Mindfulness & Meditation in London and Online

What are mindfulness and meditation

Are mindfulness and meditation the same thing?

What are the benefits of meditation and mindfulness?

Does mindfulness work?

What issues can mindfulness help with?

Mindfulness and Meditation: How To Start?

Can Mindfulness Be Done Online?

 

Tips To Practice Mindfulness

Meditation and Mindfulness in London and Online: Start Today

What are Mindfulness and Meditation?

Mindfulness

The word “Mindfulness”, when translated from Sanskrit, means remembering, going back to what’s important. Being mindful is about bringing our awareness back to the present moment in a non-judgmental manner. This state boils down to intentional noticing of our surroundings as well as paying attention to our inner life – thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations with no attachment or expectations connected to them. Mindfulness can be practised both formally and casually as a posture that we can bring into our daily life at any given moment. Jon Kabat-Zinn, the creator of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program, explains the essence of this practice by listing 9 essential attitudes of mindfulness. He also emphasises the role of self-acceptance in the process of honing in the ability to be aware of the present moment.

Meditation

Meditation is a practice similar to mindfulness in a way that, through the use of directed awareness, it also observes any thoughts, feelings and sensations that might arise at the moment without interacting with them. The aim here is to increase a sense of calmness, deepen concentration and reach emotional balance. Meditation, however, has a more formal character. It’s usually practised in a seated position with attention directed inwards. Most commonly, it utilises breath as a point of focus, an anchor towards which one can direct their attention. There is an abundance of different meditation techniques as well as specific purposes, such as pain relief or stress reduction.

Are mindfulness and meditation the same thing?

Mindfulness and meditation can overlap and share a lot of similarities. However, it’s important to remember that they shouldn’t be used interchangeably. 

Mindfulness can be embodied at any given time. As described before, it’s about cultivating present-moment awareness through fully engaging in the activity at hand. We can brush our teeth, be stuck in traffic, take a shower or a walk in a park in a mindful manner. On the other hand, meditation requires us to dedicate a specific time and place. Additionally, while mindfulness can be both formal and informal, meditation is solely a formal practice. That’s why beginners often prefer to start their journey by learning mindfulness, as it gives more freedom and, thus, can be easier to execute. Nevertheless, such a task can become even more immediate when practised with the guidance of our licensed professionals.

What are the benefits of meditation and mindfulness?

Does mindfulness work?

More than a decade ago, in 2010, 72% of GPs in the UK claimed that learning mindfulness and meditation skills would be helpful for their patients with mental health problems. Since then, mindfulness-based practices have been recognised as an effective way to address mental health issues and emotional challenges. Mindfulness has also been included as an intervention in various therapeutic approaches, offered both in a group setting and individually. MBSR, introduced by Jon Kabat-Zinn, is the first standardised therapeutic approach, where mindfulness meditation is taught and practised over 8 weeks to reduce stress and address chronic issues. Mindfulness is also commonly utilised in the 3rd wave cognitive-behavioural therapy approaches, such as ACT etc.

What issues can mindfulness help with?

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recognises mindfulness as an effective therapeutic intervention that can be applied to prevent depression. Research also demostrates how mindfulness-based techniques can help individuals who struggle with:

• recurrent bouts of depression
• anxiety
• eating disorders
• OCD
• borderline personality disorder
• PTSD
• suicidal ideation
• self-harm
• addictions
• chronic pain

Mindfulness, due to its wide application and effectiveness, has been integrated in different therapeutic approaches such as:

• Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT)
• Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) [1]
• Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT)

Mindfulness and Meditation: How To Start?

How often do you spend your day thinking about your past, dwelling on your mistakes? Do you tend to think about the future, worrying about looming deadlines, never-ending to-do lists, wondering “what if”? Absent-mindedness, running on auto-pilot, and being reactive seem to be a new norm. This 2010 Harvard study says that “people spend around 46.9% of their waking hours thinking about something other than what they’re doing”. Moreover, researchers add, such mind-wandering makes us unhappy.

Living in the present moment, in other words, cultivating a mindful posture, can help us enrich our daily existence. If you’re a beginner and you’d like to learn how to meditate or how to be more mindful, start with something small. If you’ve never meditated before, don’t expect yourself to be able to sit comfortably for 30 minutes without your mind wandering off. A great first step is to stay grounded and engaged in the present moment by using your senses throughout the day. Try noticing:

• The texture of the clothes against your skin (soft, coarse, loose or tight)
• The sensation of each inbreath and outbreath (flaring nostrils, rising and falling chest, slower heart rate, relaxation, quality of air)
• The taste of a freshly brewed cup of coffee in the morning (the temperature, the aroma, the weight of the cup in your hand, the feeling in your mouth)

Can Mindfulness Be Done Online?

Mindfulness can be practised in infinitely different ways, online included. For your personal use, there is an abundance of online courses and educational resources such as this one published by the University of Calgary. You can also find many different mindfulness exercises, scripts, recordings and videos. Here’s a great collection of resources listed by Positive Psychology. Mindfulness-based interventions are also applied in the course of therapy online. You can expect your therapist to guide you, ask you supporting questions, offer you prompts, and share valuable materials in the form of scripts or recordings.

Tips To Practice Mindfulness

1. Start Small:

Introducing mindfulness to your daily life doesn’t mean changing your habits 180 degrees. It just means engaging in your activities with a broader awareness of the present moment. Start by setting an intention of being mindful and try to bring yourself back to the here and now as often as possible. For example:

• When talking to someone else, put your phone away, make eye contact and ask meaningful questions.
• When standing in a line, instead of checking your emails, choose to calm and deepen your breath.
• When walking down the street, rather than listening to music, count how many different sounds you can hear.

Start there by grounding yourself in everyday existence. Try to taste it, smell it, feel it more profoundly. It will allow you to get out of your head and connect to the world around you.

2. Repetition is the mother of skill:

Even though mindfulness can be found in any task at any given moment, it is a good idea to set aside a specific time to practice it. The more you do it, the better you get at it, and eventually, the more available and natural the mindful approach will be to you. Think of ways how you can implement mindfulness into your daily routines. Here are a couple of suggestions:

• Eat your lunch mindfully. Chew slowly. Don’t rush it. Pay full attention to the taste and texture of the food. Try to name the colours and aroma.
• Practice mindfulness while brushing your teeth in the morning. What does the toothpaste taste like? What are your movements? Does the toothbrush feel heavy or light? Are you sleepy or energised? Notice how the mundane experience of brushing your teeth changes into something curious and exciting.

3. Mix things up:

Sometimes all we need is a change of perspective, quite literally.

Maybe instead of always sitting at the same spot at your kitchen table, you can choose a new one.
What about trying a new meal or cooking a different dish?
What if you started driving back home from work via another route?

See how your daily experience can shift from being stuck in a rut, following a seemingly mundane routine to having small doses of exciting adventures, filled with new stimuli and curiosities. 

4. Let go of expectations:

Mindfulness meditation really does come down to sitting still and being aware of the present moment. Yet, it’s easier said than done. Sooner or later, your mind will start wandering. And that is entirely normal. All sorts of thoughts start appearing from errands to run, emails to write, what kind of dinner we’d like to eat or how fun that one party three years ago was. Mindfulness is the art of coming back. 

When struggling with a stubborn, recurring thought, don’t try to force anything or change it. Let go of expectations. Instead, treat your thought or feeling as a mental event which will pass. What might help is to visualise yourself sitting at the top of a hill, looking down on the road, where you can see cars passing by. Sometimes they slow down, causing traffic. Yet, sooner or later, they’re able to continue their journey. The same goes for your “sticky” thoughts. And if your mind wonders a million times, bring it back to where your focus was, with patience and non-judgementally, a million times.

5. Be gentle with yourself:

Getting lost in our thoughts, over and over again, while meditating can be a frustrating experience. It’s easy to criticise ourselves, engage in harmful self-talk, evoking feelings of shame, guilt or worthlessness. Try to observe and then name any of those uncomfortable feelings, thoughts or sensations arising in you while practising.

Keep in mind that mindfulness and meditation, by definition, don’t have a specific result. Simply showing up and sitting down to practice is a success. Doing so with compassion, kindness and gentleness towards the self brings us closer to a mindful posture, which in turn can lead to pleasant positive consequences that can have a positive impact on your mood, patience, stress and resilience levels.