Was just reading finnish newspaper. According to studies mindfulness can be as effective as antidepressants and pain killers.
Tho it requires persistence same way than exercising. According to the test quoted it requires 45 minutes 5 to 6 times a weeks to really benefit from it as it does not only just calm you down, but sort of reboots your system. I guess you could compare it to cognitive behavioral therapy where you learn out of harmful thinking. So you are teaching your body/brain new way deal with things.
I have tried it ,but only few times. Have to admit it takes a bit effort to concentrate on it.
I will give it a proper try and see what it could offer for me!
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Justiina
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The NYT has a good series of guided mindfulness meditation sessions. The attitude is v gentle. nytimes.com/well/guides/how...
Like cbt, the thinking goes back and forth on how useful/helpful/harmful it can be, but I think it may be an individual decision. If it feels like it's helping, it must be helping.
Yes, a few months ago I have slipped into a moderate depression and some mild insomnia. The fact that I was aware and trustful in the fact that i'm not broken, just poorly treated and some meditation techniques and introspection helped me to move from what tended to become a dark place.
So, yes, it does help! believe and don't give up, muster whatever determination is left there and stay behind the goals. Selfawareness and self confidence always helps. and mindfulness is about that also.
I will start with shorter sessions to make it a routine. It's easy to decide to use five minutes every day and when handling that then increase the time spent.
I have not used mindfulness for depression and I have never suffered with depression but I have used mindfulness techniques and I meditate and etc. I even write down what I am grateful for at the end of each day and I have been told at the end of a chapter of our lives we need to write a goodbye letter in order to start a new beginning of our life. The main reason why I started doing this is cause I was told that I can be a bit of empath etc and need to find a way to stay grounded etc. Doing these things have really helped and you may also want to look at the chakras in your body etc. Of course not everyone believes in this stuff but for me it has really helped me out. All the best.
Justiina, years ago now I had an excellent hatha yoga/meditation teacher. I learned ujjayi breathing. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ujjay... It's just a way of being grounded. No freaking out, no getting angry. It helps to become effective without wasting energy on nonsense.
I took yoga classes back at business school . Was not my favourite and the teacher sort of disliked me a lot as I had to skip normal gymnastics because of my broken knee. She didn't believe me.
Anyway she was a proper yoga teacher , spent long time in India etc.
Out of 25 women I was the only one just happened to know ujjayi. It was just so natural for me. Teacher was not happy it was me lol
It was 18 years ago and I remember some of the yoga but the breathing is still as natural as it was back then.
Unfortunately I have not done it regularly even though I do remember how good it feels afterwards.
I spent months gargling until my eyes watered, singing loudly etc on the vagus nerve program to stop the difficulty swallowing and a cough. Worked for me.
I've had poor health all my life, and at 66 reckon that I have coped so well because I have been meditating since I was 27.
All of us who are ill have some kind of dis-ease, so it makes sense that anything that puts us more at ease will be of help.
Justiina, concentration should not really be involved because that involves using your conscious mind, and the aim is to still it. So start by focussing on what ever you are using, let it go out of your mind, and when you realise that it is gone, simply bring it in again and repeat this cycle. It's like training a dog, you throw a stick and the have to retrieve it as the dog doesn't bring it back. But eventually the dog learns the trick, and .......
I've read lots of research demonstrating the benefits of mindfulness. You don't even have to do it for as long as 45 minutes per day. But you do need to do it very regularly.
The thing about mindfulness is that it doesn't just have to be sitting on a chair. You can do mindful walking, eating, washing up, or anything else. It's good to work on leading a more mindful (aware) life.
This allows you to become more aware of what's going on in your head, and more in control of it. Also, it allows you to breathe in a more controlled and efective way, therefore keeping calmer.
If I were starting to do mindfulness meditation, I would just start with 5-10 minutes at a time, and build it up as you feel ready for more. Just remember to let go of the thoughts that pop into your head, instead of engaging with them.
45 minutes was mentioned as it was the time used in the study and it was proved it does work for example lowering cortisol/ blood pressure etc. But i agree less can be effective as well.
There have also been many other research projects, and not all using 45 minutes. The main thing is that 45 minutes is a long time, and for most people too long to start with.
I agree 45 minutes is long! But on the other hand I think you can devide that. I even found exercises for mindful eating lol
Hi about 10 years ago I tried a Buddhist meditation workshop. I went every week to learn meditation i.e. mindfulness. This idea is far from new in fact it's thousands of years old.
By the way it does work well but I feel that 20 mins to start would be a wonderful idea. Try most days and it will become a habit. Done with good breathing it would be good for anyone under stress and very relaxing for the mind and body.
I think any form of meditation has similar effects, but mindfulness is "flavour of the month" at present (and it's more or less "open source". There are easier forms of meditation that don't take as much effort (althought they all take time).
I am laughing at myself out loud as I know I am an idiot challenging myself but saying it more typing it made it more obvious how I am my biggest enemy!
I don't meditate but I am happy when I get a knife and fork that match out of the cutlery drawer, when I have coffee in my favourite mug, when I walk the dog in the sunshine, when I go swimming with my children and my grandchildren and many other tiny things that happen in my daily life. I remind myself that I am alive where two of my friends have lost their lives to cancer. I don't know if this is mindfulness but it keeps me grounded in the here and now.
Oh yes mindfulness is more a way of life than a course. I learned some useful meditation practices at my local Buddhist centre - they run classes and also have drop in sessions. Daily meditation (about 30 minutes) and practice of mindfulness has been transformational for me. They also run 'mindfulness based stress reduction classes' which I've heard are very good. The idea is that if we are fully and deeply in each moment it becomes easier to accept and creatively deal with what comes our way. I'm a practising Christian by the way and I have found these techniques bring me into a much more spiritually aware state. The great thing about the Buddhists I've met is that they are very accepting of you no matter what background you're from. "Mindfulness" is the new big thing in therapy terms, but the Buddhists have been doing it since ancient times.
Yes absolutely it has been a life-saver for me, I still have issues but it is good to have this mindful skill as a tool to use when the going gets tough. Yes Marz chanting Om stimulates the vagus nerve, don't you just love it!
Mindfulness opens the door to a better way of "being". There are many great teachers, the NHS tend to use Jon Kabat-Zinn and Mark Williams, Thich Nhat Hanh has world wide followers too, Oxford University has a whole department devoted to the subject. Although it tends to originate from Buddhist teachings you do not need to have any belief to follow this wonderful practice. You don't have to sit there to practice either, mindfulness can be practiced in whatever we are doing or where we are, instead of our heads being in the past or future we come into this moment which is the only moment of life we have, the rest is delusion.
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