Mindful & Relaxation Practice: Alternate Mindful Breathing
and Body Scan
Thinking is a vital skill upon which all of us rely on a daily basis, however it can sometimes become cumbersome when thinking takes over and we become lost in thought. Although many individuals would like to be able to shut off their brains when such a problem arises, there are other ways to deal with this difficulty.
Two Ways of Knowing
Thinking About:
Consider your feet. Without looking, think about them for a minute or two; your opinion of them, if they have been good to you throughout your life or if they have let you down over the years.
Tuning In Directly
Now, bring your attention directly into your feet. Bring your awareness to the entire foot, from the skin down to the bones, and feel the varying levels of pressure. Feel the foot on the floor, and identify the boundary between the two. Next, clench your toes so you feel the tightness up through the muscles of your legs. Now, unclench, and take a few seconds to feel your body as a whole.
The Hidden Power of Thinking: Thoughts and Feelings
The interpretations of thoughts tend to shape the way we feel much more than the thoughts themselves. Much of the time, we are unaware of our interpretations, but mindfulness can help to strengthen our awareness of the connection between thoughts and feelings. Mindful thinking facilitates identifying that thoughts are not facts but rather mental events and are thus malleable.
“Walking Down the Street” Exercise
Imagine that you are walking down a street with which you are familiar. You see an acquaintance on the other side of the street and wave to them, but rather than acknowledge you, they keep on walking. Now, think about the thoughts that went through your mind when that person didn’t notice your presence. What feelings are associated with these thoughts? For example, you might think, “He saw me but doesn’t want to talk to me. There must be something wrong with me,” which would most likely lead to a feeling of depression or lack of self-worth. There are a wide variety of possible reactions you might have, demonstrating how our reactions can be a powerful influence on our interpretation of a given situation.
Daily Practice
1. Body Scan
Provides a way to strengthen our attentional muscle (engage-remain-disengage)
Acts as a way to get out of our heads and back in touch with our bodies
Lie down in a comfortable position, and begin to tune in directly to the inner workings of your body. Start with your feet. How they feel after walking during the day, if they are sore, tired, or fresh-feeling.
Now, move up your body, taking note of how each body part is feeling at the moment.
Once you are done, try to consider whether or not you experienced any forms of doing, such as judging, hurrying up, planning, etc. Consider recording your response to this realization in a journal or discuss it with a classmate/friend. Would you classify this response as judging or getting lost in thought? Repeat this brief process every day for a week (or as often as you find reasonable) and see if you can observe a change in your outlook. If you prefer to have a guided meditation for the body scan exercise, follow this link.
2. Mindfulness of Breathing
As this is a sitting meditation, find a comfortable location to sit down and prepare with a posture that emphasizes the intention to be present in the moment. If you would like a guided version of this meditation, follow this link.
Guide your awareness towards the physical sensations that you are feeling such as touch and pressure in your body where it contacts the floor. Just like during the body scan, take a minute to explore this variety of sensations.
Now, focus your awareness on the changing patterns of physical sensations in the area near your navel. It may help to place your hand on your lower abdomen to guide this exercise, allowing you to feel the inward and outward movements of the region.
Bring your awareness to the sensations of the rise of the region with the intake of air and the fall of it when air is dispelled. Try to notice the brief pauses between breaths, and the general calm that occurs during that moment.
It is not necessary to try to control your breathing – just let it flow naturally. Apply this attitude of acceptance to the rest of this experience. There is no state that you should be in, no feelings that should be present – this experience is unique to you and there is no need to try to change anything about it.
Eventually, your mind may wander away from the focus of breathing in the abdomen and the influx and exhalation of air, but do not worry: this is completely normal – it’s what minds do! When you come to the realization that you have lost this focus, acknowledge what you have been thinking about, then gently guide your awareness back to your breathing.
Be sure to congratulate yourself when you bring your awareness back the exercise. It is a difficult thing to focus on exclusively for extended periods of time, but it is allowing you to connect with your body on a deeper level.
Continue this practice for 10 minutes or for as long as you feel that you can keep guiding your thoughts back to your breathing. Remind yourself that this process is intended to help you be aware of your body and there is no wrong way to complete this exercise.
3. Bringing Awareness to Routine Activities
Choose a daily routine that you feel you could document each week as well as bring mindfulness to. Consider keeping a tally to document whether you completed the activity or not for a week, and then go back at the end of the week and examine your progress. Did you complete the the activity every day, or maybe just a few days that week? Did you notice any notable changes that you would consider to be brought on by these mindful periods?
References
Teasdale, J., Williams, J, & Segal, Z. (2014). The mindful way workbook: An 8-week program to free yourself from depression and emotional distress. New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Application: Effectiveness of Mindfulness for ADHD and Other Conditions
Mitchell and colleagues (2013) replicated Zylowska et al.’s (2008) groundbreaking study using a randomized control method to assign participants to the treatment (the Mindful Awareness Practices for ADHD program, N=11) and control groups (waitlist, N=11). This was the first study to ever use a homogenous sample of solely adults with ADHD in a mindfulness training program tailored to treat ADHD. It was also somewhat unique in its expanded view of ADHD which included executive functioning (EF) deficits and emotional dysregulation as core symptoms. The authors stated that they “hypothesized that ADHD symptoms, functional impairment associated with ADHD symptoms, EF, and emotion dysregulation would improve in the treatment group over time in comparison to a waitlist control group” (Mitchell et al., 2013, pg. 3). They also measured feasibility and treatment acceptability.
To assess ADHD symptoms, the Childhood ADHD Symptom Scale–Self-Report, the CAARS–Self-Report, and the Conners’Adult Diagnostic Interview for DSM-IV were administered (Mitchell et al., 2013). Clinician ratings, self-reports (Deficits in Executive Functioning Scale and the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Functioning–Adult Version), and laboratory task tests of attention were completed. The authors used the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale and the Distress Tolerance Scale to assess emotion dysregulation. Also, participants recorded moment-to-moment levels of attention and emotional regulation approximately 10 times each day using an electronic diary.
Using a repeated-measures mixed-design ANOVA, Mitchell and colleagues (2008) found that the following domains improved significantly over time relative to the control group: inattention (self-report measures p= .002, d= 1.66; clinician ratings p< .001, d=3.14), hyperactivity (self-report measures p= .001, d= 1.76; clinician ratings p= .008, d=1.35), functional improvements (self-report measures p= .002, d= 1.66; clinician ratings p= .003, d=1.52), emotional regulation (p=.002, d= 1.63), distress tolerance (p=.01, d= 1.27), self-management to time (p<.001, d=1.90), self-organization (p=.03, d= 1.09), self-discipline (p= .03, d= 1.04), and many other areas of executive functioning. Interestingly, they found that executive functioning was significantly improved according to self-report and clinician-report measures, but not according to laboratory task measures (e.g., the Attention Network Task, the Conners’ Continuous Performance Test, the Digit Span Test, and the Trail Making Test). It is worth noting that working memory was significantly improved over time (p= .01, d= 0.83), whereas in Zylowska et al.’s (2008) study it was not. Overall the findings reflect strong support for the authors’ hypotheses.
Regarding feasibility and acceptability, 100% of participants completed the eight week mindfulness program (Mitchell et al., 2013). On a scale from 1 (did not complete any homework) to 5 (completed all homework), participants on average scored around 3.9, indicating that they were mostly compliant with homework requirements. A high amount of satisfaction with the treatment was reported from participants (ranging from 1-7 with 7 indicating the highest satisfaction, M= 5.91, SD= 1.14). They endorsed feeling that the content of the mindfulness training was relevant to their experiences and needs, that they learned significantly more about ADHD, that the strategies were understandable, that they would highly recommend the program to others and that they were confident that they could implement the mindfulness practices in the future. Like Dr. Zylowska and colleagues’ (2008) study, this study was also limited by a small sample size (N=22), a lack of follow-up data, and somewhat unexplainable mixed results for varied improvements in executive functioning depending on the source of the data (self-report, clinician-report, or laboratory tasks). The authors identified that “clarification of mechanisms of change attributable to mindfulness meditation training” and specific guidelines for incorporating mindfulness into clinical practice are much-needed areas of future research (Mitchell et al., 2013, pg. 12).
References
Mitchell, J. T., McIntyre, E. M., English, J. S., Dennis, M. F., Beckham, J. C., & Kollins, S. H. (2013). A pilot trial of mindfulness meditation training for ADHD in adulthood: Impact on core symptoms, executive functioning, and emotion dysregulation. Journal of Attention Disorders. doi:10.1177/1087054713513328
Zylowska, L., Ackerman, D. L., Yang, M. H., Futrell, J. L., Horton, N. L., Hale, T. S.,...Smalley, S. L. (2008). Mindfulness meditation training in adults and adolescents with ADHD: A feasibility study. Journal of Attention Disorders, 11(6), 737-746. doi:10.1177/1087054707308502
Optional Personal Application: Pleasant and Unpleasant Events Calendar
Exercise: Consider completing both the Pleasant as well as the Unpleasant Events Calendar each day for one week. After doing this, write a discussion post or email me explaining themes you observed in your pleasant and unpleasant experiences. Did anything surprise you? What did you learn from this?
Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (powerpoint):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3-1-RkV8UaCZnkyUmhYYXVud1E/view?usp=sharing
very lengthy, in depth description of mindfulness, research, and MBSR
guides some mindfulness practices
TedTalks Andy Puddicombe: All It Takes is 10 Mindful Minutes:
https://www.ted.com/talks/andy_puddicombe_all_it_takes_is_10_mindful_minutes?language=en#t-127896
how to stop doing and start being
the speaker is a monk named Andy Puddicombe
mindfulness isn’t about the positions you use to meditate but rather being in the here and now, leading to a healthier mind.