Does mindfulness work for you?

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I’ve dipped in and out of practicing mindfulness over the last couple of years but I don’t really get it! I’m not sure I’m doing it right! If you do it how does it make you feel afterwards?

There isn't an "afterwards", it's a state of mind to develop over time, not something you do and tick the box.

there are lots of approaches but for me it's about stopping my monkey mind from leaping off on multiple tangents and staying in the moment a lot more. It has helped me to reduce anxiety and to stop catastophising. In work situations, it's about not leaping to false conclusions and assumptions which don't actually exist.

Not for me - I don't want to get reconciled to the here and now!

Lovely piece here by the much-missed Dawn Foster: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/jan/23/is-mindfulness-making-us-ill

Worked for me. I'm about to start a nother 8 week course. Once you 'get it' then you understand the benefits. I was looking for some really complicated meaning or feeling, that's why I didn't get it because it's just so basic. If you can quiet the noise in your head by concentrating on your breathing then the relaxation happens naturally. It's about not being lost in your head in thoughts that don't benefit you but living outside of them. Understanding that you are not your thoughts and instead of getting tangled up in internal dialogue, letting it run itself out of steam instead and enjoying the peace of no longer being a part of that internal anguish.

I found I got really morbid sad thoughts doing. Ridiculous things like husband getting cancer beam on roof falling down and killing me. Definitely not my thing

It's part of what enabled me to get over my postnatal/health anxiety. But for me it's just a kind of approach or state of mind that I realised I generally needed to adopt (after reading about it at the time).

I don't actively 'practise' mindfulness in the sense of setting aside particular times for it, or following methods or practices of any kind. I just remind myself regularly to be present and conscious of my physical self and physical surroundings rather than living in my own head and getting preoccupied with my thoughts and concerns. That, alongside physical exercise, was what helped me.

I did cbt with a clinical psychologist and mindfulness was part of it. I really tried but it just would not work for me. I was supposed to meditate once a day but it was literally like torture and I had to stop. I tried to do mundane task refocusing as well and the most awful things popped into my head. I would be washing dishes and then staring off in a horrified trance til I pulled my attention back and then all I would think of is things like the water is too hot, my sleeves wet, look at all that limescale, what do you do about hard water…🙄
I usually listen to music when I have to do something like that to shut my brain up so I just admitted defeat and went back to that.
i really wish it had worked.

I found it massively helpful, but you need to understand beforehand what it is - and what it isn’t. There’s a lot of overselling of the benefits (and writing it off when it doesn’t work instantly) and extrapolation based on personal experience.
It’s basically meditation, for which there is actual evidence that it does produce measurable benefits to mental health. But it does require time effort and patience. And for me I view it as self improvement technique, providing prevention rather than treatment for a specific issue such as anxiety or depression.

HOWEVER, if you have physical trauma to your body in your past from injury, accident, assault, medical issues, etc. then it is definitely something you should approach with caution as it can ‘reconnect’ you with these distressing experiences.

I can't sit still that long. omg, so boring.
I was almost recruited into a mindfulness experiment where we were asked to listen to specific music (not my choice) for 20-30 minutes at pretty much same time daily. I could not see how the F to fit that into my life for a few weeks without basically stressing myself out a lot. Don't think stressing myself out is the objective.

I don't have an ongoing internal anguish monologue. I like to do things and to figure out how to do things or leave it if I need more time to see a solution. There's not angst in my head.

No. I just feel tired and depressed. However if I've been to a yoga class and it's part of the winding down that seems to work a treat. Also sound mediation/bath/healing worked wonders for me. I tried it on holiday because I thought if it's good enough for the rhobh it's good enough for me.

For example, a lot of people are under the impression it’s supposed to be ‘relaxing’ and make you magically feel relaxed immediately afterwards.