Mindfulness

Presenter: Amelia Alexis

MSc., BSc(Hons), Dip. Edu
Objectives
What is Mindfulness?

 Mindfulness is the ability to be non-judgmentally aware of the present moment

 The enviournment
 The situation
 Your feeling, thoughts, wants, and needs
 The interactions between yourself, the situation, and the environment.
 Mindfulness Defined
“the awareness that emerges through paying attention
on purpose, in the present moment, and
nonjudgmentally to the unfolding of experience
moment by moment”
~Jon Kabat-Zinn

Most of us spend each day having silent conversations

with ourselves. Mindfulness is thus a kind of listening.

It is a kind of mental exercise for the mind much like

physical exercise for the body.
Mindfulness

 Paying attention to the present moment with intention, while letting go

of judgment (Dr Jon Kabat-Zinn)
 Maintain a moment–by–moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings,
bodily sensations, actions, and surroundings.
 Living in the moment and awakening to experience
 Observe thoughts and feelings from a distance ,without judging them
good or bad.
 Essentials of Mindfulness

 Non –judgemental observation- Beginner’s mind

 Present moment awareness
 Interconnectedness
 Acceptance and letting go - compassion- Gratitude
 Patience- Calmness
 Integration of Mind , Heart and Body
Importance of Mindfulness

 Mindfulness helps you become aware of your vulnerabilities so you can prevent distress
and enhance happiness, safety, and empowerment.
 Mindfulness enables early intervention of distress because it increases your awareness
of your thoughts, wants, needs, and environment, so you can act and react before there
is a crisis
 Mindfulness as a way of living

 Not just look, but observed

 Not just swallow, but taste
 Not just think but feel
 Not Just exist but live
 Savouring
Fun Facts Relating to Mindfulness
Acceptance –and Letting go

 Allow things to be as they are

 Make peace with imperfection
 Embrace vulnerability and suffering
 Compassion
 Understand that things come and go.
 Thoughts are not always facts
 Keep calm
Observing the words below, what do you see?

 Joyisnowhere
 Joy isnowhere

Joy is now
Here
Consequences disconnection from the Body

 Fatigue. It takes a lot of energy to keep shutting off a part of ourselves.

 Chronic anxiety.
 Feeling cut off: from love, power, & bodily signals.
 Confined in a small identity, a limited sense of self.
 Symptoms: loss of vitality, chronic pain, and stress related conditions
(e.g. fibromyalgia, bodily pains).
Cultivating Mindfulness: Practice

 Living your life as it really matters, moment by moment

 Pay close attention to your breathing, especially when you’re feeling
intense emotions.
 Notice- really notice –what you are sensing in a given moment, the
sight, sound, and smells that ordinarily slip by without reaching your
conscious awareness.
Cultivating Mindfulness: Practice

 Recognize that your thoughts and emotions are fleeting.

 Tune into your body’s physical sensations

 Meditation
1 Minute Breathing Space

 Use your breath as an anchor to the presence

 Stop for a while what you are doing….
 Take a slow deep breath and let go of the business in your head
 Open to the experience of the present moments(bodily sensations, sounds, colors)
 Proceed and reconnect with your activity with a smile and a sense of calmness
 Mindfulness as a Way of Life

 Mindful Walking- The practice of mindful walking is the opportunity to give ourselves a bit
of a break from the constant mental chatter. We actively try to arrive in the present
moment with each step we take.
• Connecting with our breath, the sensations in our body, and the nature around us.
Amazingly, this practice has been found to be a simple, yet profound way of lessening
stress and worry and aiding in our mental health and wellbeing.
Easy tips to implement Mindful Walking into your everyday
• Make a conscious effort to stay present in your five senses
• Go slowly, notice when you have increased the pace and where your mind was in that
moment.
• You might like to set an intention to stay in the present moment for a set amount of time.
Mindful eating
Mindfulness as a Way of Life

 Mindful Movements
Mindful movement allows us to check in with our bodies and get moving in a way that can help
us lower stress, release stagnant energy, and strengthen our mind-body connection. It’s a great
way to practice self-care by incorporating both mental and physical well-being. Oftentimes, when
we engage in mindful movement to help our body feel better, our mood is uplifted, too.
Mindfulness as a Way of Life
 Mindful communication- This involves applying principles of mindfulness to the way we
correspond with others. These principles include setting an intention, being fully
present, remaining open and non-judgmental, and relating to others with compassion.
In essence, mindful communication is about bringing a greater level of awareness to
the two major components of communication: listening and speaking. Next, we explore
these areas in greater detail, outlining how to approach each with a mindful attitude.

 Mindful Communication also

Strengthens relationships, heal conflicts
Mindful presence: having an open mind, awaken body, and a tender heart.
Mindful speech = Gentleness
Speak truthfully, with words that inspire self-confidence,joy and hope
Mindful leader

 A mindful leader embodies leadership presence by cultivating focus,

clarity, creativity, and compassion in the services of others.

 A mindful leader is present, self-aware, and can approach decision-

making and problem-solving calmly. Mindful leaders aim to inspire
coworkers and team members to adopt mindfulness in the workplace,
which can boost morale, promote wellbeing, and improve client
relationships and customer relationships
 Attributes of a Mindful
Leader?
What to do if your body disconnects?

Mindfulness!
 Notice when time-traveling, predicting, mindreading. Come back.
 Pause: Become aware of what is happening in our body instead of getting lost in our
reactive thoughts, emotions, and actions. You can then instead relate differently to your
experience, and act rather than re-act.
 Body Scan helps to reestablish contact with the body, to reconnect the conscious mind
to the feeling states of the body, to feel more relaxed and more at home in our bodies.
 Mindful listening

 Not listen with our ears but with our whole body
 Noticing how every sound helps to anchor you more fully in the present moment.
 Practice silence and stillness when listening to others
 Take a moment to breathe and acknowledge what others have said before jumping
into your point of view.
Way to enhance your ability to listen
mindfully
 Mindful Posture
 The foundation of mindful posture  Posture Matters:
 Spine erect, perpendicular to the ground  “Adopting an upright posture in
 Head level or slightly down the face of stress can maintain
 self-esteem, reduce negative
Muscles relaxed
mood, and increase positive
 Entire body still not fidgeting mood.
 Eyes closed or gently open  Sitting upright may be a simple
behavioural strategy to build
resilience to stress.
Helpful attitudes (in our mindfulness
practice)
Adopt certain attitudes
 Non-judging (of ourselves and others)
 Patience
 Beginner’s Mind
 Trust
 Non-striving
 Acceptance
 Letting go
Different methods – let’s practice!

Focused attention:
-Using your non-dominant hand: notice what it feels like, stay present.
Focused attention
 Senses
Focusing on breath
 Count 10 in and out breaths
 Notice when your mind goes somewhere else and bring it back to the breath.

Open monitoring
 Senses
 Body scan
Big Five Personality Traits and Mindfulness
 Does Personality Matters ?

 Giluk's (2009) meta-analysis uncovered that, similar to findings from other studies,
mindfulness's strongest correlation was an inverse correlation with Neuroticism,
followed by a strong positive correlation with Conscientiousness. In her discussion, she
states that this could make sense given the idea that mindfulness is a conscious and
intentional awareness, not merely a passive or habitual Openness to the experiences
around a person.

 Baer et al. (2006) predicted and observed a positive correlation between mindfulness
and openness, an inverse relationship between neuroticism and mindfulness, and a
nonsignificant correlation between mindfulness and extraversion
 West (2008) found mindfulness to be related to openness, and because Arch and
Craske (2006) have found it related to positive affect,
Mindfulness Benefits

 Mindfulness changes our brains: increases the density of gray matter in

neural regions linked to learning, memory, emotion regulation, and
empathy.
Benefits of Mindfulness

 Mindfulness is good for our minds: it increases positive emotions while

reducing negative emotions and stress,
 It also helps us to focus: tunes out distractions and improves our
memory and attention skills.
 Mindfulness fosters compassion and altruism
 Mindfulness promotes more positive experiences in both intrapersonal
and interpersonal relationships
How/Why does Mindfulness help?
By reconnecting the body
 Mindfulness of the Body: Any experience we have is rooted in the
body, and contacting that experience will help us feel more grounded,
aware, and alive (i.e., a state of mind expresses itself as a felt sense).
 It is also a way to “know” ourselves. Who are we? We are partly
whatever is going on in our bodies.
Signs of dissociation from the body (mind-body split):
 Obsessive thinking
 Judgmental thinking or behaving
 Distracting/numbing
 Speeding/Rushing
Benefits / Neuroscience findings

 Research has found that meditators appear to lose less gray matter and that
meditating reduced the cognitive decline associated with normal aging.
 More gyrification, or “folding,” of the cortex, which is associated with faster
mental processing
 Increased thickness in the prefrontal cortex and right anterior insula, areas of
the brain associated with attention and awareness of sensations and
emotions in oneself and others.
 Meditators who had practiced five years or more had “significantly larger
volumes” of gray matter in the hippocampus, an area crucial to memory and
learning.
 Much, much more… there are now hundreds of studies on meditation and
mindfulness which show that it can help with addiction, depression and
anxiety.
 Reference
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Personality and Social Psychology, 84(4), 822-848.
 Chadwick, P., Hember, M., Symes, J., Peters, E., Kuipers, E., & Dagnan, D. (2008). Responding mindfully to unpleasant thoughts and
images: Reliability and validity of the Southampton mindfulness questionnaire (SMQ). British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 47(4), 451-
455.
 Davidson, R. J. (2010). Empirical explorations of mindfulness: Conceptual and methodological conundrums. Emotion, 10(1), 8-11.
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 Fetterman, A. K., Robinson, M. D., Ode, S., & Gordon, K. H. (2010). Neuroticism as a risk factor for behavioral dysregulation: A
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 Giluk, T. L. (2009). Mindfulness, big five personality, and affect: A meta-analysis. Personality and Individual Differences, 47, 805-811.
 Goldberg, L. R. (1999). A broad-bandwidth, public domain, personality inventory measuring the lower-level facets of several five-factor
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