5. So How Can it Help?

People working in demanding professions, probably ‘deserve and need methods of maintaining good executive functioning in the context of their elevated work-related stress’ (Meiklejohn et al, 2012).

Work-related Stress: The Statistics

Based on the Office for National Statistics Labour Force Survey (www.hse.gov.uk), the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) estimated in 2010/11, that 1 in 3 cases of work-related illness was stress related.

The industries which reported the ‘highest rates of work-related stress were health, social work, education and public administration.’

A UK Charted institute of Personnel Development employee-relations adviser estimates ‘the direct and indirect costs of employee absence to UK businesses is around £1800 per employee per year’ (Chaskalson, 2011).

According to the Department of Health (2010) ‘current levels of sickness absence in the NHS mean that more than 10 million working days are lost each year, equivalent to 4.5% of the entire workforce and at a direct cost of £1.7 billion every year…Stress related disorders alone are thought to account for almost a third of sick leave at an estimated cost of £300-£400 million a year.’

Professor of Management Practice (London Business School) Lynda Gratton, states, ‘The 50 years that many of us can expect to work could be a period of great meaning and satisfaction’ or …’an energy-draining activity. Our working lives are rapidly shifting from a race to a marathon. Burnout for peak performance may have worked for a race-but it does not provide resilience that a marathon takes’ (Chaskalson, 2011).

What Happens When We React to Stressful Events

1.Reacting to stressful events (fear, anxiety and anger) causes flight or fight reactivity. The autonomic system is activated releasing stress hormones, including adrenaline. Parts of the brain called the amygdala and thalamus mobilize the body with an increase in heart rate and blood pressure. If we experience anger during stress, then cortisol is released in the brain, promoting further stress and frustration.

2. Stressors (physiological and/or psychological) on mind and body, along with the internalisation of elevated stress increase the risk of cognitive vulnerability; slowing down and decreasing activity in higher executive functioning and the frontal cortex. Due to the slowing down or decrease in the levels of activity in parts of the brain which take care of our thinking and emotions, the risk of negative mind states (sadness and worry) and pain (chronic headaches and backaches) increases significantly.

3. The risk of automatic and habitual negative reactions or patterns to escape or avoid the suffering, is high, including:

a) Past orientated negative thinking (dwelling) which is associated with sadness and low mood (guilt, self blame, remorse and shame).

b) Future orientated negative thinking which is associated with worry and anxiety (obsessive worries, anticipating failures and catastrophic outcomes).

Mind wandering during periods of stress increases the risk of automatic reactions and habitual patterns of thinking (automatic pilot). This affects our feelings and bodily sensations, which then strengthens the negative thinking. A negative cycle of stress may emerge, which can lead to: sleep disorders, overworking, hyperactivity, over or under eating; increased alcohol, caffeine and cigarette dependency; loss of drive, enthusiasm and exhaustion; and an increased risk of heart problems (Kabat-Zinn, 1991; National Geographic, 2013; Peters, 2012; Williams and Penman, 2011).

Mind Wandering: Automatic Pilot.

When we practice mindfulness we start to notice the mind is constantly thinking and wandering.

Probably you have noticed your mind has wandered a few times since you have been reading this page. So when we are practicing mindfulness, we notice the mind wanders, for example, thinking thoughts or dwelling on thoughts or getting distracted by thoughts that just pop into our head. This mind wandering happens all of the time. That’s OK, because everybody’s mind wanders.

It’s when we get stuck or tangled up in our thoughts that mind wandering becomes problematic.

Sometimes we call mind wandering, Automatic Pilot.

Here's some common examples of Automatic Pilot. Have you ever:

a) Got to the end of a meal without having been aware of it?

b) Got to the end of a page in a magazine or book, only to realize you have hardly read a word of it?

c) Sat in a meeting looking out of the window and before you know it, the meeting has moved to the

next agenda item or finished?

d) Laid in bed trying to sleep, but found yourself repeating in your mind what happened today, or yesterday or what is going to happen tomorrow?

Mindfulness and the Transformation of Distress (Teasdale, 2011)

When we practice mindfulness we learn how we can change the conditions supporting the moment by moment creation of distress or suffering. So through practice we can learn how we can change:

1. WHAT the mind is processing or sorting out. Rather than getting caught up in thinking about thoughts (thought streams), we learn how we may refocus the attention to points that are neutral (e.g., the breath, noticing the physical sensations of the feet making contact with the ground).

2. HOW the mind is processing or sorting stuff out. Rather than getting caught up, or lost in thoughts, trying to push them away or cling to them (which can create even more suffering), we become aware of how the mind is sorting stuff out when it makes contact with an experience. The experience (whether perceived as pleasant, unpleasant or neutral) may include: what we hear, see, taste, touch, or may be a feeling, body sensation or thought. The mind may automatically activate particular habitual patterns, which make comparisons (good or bad), creating discrepancies (setting unrealistic targets or steps which are too big to be taken), believing things should be a certain way, leading to a judgmental attitude, self-criticism and a sense of hopelessness or disappointment. Awareness of how the mind is processing, gives us more choices to respond and accept, rather than react, This helps us kind of, change the shape of the mind (take a check on what the neuroscientists say about this).

3. The VIEW of what the the mind is processing or sorting out. Rather than seeing thoughts or emotions as being us or as facts, we start to see thoughts, feelings and body sensations as events, not facts, which will arise, develop and pass.

The Neuroscience of Stress and the Mechanisms of Mindfulness Practice

Neuroscience: Stress

According to Williams and Penman in The New Psychology of Depression Lectures (2011), the amygdala is part of the automatic flight and fight mechanism, which in terms of our evolution is an ancient system, deep in the brain. The mechanism evolved to preserve life in dangerous situations. The amygdala responds to anything that is highly arousing and reacts to perceived danger before we have had time to think about what we are doing.

The amygdala evolved to protect us from real dangers in the outside world, but human beings have developed a capacity for language, including an inner language, in other words, we are able to think and imagine. Williams and Penman (2011) explained that by having an inner language we are able to bring back memories or we can create images about what might happen in the future. When we create these past or future orientated events in the mind, the amygdala reacts as if they were real.

Nobody can run fast enough to escape their own thoughts or images, as our imagined fears are always with us. We can switch on the amygdala by activating memory, thoughts or imagined fears, but we struggle to switch it off.

When we rush around from task to task, the amygdala becomes chronically overactive, as if its switch has got stuck in the on position. As far as the brain is concerned it is running away from something frightening.

Rushing from task to task creates an illusion of productivity. But when the amygdala is overactive, our capacity to create, process and regulate emotion is constricted, sensitized and diminished. When this occurs we are more critical and less kind towards ourselves, with increased sensitivity towards social pain (sensitive to imagined or felt social exclusion).

Neuroscience: Mechanisms of Mindfulness Practice and Associated Brain Areas

Neuroscience has shown how Mindfulness is powerful enough to positively affect the most ancient and deep seated areas of the brain (Williams and Penman, 2011).

Neuroscientific evidence (Holzel et al, 2011) allows us to describe the mechanisms and associated brain areas of Mindfulness practice:

1. Mechanism: Attention Regulation: Sustaining attention on chosen object and being able to return attention when distracted.

Associated Brain Area: Anterior cingulated cortex.

2. Mechanism: Body Awareness: Being aware of the body responses comes with an increase in awareness of social cognition and empathetic responses. Enhanced functioning in these structures improves empathy, kindness and compassion towards others and self.

Associated Brain Area: Insula

3. Mechanism: Emotional Regulation: Approaching ongoing emotional reactions, non judgmentally with acceptance.

Associated Brain Area: Pre frontal cortex

4. Mechanism: Change in Perspective on the Self: Disengagement from identification with static sense of

self which allows decentring (stepping back) from negative repetitive thinking styles.

Associated Brain Area: Pre frontal cortex, insula, posterior cingulate cortex

So How Can Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy Help Psychologically and Support Emotional Intelligence?

Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) brings awareness to the skills which target and prevent the recurrence of the feelings and thoughts (negative automatic thoughts) which just fester away and seem to automatically, keep spinning, round and round.

So How Do Mindfulness Skills Help with Stressed and Negative Thoughts?

It's important to help our kids understand that feelings are temporary.

On average, an emotion comes and goes in 90 seconds...

The more our children can understand that feelings come and go,

the less they'll get stuck and the more they'll be able to make good

choices.

Dr. Dan Siegel (Facebook 25/4/2013)

FACT-Performance programme can help elites to become more aware of negative automatic thoughts, often activated before, during and after competition-or in razor edged environments. Because the thoughts are automatic, we often get caught up in them, believing and viewing them as facts, before we have had a chance to notice or realize what is happening. Here are some typical negative automatic thoughts experienced sport performers:

Automatic Self-Talk Questionnaire for Sports (Negative)

I am going to lose

I’m wrong again

I am not as good as the others

I am not going to reach my goal

I cannot concentrate

I am not going to make it

What will others think of my poor

performance

I want to stop

I want to get out of here

I think I’ll stop trying

I can’t keep going

I am fed-up

My body is not in a good condition

I am tired

Today I ‘suck’

My legs/arms are shaking from tiredness

My body doesn’t help me today

I am thirsty

What will I do later tonight

I am hungry

I want to take a shower

(PDF) Automatic Self-Talk Questionnaire for Sports (ASTQS): Development and Preliminary Validation of a Measure Identifying the Structure of Athletes' Self-Talk. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233428145_Automatic_Self-Talk_Questionnaire_for_Sports_ASTQS_Development_and_Preliminary_Validation_of_a_Measure_Identifying_the_Structure_of_Athletes'_Self-Talk [accessed Sep 19 2018].

When elite performers practice mindfulness skills, they become more aware of these automatic thought patterns and start to see them for what they are, repetitive negative thoughts. When we are more aware them, we have a greater chance or more of a choice to skillfully step back or disengage from them (no longer getting entangled or caught up in them).

So, FACT can help us become more aware of these automatic negative thoughts, which affect our feelings and body sensations from moment to moment.

This awareness can be helpful as it provides us with an early warning signal. Having an early warning signal or indicator, may prevent us from automatically slipping down the negative spiral or getting entangled in the spider’s web of negative thinking, which will effect our self-belief, control and overall performance.

MBCT can help people to become more aware of the automatic patterns of feelings and thoughts that leave them feeling hopeless, upset, tense and sick.

By becoming aware of these automatic patterns of feelings and thoughts through MBCT people can:

· Learn to become more aware of the early warning signs of thoughts, feelings and body sensations linked to work-related stress

· By being aware of the early warning signs we can respond more effectively

· By responding to the early warning signs we can prevent stress reactivity

· By responding in this way we learn to deal with stress reactivity or repetitive negative thoughts; noticing thoughts are just thoughts and not facts

· By responding more effectively we can prevent stress and negativity, which makes us unwell, from happening over and over again

· By preventing stress, sadness and worry, which can make us unwell, we can improve the quality of our everyday life