Mindfulness

• What does 'mindfulness' mean?
• Mindful living
• Mindfulness: how to do it
• An introduction to mindful meditation
• The case for mindfulness versus I'm already too busy
• Mindfulness in the veterinary practice
• Mindfulness and management

What Does 'Mindfulness' Mean?

Jon Kabat Zinn, a very well-known mindfulness teacher and advocate, defines mindfulness as 'paying attention to the present moment on purpose, non-judgementally'.

Paying Attention to the Present Moment

It's so hard to make ourselves aware of 'just now' for an extended period of time. Our minds naturally wander to tasks that need to be done, things we need to sort out, what happened last night, what may happen next weekend, who just walked in, the cat needs feeding, my phone's beeping, etc.

Non-judgement

Begins with awareness of your own thoughts and stopping yourself from labelling any of them as good or bad. But how can we do this?

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances.

Viktor E. Frankl

Take a moment to examine whether you are the type of person to see an event and then reflexively judge it as 'right' or 'wrong'? Or do you hear about someone, see their Facebook post and jump to a 'good' or 'bad' conclusion? It's okay if you do. Most of us do just that.

People bitching about other people is designed to sway our judgements of the person being talked about. Do you side with the slanderer? Are you easily swayed? Do you feel obliged to pass judgement even if you don't act upon it? It's human nature.

Politicians try to sway us into judgement as their full-time job. Celebrities, news channels, Instagram all ask us to judge. And we do.

Now imagine what it would be like if you consciously chose not to judge any more. What a weight is lifted off your shoulders if you decide you don't have to take sides, pass judgement, make decisions about who's right and who's wrong.

It starts off as a conscious decision. With a little time, it becomes part of you. It is the most liberating feeling of relief when you make a conscious decision to not get involved in all the judging of others. I advise you to try it for one day or even one hour and then spend some time contemplating how it feels for you.

Mindful Living

This can be done literally anywhere, at any time, for a few seconds, for a whole day, or as a permanent thing. It still involves focusing on the present moment on purpose non-judgmentally, with curiosity and awe as if we had never noticed it before. It can also include time sitting on the cushion. The point is that it really is attainable for anyone. With practice, it rapidly becomes your personal way of being.

And all of this can be incorporated into your hectic daily schedule without losing any of your time.

In the book Skills Training Manual for Treating Borderline Personality Disorder, Marsha Linehan describes one such way of bringing yourself to the present moment by using the mindfulness skill called 'observe'. Observe is about merely noticing what is happening right now. It is just noticing - nothing more. Often it can be more powerful to just notice the present rather than think about the present. Seeing with fresh eyes in a non-judgemental way like a child can be liberating and a breath of fresh air for your frazzled mind. You can try that right now. It really is just a snapshot commentary of 'now' to bring you into the present moment. For example "I'm sitting on the bed reading a book on mental wellbeing". What's the point of this? Probably the easiest way to answer that is to recommend you try it a few times today and see what it feels like for you.

George de Mestral was a Swiss engineer in the 1940s. He was known to be a bit of a genius. What is less known about him is that he kept his mind sharp by taking regular breaks in nature, walking mindfully. So, while many of us might walk the dog while catching up on Facebook, or go for a run to clear our heads, get some steps in and get fitter, only to be disappointed that our minds are still cluttered at the end, George would walk painstakingly slowly, noticing all the different shades of green (42 apparently), the shape of the trees, the shape of the leaves on the trees, the shape of the veins on the leaves on the trees, and so on.

Well, George noticed the hooks on the seeds of the trees so closely, with awe and wonder, that he invented Velcro and never had to work again.

Jon Kabat Zinn asks in a famous interview with Oprah, 'When you're in the shower, are you actually in the shower?' It's a poignant question. I shamefully put my hand up and say that I'm usually not in the shower when I'm 'in the shower'. I'm triaging the day's tasks, I'm planning my surgical list, I'm thinking about what the kids need for school and what I'm going to make for dinner.

But I know for sure that if I left this plethora of thoughts outside the shower, it would be so good for me. If I, or you, spent 10?minutes getting up earlier and doing our triage list, then hopped into the shower and focused on the present moment, the temperature, the sound and feel of the water, the scent of the shower gel and the gratitude we feel for having all these luxuries, we would benefit enormously from it.

And we wouldn't even have started meditation yet. Try it once. It will be difficult. Don't judge yourself if your mind strays. Then try it again.

Habituation

Our brains are designed to stop us paying too much attention. This is well demonstrated by the optical illusion called Troxler fading (named after the nineteenth-century Swiss physician who discovered the effect). If presented with a steady image in the area of our peripheral vision, we actually stop seeing it after a while. This phenomenon - the general neuroscientific term is habituation - probably points to an efficient way in which the brain operates. Neurons stop firing once they have sufficient information about an unchanging stimulus. But this does not mean that habituation is always our friend.

We can consider the effort not just to think differently but also to see differently as a way of countering our built-in tendency to habituate - to sink into the familiar way of seeing and experiencing. By running on autopilot, we are in danger of missing out on the sheer, unadulterated pleasure we can get from the fact that a seemingly mundane, boring thing is actually running to plan. It may be an unchanging stimulus and yet be a potential source of joy for us if we allow it to be noticed.

It's all too easy to divert our attention to problems or malfunctions and miss out on the times when everything is actually and beautifully okay.

The great French mathematician Blaise Pascal said: 'Small minds are concerned with the extraordinary, great minds with the ordinary'.

Mindfulness: How to Do It

Mindfulness can be anything from taking a moment to appreciate a beautiful view, to taking a few deep breaths, to mini-meditations, to full meditation in cross-legged posture for an hour or more every day.

No act is better or worse than the others. What matters is that you choose what works for you.

Incorporating mindfulness into your life can be done in any way you choose.

Formal Mindfulness Practices

Formal practices might be an easy way to start if you want guidance at the beginning. When I go to the gym, I love classes where the teacher does all the motivation and I just have to do what I'm told as energetically as I can. Similarly, guided meditation or other guided practices teach and motivate us.

Unguided meditation and other practices often have a more powerful effect and you can tailor them to your own needs. So while mindfulness apps and YouTube meditations are a fantastic place to start, I urge you to move on to unguided as your norm or as an adjunct to your practice as soon as you feel you can.

Sitting meditations can be for three?minutes or three?hours and anything in between. Sitting upright is important; this is not about being in a daze, it's about being more acutely alert and awake than ever before.

Movement meditation is a very serene mindfulness practice. Mindful walking involves walking so slowly that you notice every part of your foot as it gradually takes one step and then every part of the other foot as it gradually moves through its step, all the while feeling gratitude for the solid ground, our ability to move and having the time to appreciate what we normally take for granted through habituation.

Group exchange in Buddhism is called Sangha, where a community of friends gather together to practise the dharma (the teachings of the Buddha) together, to bring about and maintain awareness. Being in a group talking about mindfulness, or the dharma, or in Alcoholics Anonymous, gives people strength and encouragement to persevere towards their common goals. Knowing that you are amongst...