Anyone tried mindfullness?

[tasha24x]

Hi, Looking to try mindfullness? Im a massive worrier and suffer with anxiety. Ive always been a massive worrier but after cheating on my partner(he now knows the truth etc) I get anxious in certain situiations and think these "thoughts" define my relationship and that my relationship will never work etc if I keep thinking this way cause my thoughts tell me "you will always feel like this"...have been advised to attend a course near me by my councellor?

Yes, as a part of pain management. It is helpful but not a miracle. It takes practise and commitment to be mindful and in some situations it's no use at all ie in dreadful pain but urgently need to do something physical.

Google Jon Kabat Zinn. He's a well known guru, there are downloads available on iTunes.

My counsellor has a framed quote in her room saying something like, 'Your thoughts are not always facts.' Very true.

Mindfulness is what I essentially learnt from that book I told you about. At first you practice challenging or accepting the thought. So if you think what if I always be this way, you recognise that thought isn't truth and that nobody knows what the future holds. Eventually after doing this for a bit you automatically move onto a stage where you see the mind as a tool, your the observer and pick and choose what u believe. So automatically now I can disregard most anxious or negative thoughts and any automatic emotion that follows them. This keeps me calm

Also once you get into the swing of things the emotional response that overwhelms you fades away as you haven't attended to the fear and obsessed about it so the nervous system stops treating it as a threat. Oooh I hope I make sense!

Yes I practice this quite a lot. It helped with some anxiety problems I have had and is getting me through a painful separation. Have a google of "Practical Meditation" too

Matilda I love this Your thoughts are not always facts

missqwerty was the book you recommended the chimp paradox?

I loved that!

Second the recommendation to try john kabat Singh.

I'm only a very occasional meditator but he always calms me down.

I love it. Telling myself that thoughts are not facts has really helped me with anxiety. Mindfulness helps you see that your thoughts are there to be recognised for what they are- but that you don't have to accept them as truth or act upon them. It requires you to challenge them and look for evidence of fact before you accept them as such.

Mindfulness is great for anxiety - lots of people find it really helpful.

try Headspace.com which has a free ten day course of 10 minutes a day. It's a really nice introduction.

Hi No it was actually David Burns books which made it all click for me.

I suddenly realised that we can tolerate any thought or emotion and treat it as neutral. We can investigate rather then fight or flight them and choose which are important and let go which aren't.

I used to be so scared of negative thoughts or feelings, now I recognise that it's ok to feel sad or grieve at times but depression and anxiety are created through negative thoughts.

Panic attacks it's very obvious with, your heart only has to jump a beat which is normal, if you think omg here comes another attack, your adrenalin pumps, heart races more, then your convinced something terrible is happening etc. That used to be me, now my heart skips a beat or I have a negative thought and I can choose to act accordingly or dismiss it. 99.9% of the time I dismiss them now

This looks really interesting.

Yes, it's a skill and takes practice but is incredibly valuable. Jon Kabat-Zinn is amazing. CBT skills also help. I never realised how much time I used to spend believing my thoughts and feeling unable to tolerate it! Another thing to do is breathe into your abdomen - not your chest. So simple and so powerful! Good luck.

I've tried it and really wanted to 'get it'. I wanted to be like the doctor who told me about it. He has delivered a 8 week course to my team. We started with 10 participants and are now, in week 5, are probably down to 2/3 people.

It's just bloody boring, we have all got jobs to be getting on with.

I really wanted to be more mindful, but I just haven't got the time.

dameedna, if you possibly can keep going. I think the point is that you eventually become able to be mindfull in any situation.

Not saying it's easy. But not boring IME.

Here's a good blog which reflects some of what I learnt along the way. I guess it was a starting point for me

conscious-transitions.com/blog/

I listen to a JonKabat Zinn meditation.

It is 40 mins long so pretty boring but if I try something shorter my mind doesn't calm. So it's, say, 15 mins of my mind racing, then slowly calming down, then maybe 10 mins of calmness, bit more racing, then calm it down again. Then realize I'm not far from the end so can sit quietly to end.

I don't know if I am actually in a meditative state, I just listen to my breathing or whatever he suggests.

It does calm you, but calmness isn't an obvious thing, so you just realize you are a bit more relaxed and less anxious on a daily basis than you were.

You need to do it several times a week imo, probably the more the better.

I started doing mindfulness at the end of January. In the beginning I found it horrendously difficult to do. I persevered because of ongoing anxiety issues.

It has transformed my life. Once you get 'into the swing' of the meditations, you don't have to spend ages every day on it. The three minute breathing space is one of the most useful mindful acts you can do.

DameEdna, if you stick with the programme you may well find that you seem to have more time in your day to get things done, rather than less. It is a technique to be learned, and perhaps some mindful courses overemphasise the amount of meditation needed initially, so that you will learn the technique quicker.

The whole point of mindfulness is that it is easily accessible to all.

I also really want to 'get into' this as I know it's what I need but I'm just going to have to put it in my calendar and actually schedule it in each day. Problem I have is I'm in an office all day, get home and do some exercise or a class, cook dinner, eat and go to bed. I absolutely could make time for it, I just don't! But reading this has inspired me to try again this week

roastednut practical meditation might suit you better then. You can do that while doing the washing up

There are quite a few 8 week mindfulness courses about, Google to see if there's one locally. That would be the best intro. Also the Headspace app as someone mentioned above - such a fantastic simple introduction to the practice and concept.

You don't need extra time to practice mindfulness - you just need to notice what's happening in the present moment, by tuning into your senses, your breathing, tour thoughts. Learning to observe and not buy into your thoughts is powerful. It does take practice. It will no doubt help with your relationship issues.

You could always Google to see if there are any mindfulness based cbt practitioners in your area. They will combine therapy with mindfulness practice to help you on your way.

This is something I want to do. I know that it requires a great deal of commitment and won't happen over night so to speak. To those that are actively doing it when did it start to take effect? Pome You say you've been doing it since end Jan, is it something you do daily?

I've found that when I try to observe my thoughts and look at them objectively in a quite space my mind tends to go into over drive and I experience worse thoughts than if I'd just been doing something else for example. The problem for me is my thoughts are to do with past traumas so not necessarily anxiety.

I have been on an 8 week course and tried to incorporate it into my life over the last few years.
I don't do lengthy daily practices but I try to do things mindfully and take 3 minute breathing spaces.
Sometimes I just stop and be mindful for a minute.
It has taken a while but now I find that I can draw on it if I feel any strong emotion and it is very calming. It has also increased my patience.
I have found it very beneficial but it has taken time.

Mindfulness helped me a lot too. The meditation side of it is great but I don't do it as often as I'd like. But trying to be present and aware as much as you can during the day is really helpful too - doing everyday tasks mindfully, eating mindfully etc.

Although I feel as though I could get much more out of meditation if I really stuck at it more, I do genuinely believe that I will never go back to suffering from bad anxiety again, because I no longer react to stress in the same way. That is a very reassuring thing!

I'd really recommend a book called The Compassionate Mind by Paul Gilbert. It explains in a logical and sensible way why our minds behave in these unhelpful and stressy ways and gives good strategies for dealing with it (including mindfulness).

Since reading this thread I've downloaded lots of podcasts which I'm listening to.
I looked at headspace.com but their fees are ridiculous, their reviews said much the same.

Placemarking as i have the same sort of problems - sorry OP as i have no useful advice to add!