What is Mindfulness?

“…paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally”

-John Kabat-Zinn

Mindfulness is a way to step out of our autopilot way of life, and instead take time to pay attention to the present moment to moment experience.  There are many ways of achieving this, from merely staying present during a walk in the park or by sitting down to do a focused meditation.   In doing this our nervous system is given a chance to regulate, and since our nervous system is involved in every part of our body’s function it can be a very powerful system to gain some control over. 

By putting some time aside every day to meditate we get to take a break from our habitual “doing” mode and instead practice our “being” mode. In this “being” mode we become more aware of our thoughts, feelings, and body sensations, occurring in each moment. This information is often not payed attention to but can hold many insights into how we react to life and stress around us. This present awareness gives ourselves the possibility of greater freedom and choice; we do not have to go down the same old “mental ruts” that may have caused problems in the past, instead we can respond to situations with choice rather than react automatically.

As mentioned this practice has a direct effect on your nervous system and in particular helps to balance our autonomic nervous system. Our autonomic nervous system can be likened to a seesaw, regularly shifting between the more active and stressed sympathetic side, also know as our “fight or flight” response and then towards the rest and repair parasympathetic side, where our body rejuvenates. Unfortunately when our body has experienced an extended period of trauma, stress or pain we can get stuck in the “protective” sympathetic stress state, not being able to self regulate. This constant state of stress can be so familiar and considered “normal” that we are even unaware that our body is in this mode. This makes it very hard for our body to recover from injury, pain or grief and so needs help to regulate and “tilt” back to the other side of the seesaw where our nervous system gets a chance to rest, repair and recover and therefore so does our whole body.

Research into meditation and this actual MBCT program has shown improvement in chronic pain, stress, depression, anxiety, loneliness, immunity and overall wellness, even brain matter changes have been consistently found!  Follow the link for more information on this research.

This particular mindfulness therapy has been recently seen on the ABC program Catalyst called “The mindfulness experiment”. Click to see for yourself!