What is mindfulness?

raher1

What is mindfulness? Is it any good?

SuperRabbit

I guess you could call it awareness. You learn to control and concentrate the "spotlight" of your attention better, or a bit better.

There are two main aspects to it.

Mindfullness mediation is when you lie or sit still and focus on something. For example your breath. You notice that dozens of times a minute some thought comes into your head, but instead of thinking about it you say "hey thought, i'll come back to you later, I'm focusing on my breath right now" or something to that effect and you let it go and you go back to your breath (or whatever you were focusing on).

Then there is everyday mindfulness. They say if you pay attention to what you are doing you'll feel happier in general, whatever it is. So if you are doing the wash up you think about the smell of the soap, the feel of the hot water, the sounds you can hear, the sparkle of the light on the dishes, you try to stay with the dishes and the same as when you were meditating, you acknowledge other thoughts that come and you let them go away again.

Yoga is when you stretch mindfully, this part is controversial: it doesn't actually matter what type of stretch you do, as long as you focus on the sensation and your breathing (and as long as it is a safe stretch and you aren't pushing yourself too hard). This is easier than mindfulness meditation for some people (including me) they need some kind of movement or sensation to focus on


Is it any good? It depends on the person. There are lots of studies that show mindfulness classes reduce stress, improve overall happiness and ability to concentrate for most people. Everybody is different, some people hate it or find it doesn't make a difference to them even after lots of practice and that is ok too!

There is this very nice moment when you realize you can't control your thoughts and that you aren't responsible for/in control of what thoughts you have, they just come to you. If you were responsible then it would be easy to think about the breath and nothing but the breath. So you are not your thoughts, isn't that wild?

SuperRabbit

Actually there have been many clinically controlled trials and it is proven to work for most people. For that reason it has been incorporated into evidence based therapies such as CBT and DBT, but obviously you can do it independently outside of therapy.

restive

Are there any online program you would recommend?

SuperRabbit

I've heard good things about "insight timer" app but I haven't used it personally

There are lots of youtube videos maybe watch a short bit of each one and choose someone whose personality you like or whose voice you find soothing, the beginning is difficult and that will make it easier to persevere.

looksee

I used it for a while and found it excellent in a situation where I was over concentrating and going over and over a situation. I did not do any program, I just read up on it - the description above would be sufficient if you 'get' what it is about - and did it.

Professor Moriarty

restive wrote: »

Are there any online program you would recommend?

This and it's free.

raher1

Insight timer is great app. I use it.

SuperRabbit wrote: »

I've heard good things about "insight timer" app but I haven't used it personally

There are lots of youtube videos maybe watch a short bit of each one and choose someone whose personality you like or whose voice you find soothing, the beginning is difficult and that will make it easier to persevere.

dar100

SuperRabbit wrote: »

Actually there have been many clinically controlled trials and it is proven to work for most people. For that reason it has been incorporated into evidence based therapies such as CBT and DBT, but obviously you can do it independently outside of therapy.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1745691617709589?journalCode=ppsa&

Studies have not been of great quality, neither have many of the supposedly evidence based therapies aligned to mindfulness either. A narrative is building around a group of therapies broadly based within cognitive and behavioural approaches.

There are many bona fide approaches that work equally well with certain issues, the theoretical orientation and technique only accounts for 1% in variance after all; not to mention that the concept of evidence based practice is being subsumed by empirically supported treatments within research

Follow this manual and you too will feel better as it is the best type of intervention, well not according to this study its not

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jclp.22712?af=R&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+JournalOfClinicalPsychology+(Journal+of+Clinical+Psychology)

Thus far, there have been 1000's of EST put forward with the promise of the new gold standard, this underlies the absolute fallacy of the specific ingredients approach of a medical model paradigm. To underscore this assertion, the following study (although specific to young people, adult studies reflect it) outcomes in therapy have not improved in 53 years


https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30571478

I do not agree with the conclusions of this study, another call for intensifying the search for specific components, or the more recent phenomena of , transdiagnostic another fallacy.

Edit: im not saying these therapies don't work. Im stating they are no better than other bona fide therapies

SuperRabbit

I didn't mean to say they were better here, but no you are right I do personally believe that so maybe I implied it and you picked up on it. Thank you for calling me out.

Anyway, this is a thread about mindfulness, so it will be confusing for people who surf in and off topic to continue talking about DBT and CBT so I won't try to get my two cents in

raher1

raher1 wrote: »

What is mindfulness? Is it any good?

There are different types so I can only answer from what I know which is in the area of Vipassana and similar.

Basically I would describe it as a training of one's moment to moment attention so you gain control over the constant ongoing conversation we are having with ourselves pretty much every waking moment of every day. A way of noticing thoughts and emotions arise in consciousness before they take hold or control you.

It is a path to well being and happiness before anything actually happens. For many of us happiness and well being is predicated on satisfying the next neurotic thought that comes careening into consciousness. Or having one's favourite food on ones lips.

It is also a way to strip away obsessions with past events recent or older. A way to realise that the half-life of negative emotions is actually insanely short and when we suffer from many of them - it is because we keep fuelling them needlessly.

So basically in short it is a way of focusing on the present moment in a healthy way. It has done wonders for me. And it has done absolutely nothing for other people I know. So it is down to you really. Often though - and it is the worst part of teaching meditation and the like to other people - the moment you are actually getting good at it is the moment you will least likely think you are. So watch out for that one

restive wrote: »

Are there any online program you would recommend?

The "Waking Up" app is a useful course to start with and is relatively cheap.

In fact the creator of it includes in the App Store a message that says that if you really can not afford it then simply email them and they will give it to you for free.

Which is a nice business model which one does not see often. Those that can afford it buy it. Those that can not are offered it anyway. I quite like that.

raher1

I downloaded the app, it looks striaght forward enough.

quote="[Deleted User];109531286"]There are different types so I can only answer from what I know which is in the area of Vipassana and similar.

Basically I would describe it as a training of one's moment to moment attention so you gain control over the constant ongoing conversation we are having with ourselves pretty much every waking moment of every day. A way of noticing thoughts and emotions arise in consciousness before they take hold or control you.

It is a path to well being and happiness before anything actually happens. For many of us happiness and well being is predicated on satisfying the next neurotic thought that comes careening into consciousness. Or having one's favourite food on ones lips.

It is also a way to strip away obsessions with past events recent or older. A way to realise that the half-life of negative emotions is actually insanely short and when we suffer from many of them - it is because we keep fuelling them needlessly.

So basically in short it is a way of focusing on the present moment in a healthy way. It has done wonders for me. And it has done absolutely nothing for other people I know. So it is down to you really. Often though - and it is the worst part of teaching meditation and the like to other people - the moment you are actually getting good at it is the moment you will least likely think you are. So watch out for that one



The "Waking Up" app is a useful course to start with and is relatively cheap.

In fact the creator of it includes in the App Store a message that says that if you really can not afford it then simply email them and they will give it to you for free.

Which is a nice business model which one does not see often. Those that can afford it buy it. Those that can not are offered it anyway. I quite like that.[/quote]