reduced
• Addictions can be alleviated

                                                                                                             -        Williams and Penman (2011)
 

Mindfulness has anti-depressant and anti-anxiety effects and can decrease general psychological distress. It is beneficial for those with mental health issues as well as healthy individuals. Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction has a role to play in pain management.

                                                                                                     - Journal of Psychiatric Practice (2012)
 

The evidence base on Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction shows significant positive effect sizes with participants with chronic pain, fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, generalised anxiety disorder and panic, and psoriasis.

                                                                               -        The Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice,

                                                                                                                        Bangor University (2015)

 
Mindfulness can improve the control of blood sugar in type II diabetes

                                                                                                                 -        Burch and Penman (2013)
 

In head-to-head comparisons with antidepressants, Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy provides effects comparable with staying on a maintenance dose of anti-depressants.

                                                                                               -        The British Journal of Psychiatry (2012)

A recent ICM (International Conference on Mindfulness) survey showed that almost three quarters of doctors now think that all patients would benefit from learning mindfulness meditation skills.

                                                                                                                                       - Ed Halliwell,

                                                                                                       The Mental Health Foundation (2009)

   

So by all means, carry on not believing in ‘that sort of stuff’. But if you do, you’ll be denying a technique that is clinically and empirically evidence-based and, therefore, one that continues to grow in scientific credence.

You’ll also be missing out on a technique that can make you feel really good!

Giles Coren, contributor to various publications such as The Times, The Independent on Sunday, Tatler and GQ, has recently hit out at mindfulness, calling it “cynical twenty-first-century capitalist techno smegma” in an online London blog.

You can read his article here. It is quite funny.

http://now-here-this.timeout.com/2015/01/27/giles-coren-on-mindfulness-it-is-cynical-capitalist-techno-smegma/ 

His expertise enabling him to shed an educated light on the subject has apparently been gleaned from ‘reading the books’ and ‘downloading the apps.’ Well done Giles. A good few hours’ study there then.  

The book he refers to (‘Mindfulness – a practical guide to Finding Peace In A Frantic World’) is written by, as he implies by association, ‘lunatic whack-jobs’. I would prefer to use the authors’ proper titles of Professor Mark Williams and Dr. Danny Penman, both of the University of Oxford. They quote and reference many studies that have been made on the effectiveness of mindfulness meditation, mostly concerning the efficacy on sufferers of depression, stress and anxiety. I hazard a guess that NICE, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence would not have been recommending mindfulness for sufferers of depression relapse for well over 10 years now if it was, as Mr. Coren describes it a “massive. Pile. Of. Bollocks.”  

When referring to mindfulness being used in the corporate world he says of bosses: “They want their drones pacified, and they’re using meditation because they are not allowed to use drugs.” I’d just like to clarify, mindfulness does not turn people into walking zombies. On the contrary, they may actually become more creative, think ‘outside of the box’, and be more confident in their own abilities. Not, you would think, qualities of ‘pacified drones’. 

“You wouldn’t start a course of chemotherapy if you didn’t have cancer, would you? It’s ridiculous” he continues. This is correct. But in making a comparison such as this, Mr. Coren really doesn’t have the first clue about how thought-processes and mindfulness work. From his comments, I would imagine that he perhaps needs to thank his lucky stars that he has never suffered with severe depression relapse. Perhaps instead he should be praising a method that can help such sufferers. And yes they, in particular, are often advised to begin to learn mindfulness techniques when they are not at the bottom of ‘the black hole of depression.’ You can’t, and shouldn’t, really compare two such vastly different treatments now should you… unless you’re lacking in a real, intelligent argument in the first place of course. 

So, Giles Coren gets a great bit of publicity whilst knocking mindfulness. Good for him. As I said, it was an entertaining article.

In response, I’d like to put a few more points across. So… 

Mindfulness is a great form of relaxation. If you attend a mindfulness group, the chances are that you’ll come away from it feeling a lot less stressed than when you went in.

However, if it’s really going to make a difference in your life, and the way you live your life, then mindfulness can be seen as so much more than just ‘relaxation’. Yes, it’s good to go and get your ‘fix’ of mindfulness on a regular basis, maybe once a week in a group - some mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) techniques may involve you being guided on a pleasant mental journey - and this is all well and good. But it’s the mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) techniques that, I feel, are even more important and lie at the centre of you being more at ease with things as they happen in your everyday life. 

We all are  liable to get so caught up in our own thoughts - judgements, insecurities, worries, plans, interpretations - that rarely do we have a full awareness of what is actually going on in the present moment. And yet that is the only point in time where we can really live our lives. The past has gone. Even the second it took you to read that sentence… and that one… gone. Left only in your memories and imagination. The future is yet to happen and cannot be lived in physically, and although you can imagine what it might be like you never really know for sure until it happens, by which time, all too soon, it’s in the past. Living can only take place right here, right now – and we often miss so much of it because we’re caught up in our thoughts and judgments. 

The more we can become aware of our thoughts and our thought processes, the more chance we have of being able to detach ourselves from those that are less than helpful. This is why mindfulness has a proven track record for helping people who suffer with depression relapse. These people are actually encouraged to learn mindfulness techniques when they’re feeling good about things, before they slip into that proverbial ‘black hole’. They are then more likely to recognise their thought processes unravelling in the direction of an episode of depression, and ultimately may have more control before slipping completely. NICE recommends mindfulness as a treatment for people who are prone to episodes of depression for this very reason. 

It was recently suggested to me that mindfulness is a technique that relaxes you and makes everything appear hunky-dory but it doesn’t really have anything to do with the real world and all the sadness, upset and pain that it is so often fraught with. How wrong this interpretation is. Mindfulness, at its best, should focus on every aspect of life, whether perceived as good or bad. Whatever we happen to be going through at any particular time, is life unfolding. And often it’s far from easy. Jon Kabat-Zinn, a recognised authority on mindfulness techniques in the western world, has a saying: “You can’t stop the waves… but you can learn how to surf.” Life is not straight-forward. Hurt happens. But recognising the fact that things can and do pass, may help just a little. Being mindful of the fact that the good times come to pass as well may also be helpful. We are then more able to ride the waves – the troughs as well as the crests.

Physical pain is another aspect of life in which mindfulness may be able to provide some relief. Instead of trying to block it out, in rather a contradictory fashion, bringing your awareness to your experience of the pain may actually help to transform it into something a little more manageable.  

So, yes, please do go along to a mindfulness session purely for a nice bit of relaxation once a week. But please recognise the fact that it can offer so much more than this if you’re willing to invest a little time and effort to take the cognitive techniques back into your everyday lives.

Oh and enjoy reading articles by Giles Coren. He’s entitled to his opinion and may articulate it as he sees fit. But remember, when he’s passing comment on mindfulness, that he’s first and foremost a restaurant critic and newspaper columnist, not a professor or doctor from the University of Oxford… or indeed, someone who, I would be surprised to find, has ever suffered from depression.

 

 



This article was originally published in 'Hypnoversity' Winter/Spring 2015.


I had used general relaxation techniques informally a few times during my time as a primary school teacher (especially when the children came in from a long, hot, sticky dinnertime with short fuses and 100 different stories relating to their social time outside). I found that a just a few minutes spent in this way was hugely beneficial and had a knock-on effect for the rest of the day.

So, with the intention of using it back in schools at some point, it was with much interest that I set about completing the Mindfulness Now course with Nick Cooke and Aston Colley in May 2014, learning more about various techniques and the 7 elements of mindfulness as outlined by western mindfulness guru Jon Kabat-Zinn:

1. non-striving
2. non-judgemental
3. acceptance
4. letting go
5. trust
6. patience
7. beginner’s mind
   

It was emphasised throughout the course that we, as prospective mindfulness practitioners, should also try to practise these elements in our everyday lives, both formally and informally. So far, so good.  

It was during the first two sessions back in a mainstream primary school but working as a Teacher of Mindfulness with just six children (all of whom had been targeted specifically as needing mindfulness as a tool) that I realized it wasn’t going to be as simple as I had first envisaged. Their specific behavioural and social needs really tested number 5 on that list - my own trust in what I was doing!

I, personally, was in a transition phase between being a mainstream teacher and being a mindfulness practitioner, and having begun to practise the 7 attitudes in my own life, I was finding it increasingly difficult to enforce rules for behaviour that I had previously been so familiar with. I had read articles saying things along the lines of “Sometimes we have to let go and just allow the children’s energy to find their own balance”  (www.mindbodygreen.com)  and “Although it may be tempting to use mindfulness as a disciplinary tool, mindfulness should not be used to demand a certain behaviour. It inherently includes the quality of acceptance,” (www.greatergood.berkeley.edu).

What many of us may tend to forget is the fact that children are naturally mindful. They perhaps do not have to be still and quiet and calm in order to be practising mindfulness. Most children are naturally excited, inquisitive and on-the-go, experiencing all that life throws at them without too much worry. The children I was working alongside needed acceptance of who they are, what they do, why they behave in certain ways, how they do things and see things sometimes quite differently from the rest of us. Many children, because of their specific needs, find it incredibly difficult to sit still and to be quiet. So should we expect this from them?

Adults tend to conform. And if they do not like mindfulness or think it is not for them, then they have the choice as to whether they come back next time. These children did not have the choice. It was my job, therefore, to achieve a balance between ‘I know what I’m talking about and therefore you need to do it this way’ and ‘Let’s just see how you do this for yourselves because you might actually know better than I do’.

I’m still learning. And I hazard a guess I’ll still be learning in however many years down the line.

Two things seem to be for sure though: 1) The number of children who exhibit behavioural and social issues, and could benefit hugely from mindfulness, seems to continue to rise and 2) The number of teachers and support staff experiencing high levels of stress due to the inherent demands of the job, also continues to grow. As a result, I can see that mindfulness will continue to be an increasingly valuable tool for use in both primary and secondary schools.

My first contribution to my blog is called ‘Attention!’ a) because I wanted to get yours and b) because that’s what I find myself saying over and over again, in one way or another in my work as a hypnotherapist and teacher of mindfulness. I hasten to add that I don’t say it as a sergeant major would! I never say it as an instruction but always as part of a sentence: “Simply notice where your attention takes you,” “You might find yourself paying attention more and more to what your body is telling you,” “And when you’re ready, you can bring your attention back to the here and now.”  

We are always attending to something – whether that’s a particular situation, how our body is feeling in any given moment (especially if we’re experiencing pain or discomfort), or our thoughts. In fact, 9 times out of 10 we get ‘caught up’ in our thoughts without acknowledging what’s really going on – judgments, self-criticism, worries, these are often the main contributors to stress.  

Hypnotherapy works with your thought processes in order to make a desired change – it may provide a new and refreshing way of looking at things; it may help someone to revisit past trauma and come back to the present with an altered view of things; it can help to overcome phobias and addictions; it can even help transform pain, or should I say our experience of pain, into something that is more acceptable.  

Mindfulness works in completely the opposite way – it doesn’t aim to ‘do’ anything but in so-doing changes do occur. For relaxation, we don’t aim to stop our thoughts – in fact we may focus on them even more, observing them as the transient things that they are, knowing that they will come and go, as they always have done. We don’t aim, necessarily, to have a quiet environment – we focus even more on any sounds we hear, and just let them be. In so-doing our overall experience can become ‘quieter’. When treating pain or discomfort, we have no specific aim of changing it but rather we acknowledge it fully, observe it, give it our full attention, breathe into it – and rather miraculously changes can occur.  

Our experience of life depends on where our attention goes and, ultimately what we choose to do with it.