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A Mindful Stop (Stolen from Russ Harris)

29/10/2013

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I have stolen this (stolen, not adapted, just plain stolen) from wonderful ACT therapist Russ Harris.
It is a really nice way of incorporating mindfulness into daily life. 
The Mindful STOP 
We all know that mindfulness is ‘good for us’, just as we all know that exercise is ‘good for us’. However that doesn’t mean we need to do intensive mindfulness meditation for 40 minutes every day! In my workshops for coaches and therapists, I like to say, ‘If we want to motivate people to exercise more, we wouldn’t tell them, “You have to go to the gym for 40 minutes a day!” Rather, we’d say, “Every tiny little bit of exercise makes a difference. If you walk for five minutes at lunchtime, that’s better than not walking at all. If you walk up one flight of stairs instead of taking the lift, that’s better than not walking up any stairs. If you park your car in the parking space that’s furthest away from the supermarket, that’s better than parking in the closest one; even walking those few extra metres across the parking lot will make a difference.” ’

Sure, if you do exercise for 40 minutes a day, you’ll be healthier than if you do it for only 10 minutes a day – but even 5 minutes a day is a whole lot better than none at all! And so it is with mindfulness skills. Just like any skill we learn, the more we practice mindfulness, the better we get. So if you’re willing and able to do 30 or 40 minutes of daily mindfulness meditation (or similar formal mindfulness practices like yoga, or Tai Chi), that’s fantastic! Those are truly excellent practices for effectively developing your mindfulness skills. However, let’s be realistic here; many of us are unable or unwilling to make the time for this type of formal mindfulness practice on a daily basis. That’s just life!

However, that doesn’t mean we need to give up on the idea of regular mindfulness practice. It just means we need to find alternative ways of practicing our mindfulness skills throughout the day. That’s why in all my books you’ll find plenty of suggestions for quick, simple, easy ways to do this – e.g. having a mindful shower, mindfully brushing your teeth, mindfully patting the dog, mindfully hugging your loved ones, mindfully drinking your tea or coffee, mindfully ironing your shirts, mindfully tying your shoe laces, taking ten slow mindful breaths, etc. After all, one of the beautiful things about mindfulness is you can practice it anytime, anywhere, any activity. (To download a one-page handout/worksheet/tip-sheet on informal mindfulness practice, click here.)

Now here’s one especially useful, ultra-brief, and very simple mindfulness practice, that you can easily incorporate into your busy daily routine, no matter how pressed for time you are. I call it the mindful S.T.O.P. Here’s how it goes:

S – Slow down (slow down your breathing; or slowly press your feet into the floor; or slowly stretch your arms; or slowly press your fingertips together) 
T - Take note (with a sense of curiosity, notice your thoughts & feelings; notice what you can see and hear and touch and taste and smell; notice where you are and what you are doing) 
O - Open up (open up and make room for your thoughts & feelings, and allow them to freely flow through you; use any defusion or expansion skill you like) 
P - Pursue values (reconnect with your values, and let them guide whatever you do next)

The lovely thing about a mindful STOP is you can make it as short or as long as you like. You can zip through this in under thirty seconds – e.g. while you’re waiting at a red traffic light, or stuck in a supermarket queue, or waiting for your kids to come sit at to the dinner table – or you can stretch it out into a thirty minute formal meditation practice. I encourage you to try it out for yourself – not just once, but over and over and over again:Slow down; Take note; Open up; and Pursue your values. A regular mindful STOP works wonders.


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1.  Are you Stuck on thoughts or stuck with thoughts.

2/8/2013

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Sometimes when I work I think, I should write that idea down, maybe it would be helpful for another patient, or maybe I could use that in supervision or teaching.  Given that it is not thinking about something that moves you anywhere I thought I would take action and write some of the things I do here. These ideas are just ideas and are in no way a substitute for seeing a real live person to get the help you need.

I was working with a patient of mine who we can call Mary because it isn't her name.We were looking at what was making it hard to move forward in building a "bigger life" including working, compassion and giving to others rather than a "smaller life" of weight control and counting calories.

We ended up with this picture (it goes without saying that I once got kicked out of a high school art class for being an abomination to the art world - harsh but fair btw).
Picture
There are actually a lot of different concepts in this picture.  I thought that maybe I would break it down over a couple of posts.  

This one is about getting stuck on thoughts rather than stuck with thoughts.
Picture
Mary had a mind full of thoughts.  Her thoughts would both maintain the eating disorder (I cant cope, you dont need it) and more change oriented thoughts (your body is collapsing, it dosen't matter).  She could see that these thoughts would just swirl around in her head creating chaos and confusion.  She tried to challenge these thoughts but these seemed to get her more paralysed by thoughts.  Eventually she would get "stuck on" thoughts - she would act as if they were commands that had to be followed.  In the previous week she had been stuck on her eating disordered thoughts and followed them automatically.  She had followed them thoughtlessly (without thinking about them) or "mindlessly" (without being that aware that she was following thoughts).
We then drew another picture to indicate another way of 'relating' to thinking.
Picture
This represents developing a "helicopter stance" to our thoughts (sometimes called an observing mind).  We can learn to look at our thoughts, almost as if they were external to us, and see them as thoughts.  We discussed how (at least for the present moments) we are "stuck with" these thoughts.  We don't get to choose our thoughts we have in our heads, our minds just produce them. We can't not think, we can't choose to not have certain thoughts.  These thoughts are coming with us wherever we go. They are our constant companions, at least for the time being.  

The good news is that from this helicopter stance we can have a choice in where we go, rather than just following thoughts we are "stuck on".

I have found that helping people develop a helicopter stance to their thoughts be a really helpful step in moving towards creating a more meaningful life irrespective of what their head is telling them.

We can talk about the "how" to do this later.
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Mind and its potential presentation.

16/2/2013

1 Comment

 
In 2012 I was privileged to present at the Mind and its Potential Conference.  Below is the video of my presentation.  It has been on our Facebook page for a while and got shared around the viral world with really good feedback for which I am grateful.  I thought I should put it up on our webpage.
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Relapse of Depression and a role for Mindfulness.

28/5/2011

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A recent post on the PsychCentral Blog reports on a study by Norman Farb, a PhD psychology student from the University of Toronto published in Biological Psychiatry.  

"When previously depressed individuals enter mild states of sadness, their brain’s response can predict if they will sink into depression again, say researchers at the University of Toronto.

“Part of what makes depression such a devastating disease is the high rate of relapse,” says Norman Farb, a PhD psychology student and lead author of the study.

“However, the fact that some patients are able to fully maintain their recovery suggests the possibility that different responses to the type of emotional challenges encountered in everyday life could reduce the chance of relapse.”

For the study, researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to track the brain activity of 16 formerly depressed patients as they watched sad movie clips. Sixteen months later, after nine of the 16 patients had relapsed into depression, th
e team compared the brain activity of the relapsed patients against those who remained healthy as well as a control group who had never been depressed". .....


Click here to read the full PsychCentral post 

This has some interesting implications for psychological treatment of depression.  

The article suggests that the neurological difference is related to rumination about sadness. This is where we get sad or worried about our own sadness, which of course keeps the cycle of depression going.  Mindfulness Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (MBCT) teaches patients to develop what might be called an "observer self".  This is where we develop the skill of "meta cognition" where we look at, rather than respond to our thoughts.  We notice that they are thoughts which may or may not be helpful, rather than facts that must be followed as truth.  Patients with depression are specifically taught in MBCT to be aware of their thoughts about sadness and to let them pass, rather than act on them.  


For example, "It's awful that I'm sad, I think I am getting depressed again.  Why is this happening to me. This is awful" could be noticed, rather than ruminated on.  Rumination is likely to focus your mind on all things negative, which begin to create a self fulfilling prophecy about becoming depressed.

The UK National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) has recently endorsed MBCT as an effective treatment for prevention of relapse in Depre. Research has shown that people who have been clinically depressed 3 or more times (sometimes for twenty years or more) find that taking the program and learning these skills helps to reduce considerably their chances that depression will return. The evidence from two randomized clinical trials of MBCT indicates that it reduces rates of relapse by 50% among patients who suffer from recurrent depression.

Comments welcome on the facebook page. 
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    Author

    Chris Thornton is a Clinical Psychologist and the Clinical Director of The Redleaf Practice, a specialist outpatient clinic for the treatment of eating disorders.  He is interested in bringing elements of positive psychology, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Acceptance and Mindfulness approaches to the treatment of eating disorders.   

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