Scribd
Upload
40 views2 pages

Mindfulness Presentation v02

The document discusses stress, its causes and effects, and introduces mindfulness and meditation techniques such as the 3 minute breathing space as ways to manage stress. It notes that stress costs the UK economy billions and causes many health problems. Mindfulness programs have shown success in reducing stress, depression and other issues in clinical trials.

Uploaded by

Justin Fandango
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
40 views2 pages

Mindfulness Presentation v02

The document discusses stress, its causes and effects, and introduces mindfulness and meditation techniques such as the 3 minute breathing space as ways to manage stress. It notes that stress costs the UK economy billions and causes many health problems. Mindfulness programs have shown success in reducing stress, depression and other issues in clinical trials.

Uploaded by

Justin Fandango
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 2

Beginning

Welcome
My name is Justin. I work in the Creative department. Not many people know that I’m a psychology
graduate. Or that I’m in the process of training to teach a set of recognised techniques which are
helpful for reducing and managing various sorts of stress.

What is stress?
What is stress to you?

(Other suggestions: worry, nerves, feeling low, sleeplessness)

What problems are associated with stress.


Heart disease
Anxiety
Chronic Fatigue
High blood pressure
Diabetes
Depression

Maladaptive behaviour eg. Alcoholism, OCD, gambling, workaholism, other compulsive/addictive


behaviour

Scale of problem.
In the UK alone, over 13 million working days are lost every year because of stress. According to the
Health and Safety Commission workplace stress costs the country £530 million and is associated with
poor health and well-being, lower productivity and increased sickness absence.

What causes stress? Fight or flight. Maladaption.


Stress is normal. We have evolved what is called a Fight or Flight response to deal with threats. In
more primitive times we would have run from or fought most of the threats we faced. However, in a
civilised society we simply can’t do that, so we suppress or deny that emotional and physical
response - we can’t run away from business meetings and we can’t kill our boss. But this suppression
of the fight or flight response can lead to chronic hyperarousal and a build up of cortisol in the body.
If this continues it can lead to health problems, maladaptive coping patterns as we try to find ways
to avoid unpleasant feelings (eg. Alcoholism, OCD, gambling, workaholism, other
compulsive/addictive behaviour) and ultimately potentially to breakdown.

Middle

What can we break that cycle? / What can we do about stress? Rise of MBSR/MBCT, success
in clinical trials, recommendation by NICE, NHS programme, use in the workplace, JKZ
presentation/programme at Google
Jon Kabat-Zinn began teaching Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) at the University of
Massachusetts Medical School Stress Reduction Clinic in 1979 and this approach has developed and
grown rapidly. This is now an exploding area for research. Clinical trials among people suffering from
chronic depression have shown that an 8-week Mindfulness-based course reduced the chance of re-
occurrence by half. The benefits of Mindfulness have been widely endorsed by the international
scientific and medical communities, including the UK’s National Institute for Clinical Excellence.

What is Mindfulness?
Not special altered state, not trying to be more relaxed. Mindfulness simply means non-judgmental,
moment-to-moment awareness of thoughts, feelings and sensations. It develops concentration and
the ability to witness the present, as opposed to being caught up in your thoughts.

Awareness of contact.

Can you feel the contact of your feet on the floor? Can you feel your bum on the chair? Can you feel
your breath going in and out? This is mindfulness.

Breathing space
Now I’m going to show you a quick technique that you can take with you to do every day and for on-
the-spot stress relief. I did this twice before I got up to give this presentation.

3 min breathing space

1 Awareness
To come into the moment quickly we take a very definite posture, relaxed dignified, back erect, our
bodies expressing a sense of being present and awake.

Closing the eyes be aware of what is going on for you right now in your mind, the THOUGHTS, just
noting them as mental events. Are there any EMOTIONS (feelings)? Again noting the feeling,
unpleasant emotion or discomfort. Do not push them away, just acknowledge them. And the same
with any SENSATIONS in the body of tension, discomfort, holding, just awareness of them, simply
noting. "OK, that's how it is right now." Not analysing.

2 Gathering
We are here right now and out of automatic pilot. So now we gather our awareness by focusing on
the breath, gathering ourselves by focusing our attention down in the abdomen with the rising and
the falling of the breath. Spending a minute or two focusing on the movement of the abdominal wall
and following the whole of the in breath and the whole of the out breath. Just binding your
awareness to the pattern of movement there, using the anchor of the breath to be really present.

3 Expansion
Having gathered ourselves we allow our awareness to expand. As well as being aware of the breath,
we also include a sense of the body as a whole in our awareness, a more spacious awareness.
Including tightness, muscle tension, aching, nausea etc., following the breath as if your whole body is
breathing. Holding it all in this softer, more spacious awareness. When you are ready open your
eyes. Questions?

End

So, bring some mindfulness into your life – whether it’s the Breathing Space I showed you, or just
paying attention to the everyday moments of life – walking, sitting in the garden, driving to work.
After all, our lives are made of these moments – let’s appreciate them.

You might also like