Continued from February 19th post
As I wrote a few days ago ‘mindful awareness can be considered as a way of being and is about how we pay attention on purpose, which can eventually happen “automatically” as a habit of being’ (Dan Siegel, 2007; 2014). We can pay attention to both the unfolding of present moment experience, but also to memories of the past or plans for the future with a sense of alertness. I also mentioned that for those processing trauma, a mindful approach of exploring and focusing can greatly enhance, and even accelerate understanding. In terms of making sense of past experience it facilitates the linkage and differentiation of memories via the middle pre-frontal cortex, the hippocampus and other relevant areas of the brain.
Today I will vey briefly focus on bringing mindfulness to our daily experiences. Dr Richard Chambers (2016) writes that ‘we can intentionally bring this attitude to whatever we are doing to help us become more present and awake in every moment of our lives. We can be especially mindful to every day activities like breathing, travelling and communicating – which we normally tend to do on the automatic pilot’. He suggests choosing some activities and trying to do them mindfully throughout the day. For instance, finding touch points in our body – paying attention to our breathing, the sensations around our heart and any tightness in our body or noticing the sounds throughout the day – tuning in with the sound of the wind or traffic or background conversation. Being aware to listening and talking and focusing on simple activities like brushing our hair or teeth, getting dressed or walking. Chambers also, suggests connecting with our sensory experience while eating or drinking something, noticing how the body feels, and finally, tuning in to the effect of eating certain foods.
Moreover, in his article, The Health Benefits of Meditation and Being Mindful, (2016) Dr Craig Hassed refers to findings that suggest that using mindfulness could help people trying to quit smoking or those dealing with eating disorders, for example. He writes ‘mindfulness the most scientifically investigated form of meditation, has been the subject of a huge growth of interest in clinical and scientific circles in recent years. The evidence is suggesting that learning to pay attention may be the most important skill we ever learn’. He writes that ‘stopping smoking, for example, is not easy and one has to learn to deal with cravings. The normal way is to suppress them but this comes at a cost as far as our mental health is concerned. A study looked at the effectiveness of suppression compared to mindfulness for coping with cigarette cravings. Both groups reported a significantly reduced amount of smoking and increased effectiveness in coping with smoking urges but only participants in the mindfulness group demonstrated reductions in negative affect (mood) and depressive symptoms’. He also claims that ‘mindfulness looks to be a promising approach for helping in the management of binge-eating disorders. It possibly does this by increasing awareness of the behaviour and physical cues, helping to deal with self-criticism and negative self-image and assisting with managing eating impulses and difficult emotions’.
Finally, many people who have suffered trauma may develop aversion to certain foods or certain foods and drinks may trigger unhelpful or unpleasant responses or/ and symptoms. Approaching their experience with a mindful approach could bring about insight and even change their attitude towards the particular food or drink. I will provide a recent personal example. I have over the years gradually realised that although I really like the taste of various kinds of soup I tend to refrain from cooking and eating them, especially, chicken soup. A couple of months ago I suffered a long phase of something, which resembled bronchitis and severe asthma and could not eat much and of course soup seemed the ideal food, but trying to eat it brought on more coughing and dyspnoea. So, I approached the process of eating in a more curious and mindful way and remembered that as a child when I suffered severe asthma bouts the food of choice was chicken soup. A particular memory, of me in bed coughing my way through someone’s story telling and attempts to make me swallow the soup arose. Remaining non-judgmentally with the experience and focusing on the details of the memory allowed me to understand that soup has been associated with dysphoria and breathing difficulty. I have since both cooked various types of soup and eaten it, trying to connect with my sensory experience and noticing how the body feels and what information arises with the experiences.
