It occurs to me that I have written a few posts about mindfulness without ever defining what is it. Let me remedy that oversight!

I like using Jon Kabat-Zinn’s definition. He’s the founder of the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and the progenitor of the highly acclaimed Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program. He says:

“Mindfulness is the awareness that arises from paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally.” On purpose, present, and non-judgmentally.

I’ll unpack those three things.

ON PURPOSE: At any given moment, our brains sift through an ocean of input:

• From the five senses (sight, sound, taste, smell, touch)
• From interior signals (breath, heartbeat, digestion, body temperature, etc.)
• From feeling states (happy, sad, angry, calm, anxious, excited, etc.)
• And from mental activities (planning, analyzing, remembering, imagining, ruminating, etc.)

We can’t possibly bring conscious awareness to all of that input, all of the time. So, our amazing brains use a lifetime of experience to process and interpret that raw data. (Where am I? What’s happening? Who am I with? Is there danger or opportunity? And so on…) They decide what will be brought into consciousness awareness, what they’ll store, and what they’ll discard. At root, it’s all about keeping us alive and safe.

Imagine that you are out for a walk in the woods, fully absorbed by an audiobook. If nothing of particular import is happening, you won’t notice all of the perceptual work that your brain is doing. But if there’s danger afoot – say the sound of a rattle – then that sound and the attendant fight-flight-freeze stress response will present a call to action.

Conscious awareness functions like a spotlight that focuses on specific stimuli or state of being. Again, it can be sensory data, an interior signal, a feeling, a thought, an intuition. And it can jump around from one to another, sometimes quite rapidly. Mindfulness teaches us to pay attention to what garners the spotlight – in other words, to notice what we’re noticing – to help make choices about where and how to focus attention, and to give us the freedom to interpret that input with interest, curiosity, and compassion.

IN THE PRESENT MOMENT: Human beings spend quite a bit of time with our brains disconnected from what’s happening in the moment. We think about things that transpired in the past or might happen in the future. We image circumstances and run simulations for events that may never come to pass. And we escape into our imaginations.

Harvard psychologists Matthew A. Killingsworth and Daniel T. Gilbert measured this phenomenon using a special “track your happiness” iPhone app. They gathered data from 2,250 subject of varying ages on their thoughts, feelings, actions, and happiness as they went about their daily business. On average, mind-wandering consumed 46.7% of their time, and the more their minds wandered, the less happy they were. Further analysis revealed that the subjects’ mind-wandering was generally the cause, not the consequence, of their unhappiness.^[1]

If, like me, you are interested in being more content, mindfulness can help us notice when our minds go adrift and invite us to come home to the present moment.

NONJUDGMENTALLY: As noted before, our brains process lots of data, rendering assessments about what is crucial vs. trivial, good vs. bad, friendly vs, hostile, healthy vs. unhealthy, and so on. Of necessity, they are rather judgy. And that characteristic carries over into conscious awareness.

Mindfulness encourages us to notice our judgments while remaining curious, open, and accepting – not to put us in harm’s way, but to provide the means to think, speak, and act wisely.

Mindfulness can be practiced informally as we go about our day-to-day activities or formally through meditation. The latter develops our “noticing,” “now,” and “nonjudgmental” muscles. We learn to pay attention to what arises and put out the welcome mat for the experience. And we train ourselves to bring into consciousness a whole gaggle of thoughts, feelings, and sensations that might otherwise habitually fall beneath our radar.

[1] Steve Bradt, Wandering Mind Not a Happy Mind, The Harvard Gazette, November 11, 2010 (See https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2010/11/wandering-mind-not-a-happy-mind/)

“In their quest for happiness, people mistake excitement of the mind for real happiness.” – Sayadaw U Pandita, Myanmar Buddhist monk

My last post examined Dr. Judson Brewer’s work on addiction as discussed in The Craving Mind. It focused on our need for distraction in the face of unpleasant feelings and how that inculcates unhealthy behavior patterns. There’s another aspect of craving that bears a moment or two of reflection – i.e., the thirst for continuous gratification.

Like it or not, we are pleasure seeking beings. We crave people, things, feelings, and experiences that feel good and avoid ones that don’t. Moreover, when we sense a lull in action or feel disengaged with what we’re doing, it’s easy to look for some form of excitement to get our juices flowing again.

Daydreaming can stoke our fires. We imagine a life filled with our heart’s desires and, perhaps, contemplate a journey that might get us there. We may run simulations in our brain to assess the likelihood that we could make it happen. Or, we may simply abandon all sense of reality and create a fantasy world into which we escape.

Shopping can be an allure for others. Companies spend billions of dollars in advertising to convince prospective consumers that the key to happiness lies in purchasing their products. We feel the rush of excitement when the coveted item becomes ours. Unfortunately, the feeling doesn’t last long, and we set ourselves up to buy the next new toy. (When we downsized last summer, I was struck by how much stuff we’d purchased over the years and rarely used. Such waste!)

Adrenaline junkies seek intense and thrilling activities that deliver a physiological rush – e.g., sky diving, extreme sports, dangerous lines of work. These activities cause the body to produce adrenaline which increases heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing. It sharpens the senses and boosts energy in response to a perceived danger. But again, the feeling doesn’t last, and its pursuit can be costly physically, emotionally, and financially.

On a much smaller scale, click bait can give us a tiny hit of dopamine to break us out of the doldrums. The thrill of anticipation piques our interest; clever marketers use evidence-based methods to capture our attention once we get there.

All the foregoing work against our being sustainably awake, aware, and embodied in the present moment. We become slaves of our wandering minds, our cravings, and the false sense that happiness is somehow “out there.” We lose sight of the path to true happiness and well-being.

There are several antidotes for our attachment to continuous gratification.

Positive psychology guru Dr. Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi found that people are happiest when they are in a state of flow. This state happens when we are fully engrossed in voluntary activities that stretch our bodies and/or minds to accomplish something worthwhile. In such activities, we act with such deep and effortless involvement that we temporarily let go of everyday worries, responsibilities, and frustrations. We’re “in the zone.” In my experience, the activities need not be Herculean. I get “in the zone” when engrossed in a good book; I’m bored and restless when watching TV.

Mindfulness helps break the allure of continuous gratification. As discussed in last week’s post, we can observe with curiosity the mind’s tendency toward craving – in this case, its thirst for excitement. If we succumb to the temptation, we can notice the feelings that arise, the length of time those heightened sensations stick around, and the place to which we return thereafter. Was it worthwhile? Were there better uses of our precious resources? If we resist the temptation, we can notice how the impulse to act increases in intensity and then attenuates, soon to be replaced by other thoughts and impulses. A craving is just a craving until we get sucked into it!

The promise of a consistent practice of mindfulness lies in the quieting of that part of the brain that activates in response to boredom, notably the medial prefrontal cortex (MPC) and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC). These regions are associated with self-referential thinking and are linked with OCD, daydreaming, rumination, and craving. They settle down when concentrating with ease on the present moment.

Until we define happiness for ourselves and see clearly the difference between excitement and joy, we’ll be ensnared by craving. Excitement brings with it restlessness and a contracted urge for more. Joy that results from curiosity activates a healthy imagination and creativity and yields peace, openness, and deep well-being.

When the earliest incarnations of human beings roamed the earth, survival loomed large in every day life. Those who lived became adept at laying down patterns of behavior in response to environmental cues. Establish relationship with friends; run from enemies and predators. Move toward nutrients and away from toxins. Approach pleasant; avoid unpleasant. Memory engrams combined with dopamine hits in the brain codified these patterns into habits. Good habits kept one alive.

With our ancient brains now living in a modern world, that evolutionarily beneficial learning process now works against us. While we don’t face the same environmental threats, our brains still run the same programming:

1. We have an experience that registers in the five senses (sight, smell, sound, taste, touch) and/or our emotions.
2. We render an interpretation of that stimulus based on past experience.
3. Our assessment results in a “feeling tone” – i.e., pleasant or unpleasant.
4. We’re wired to approach (and crave) what’s pleasant and avoid (or ignore) what’s unpleasant.
5. We take action reflexively based on this rapid and largely unconscious mental process.
6. We lay down a memory engram that increases the likelihood that we’ll repeat the process the next time we encounter that stimulus… as well as ones that register as similar.

Feel stressed, bored, frustrated, angry? Our patterned behavior might trigger eating, drinking, smoking, doing drugs, checking social media… anything to distract ourselves from the unpleasant feeling. But here’s the rub: However pleasant these distractions may seem, we’ll only get a transitory hit of dopamine when pursuing them. Worst yet, the hit attenuates the more we chase after that activity, thereby requiring a more extended engagement for the same measure of pleasure. And when it wears off, we’re still left with whatever feeling we had when we hopped on the bad habit bandwagon.

Dr. Judson Brewer explores this terrain in The Craving Mind: From Cigarettes to Smartphones to Love. In particular, his research focuses on the neurobiology of substance and behavioral addiction and its treatment via mindfulness. It’s a really interesting read. Let me illustrate a small piece of his work through the lens of social media.

Using fMRI technology, neuroscientists have identified the nucleus accumbens as the brain region linked with addiction. It also lights up when we talk about ourselves, listen to others talk about us, or get self-relevant feedback. This wiring likely reflects the fact that our ancestors increased their chances of survival when they mattered to others. It meant that others took a vested interest in their well-being under the auspices of mutual interest.

Technology causes us to overuse this neural pathway. We post on social media to get noticed and pay close attention to who “likes” what we shared. We feel great if a lot of people give us a thumbs up – especially those who we deem special – and feel deflated if few bother to register a response. Ironically, extensive use of social media has been correlated with diminished self-worth and increased withdrawal. We get caught up in comparisons, ruminating on how others’ lives are so much more exciting than ours. We get drawn in to the on-line world rather than revel in real experience. We want to matter. But in the end, social media makes us feel worse.

So, what’s the answer?

Dr. Brewer suggests a counterintuitive response: Lean in to the discomfort rather than attempt a bypass through addictive distraction. Activate curiosity to see how discomfort manifests in the body. Curiosity creates emotional distance from the sensation and makes it less personal. It also affords the space to “pause” before engaging in habitual responses and see what we’re actually getting out of them. Do we really feel better long term, or are we just getting some temporary relief and winding up worse off? Moreover, given time, we may notice that our impulse to act – out of craving or aversion – likely reaches a peak and then falls away. If we just stay with it, we can ride the wave until it finds its own natural conclusion.

I’ve put this advice into practice. Sweets – notably chocolate truffles and ice cream – are my go-to “remedies” for stress, boredom, and various forms of upset. Sugar alone triggers an addictive response; my use of it for palliative care makes it doubly vexing. When I give in to the craving, the sensory experience lasts but a few minutes. Then I experience a sugar rush followed by a crash and (usually) disruption of sleep. And after my brief distraction, I still have to deal with whatever triggered the habit loop in the first place… with diminished physical reserves.

Using Dr. Brewer’s advice, I stop and take notice when craving for sweets arises. I remind myself of the fleeting nature of the “happiness hit” and the long tail of the unpleasantness post-indulgence. Then I get quiet and explore what’s really going on in my body and what it might be telling me about my life. With that little bit of mindfulness, I set myself up for right action.

“Worrying doesn’t take away tomorrow’s troubles. It takes away today’s peace.” – Andy Armstrong, musician

My last couple of posts arose in response to Dr. Judson Brewer’s book Unwinding Anxiety. They covered Brewer’s research regarding the use of mindfulness to overcome bad habits. Before moving on to another scholar’s work, it’s worth taking a few moments to examine the titular subject of the book – anxiety.

We define anxiety as a feeling or worry, nervousness, or unease in the face of upcoming events or circumstances with uncertain outcomes. It arises because our survivalist brains want to predict the future accurately; uncertainty threatens our safety and engenders fear.

Common sources of anxiety include health, safety, job security, finances, politics, and personal relationships. The prospect of public speaking can also send most folks into a tizzy. Even happy occasions can prompt a bout of anxiety, such as impending nuptials, birth of a child, or dream vacations.

Anxiety urges action. We may attempt to satisfy the itch for certainty by seeking more information or developing contingency plans. (Warning: Fake news on the Internet spreads 6x as fast as real news and may exacerbate anxiety!) We may try to ward off undesirable outcomes by clinging to or grasping for that which feels safe. We may have a go at distracting ourselves from worry by indulging in our favorite addiction (although worry may come back with a vengeance after the distraction has run its course). We may even work ourselves up into a full-blown panic attack because that feels as though we are doing something in response to our anxiety, crazy though that might sound!

Brewer identifies anxiety (worry) as a harmful habit that often hides in other bad habits:

Worrying can trigger more worrying, perhaps resulting in a generalized anxiety disorder. We can even worry because we don’t know why we’re worried! Even though worrying doesn’t work, our old brain keeps doing it because action (however misguided) seems rewarding in the moment.

We need to be able to name anxiety in order to work with it and break the habit loop. Note that it may not manifest as a clear and unambiguous signal. (“Oh, no! I’m worried!”) It could show up as anger, irritability, impatience, fear, craving. The tell-tale sign might be an impulse that takes the prefrontal cortex off-line and with it rational thought, decision making, and planning.

Whenever we feel a bout of anxiety coming on, Brewer recommends that we pause and take a deep breath to stop the downward spiral. Give the prefrontal cortex the chance to come back on line. Use curiosity to take note of the bodily sensations that are taking root, the emotions that are surfacing, and the stories that might be cropping up alongside them. Curiosity helps us process the anxiety rather than distract ourselves from it. It also has the effect of quelling the sensation as curiosity serves as an appropriate action and reward for the initial trigger

Brewer reminds us that what we make of this moment creates the bead that adds to the necklace of life experiences. If we’re anxious, we create a bead of anxiety. If we are anxious a lot, we create an anxiety necklace. But we can step out of the worry loop and create a calming, compassionate, supportive string of pearls.

In my last post, I introduced the concept of using mindfulness to break bad habits – even the intractable ones like overeating, smoking, and substance abuse. Dr. Judson Brewer, PhD, MD demonstrated its efficacy in scientific experiments as well a clinical practice and documented findings in Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind.

Brewer’s methodology consists of three steps as follows:

• Map your habit loops.
• Update the brain’s reward value.
• Make your brain a bigger, better offer.

Let’s say that I feel stressed habitually at the end of my work day. My trigger might be sitting in front of the TV after work at night to unwind. By force of habit, I grab my favorite chips and start eating. I tell myself, “You deserve to have something savory to eat after a hard day.” Here’s a map of my habit loop:

I may have read enough to know that I shouldn’t be eating unhealthy snacks (plus they aren’t good for my waistline!) Willpower eludes me at the end of a tough day. I’ve tried substituting a short walk after work for stress relief, but the snack habit may rear its ugly head later that evening when I turn on the TV. And I’ve tried emptying the pantry of chips to avoid temptation, but then I’ll just find something else on which to snack. As Dr. Brewer would say, all of these strategies rely upon a discerning cerebral cortex which tends to go off-line under stress in favor of the primal rewards-based learning.

Mindfulness starts the change process by paying attention to the behavior and examining the actual reward that gets delivered as a result. With mindless eating, it’s often the case that we don’t really savor what we’re eating. As there is lag time between the filling of our bellies and the hormonal signals to tell us that we’ve had enough, we often pass the point of satisfaction and head into disgust before we actually stop. Then we’re left with that uncomfortably full sensation that lingers through the evening and may even disrupt our sleep that night. And, of course, we feel all the more stuffed should we try to eat a regular meal on top of our snacks. Does that sound rewarding to you?

Oddly enough, our “old brains” are wired for action. So, when we first laid down the snacking habit with a favored treat, the brain said, “Great! We’re doing something to address this stress thing. I’ll count that as a win.” Unless we update that value with new data, it’ll keep feeding the habit loop!

The data that matters is not cognitive; it’s somatic. We need to slow down and take note of what it feels like to continue with this behavior – not just in the moment, but in all the moments that fall thereafter. We need to notice that we aren’t really tasting our food. We need to feel into the fullness and the physical and emotional discomfort that comes with it. We need to remember how it felt the following day. That input helps reset the reward value so that the habit loop ceases to have the allure it once held. (Note: When a long-time smoker availed herself of mindfulness, she realized that smoking “smells like stinky cheese and tastes like chemicals. Yuck.”)

While these insights may prove sufficient to break the hold of a bad habit, we can seal the deal by giving the brain a bigger, better offer in response to the trigger – one that doesn’t feed the habit loop. So, what works?

Brewer suggest that we simply bring a kind, curious, nonjudgmental awareness to the sensations and feelings that triggered the loop in the first place. We needn’t rush to fix them; we can simply observe the experience. We might say to ourselves, “Hmmm. What name would I give this sensation? Where do I feel it in my body? What emotion seems to go along with it? What stories am I telling about it?” We’re not dissecting it or trying to answer the why of it all. We’re just describing what is happening.

Curiosity has a calming influence. It open us up to insight and learning. It brings out our childlike wonder. It effortlessly pulls us in because it feels good and rewarding. And in all likelihood, the sensation or emotion that triggered the old habit loop simply dissipate of its own volition.

These three steps take practice, but they’re not hard to institute. Map habit loops. Make space to look at the real results of the behavior. Practice riding out urges. Learn to be with whatever thoughts and emotions arise. Have faith that you can do it.

I marvel at the human brain’s capacity to function on autopilot, navigating hundreds or thousands of routines with no (or minimal) conscious thought. The first few times we perform a new task – like tying our shoes – it’s a bit effortful. But once we’ve mastered a skill, we can execute it while thinking about other things.

Habits largely live in the realm of the unconscious. We encounter a trigger that sets forth a behavioral routine which results in some form of reward. The reward generally draws us toward something pleasant or away from something unpleasant/harmful.

See donuts.
Eat donuts.
Savor the delicious flavor and survive.

Hear rattling sound in forest.
Move away from sound with all due haste.
Avoid poisonous snake bite and survive.

We find this survivalist wiring in all sentient life. The degree to which we’re drawn to a particular behavior in response to a cue or trigger lies in the reward value that we’ve assigned to it. The higher the reward, the easier it is to trigger the behavior.

So, how do we get stuck in bad habits?

If we’re uncomfortably and unhealthfully overweight, we know we should eat less and focus on healthier food choices, but we can’t seem to avoid the allure of salts, sugars, and fats. If we smoke cigarettes, we’ve been bombarded with all kinds of messaging about how bad it is for us (and may even experience life-threatening symptoms), but we still light up. A similar logic goes along with alcohol and drug addiction. Our higher order thinking may know that our behavior is not life sustaining, but we have real difficulty changing it.

Dr. Judson Brewer, MD, PhD has devoted his life’s work to helping people break the cycle of addiction. He tells us that willpower and self-discipline alone are not sufficient to overcome this seemingly intractable foe. They rely upon the faculties of the newest part of our brains – the prefrontal cortex – to exercise control. Regrettably, that’s the first part of our brains to go off-line when we are under stress, which is when bad habits are most likely to engage. They spring forth from ye olde reward-based learning that triggers behavior based on a cue in anticipation of a reward.

CUE: I feel anxious, upset, bored…
BEHAVIOR: I eat chocolate, light up a smoke, down a drink, take a pill…
REWARD: I avoid having to feel anxious, upset, bored… in this moment

Dr. Charles Duhigg served up the Golden Rule of Habit Change to address this circumstance: Keep an old cue, deliver an old reward, but insert a new behavior. For example, go for a brisk walk in nature the next time you feel anxious, bored, upset… While that’s a healthier alternative to overeating, smoking, or substance abuse, it keeps the old habit loop intact, making it easy to revert to the old behavior. Besides, do we really think a habit loop designed to avoid feelings is a good thing?

As a long time meditator, Dr. Brewer wondered to what extent the practice of mindfulness might benefit those struggling with addiction. He identified several factors favorable to its use:

• Mindfulness takes behaviors that have been unconscious and brings them into awareness with compassion and without judgment. It creates the space for making different choices.
• Mindfulness recognizes that physical sensations, mental states, and feelings rise and fall away. Whatever impulse drives undesirable behavior, it’ll go away.
• Mindfulness brings curiosity to impulses and reward systems. Impulses feel less compelling when examined from an interested but dispassionate stance. Rewards may not be so rewarding when taking a longer view. (“Mmm. The chocolate tasted good for the few minutes that it took to eat it. But then I felt bloated and guilty. It also disrupted my sleep, and I felt lousy the next day.”) If you reset the reward value, the habit loop may die on the vine.

Dr. Brewer tested his theory with smokers who were highly motivated to quit. Half of the group got the prevailing gold standard treatment protocol for quitting smoking; the other half received mindfulness training along with a related app for their Smartphones. The mindfulness group demonstrated a success rate 5x that of the gold standard group! He applied the technique to overeating and witnessed a 40% reduction in craving-related eating.

Want to learn more? Read my next post or watch Judson Brewer’s TED Talk entitled A simple way to break a bad habit.

While perusing Daniel Siegel’s book Aware: The Science and Practice of Presence, I came across a useful metaphor that has helped me get my head wrapped around mindfulness. He calls it the wheel of awareness.

Think of the center of the wheel – the hub – as consciousness, or that state of being aware of one’s external environment and internal sensations and processes. Siegel refers to it as knowing. It’s that part of us that has the capacity for awareness.

Consider the rim to include all of the things about which consciousness might be aware. Siegel labels it the knowns. The rim contains:

• Input from our 5 senses – i.e., sight, sound, taste, smell, touch
• Interior signals from the body – e.g., breath, heartbeat, digestion, body temperature
• Feeling states – e.g., happy, sad, angry, calm, anxious, excited, lethargic
• Mental activities – e.g., planning, analyzing, remembering, imagining, ruminating
• Relational sense – i.e., interconnectedness

The spoke on the wheel represents the precise stream of energy and information to which we direct our attention at any given moment. Experienced meditators have the ability to direct sustained attention toward one thing at a time. Novice meditators may find that their spokes flit around at a dizzying rate. The consistent practice of meditation slows this activity down and enables the meditator to differentiate elements of consciousness and discern relationships between them. It has the capacity to alter neural structures.

“Where attention goes, neural firing flows, and neural connection grows.”

A receptive consciousness allows for focused attention, open awareness, and kind attention toward whatever arises. One lives in the relative calm of the hub and doesn’t get lost or stuck on the rim, buffeted about by the knowns of life. The hub is the source of awareness, reflection, choice, and change. This receptive consciousness also senses energy and information flow with more focus, clarity, depth, and detail.

The book offers several practical suggestions for developing mindfulness. One simple technique that leverages the aforementioned insights follows:

• Find a comfortable position in which you can sit with dignity and ease. You may close your eyes or adopt a fixed gaze on a neutral object.
• Focus on the breath without trying to control it. Just breathe in and out naturally.
• Take a few moments to notice each of the five senses. What are you seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, or feeling in this moment (if anything)?
• Conduct a body scan – from the tips of your toes to the top of your head – and take note of any sensations that arise.
• Notice feelings that crop and where they might reside in the body.
• Pay attention to thoughts that come into consciousness (and how quickly they tend to disappear!)
• Turn the sense of awareness back in on itself – i.e., notice the one who is noticing!
• Finish with statements of kind intention for yourself and for other beings – e.g., May I (all beings) live with meaning, connection, and equinity. May I (all beings) be healthy. May I (all beings) be free from harm. May I (all beings) flourish and cultivate a grateful heart.

A recent conversation with my naturopath drew my attention to Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), a program developed in the 1970s by Professor Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. It’s an 8-week workshop with weekly classes, homework, and an all-day retreat with instruction in mindfulness meditation, body scanning, and simple yoga postures. It’s based on the following tenets: beginner’s mind, non-judgment, patients, acceptance, non-striving, trust, and letting go.

My husband and I attended an orientation last Spring. I followed up with a quick read though The MBSR Program for Enhancing Health and Vitality by Linda Lehrhaupt and Petra Meibert, both certified trainers. While the authors make clear that a book is no substitute for the lived experience of a class, it provides a high-level summary of the course contents. I’m intrigued and may give the class a go.

Based on reading about how our brains and bodies work, I’ve learned how our mental activity impacts our brain circuitry and our physiology. When a situation elicits the “fight or flight” response, our bodies:

• Mobilize energy (glucose) in our bloodstreams to provide fuel for our muscles
• Elevate heart rates, blood pressure, and breathing to expedite delivery of fuel and oxygen to our cells
• Halt long-term “building projects” – e.g., growth, tissue repair, reproduction
• Boost immunity and blunt pain response
• Sharpen senses and improve memory

These physiological changes prove useful for responding to a short-term threat – e.g., running from a predator. They’re detrimental when activated over a prolonged period of time in response to sustained predatory conditions, chronic pain, mental anguish, and the like. MBSR provides the resources to tamp down the parts of our brain that activate anxiety/negativity and amp up the parts that promote resilience and well-being.

With mindfulness training, we can draw focus away from the particulars of a difficult situation (e.g., grid lock during the daily commute) and observe the way we relate to it on an emotional, intellectual, and behavioral level. We learn to recognize that the irritant plays a relatively minor role in our experience of stress; it’s the extra elements that we attach to it that escalate our response. With heightened sensitivity to our reactivity and our rumination, we can turn the dial down on stress while opening the door to options for self-management and coping.

Mindfulness goes beyond managing stress. The program also draws attention to all the ways in which we get caught up in thoughts and lose sight of what’s happening in the here and now. It strengthens our capacity to recognize the vitality of every moment – even when we’re doing chores! It helps us live in the present without getting caught up in a past that we can’t change or a future that has yet to occur.

Mindfulness also helps to calm the restless mind. Thoughts have power. When they get “stuck” in our minds, we can get caught up with them. But if we can become aware of them in a calm, friendly, non-judgmental manner – without identifying with them or giving them credence – they lose their capacity to exert a negative influence. They can just pass on through.

Mindfulness can help us improve relations with others. The core premise here is that we cannot connect meaningfully with others if we’re not connected to ourselves. When we’re in touch with our thoughts, feelings, wants, and needs, we’re more likely to communicate clearly and less likely to respond on auto-pilot. We’ll be grounded in the present moment and listen more attentively. We’ll pause before reacting, giving ourselves time to choose the appropriate thought, speech, or action. We’ll also notice when we’re involved with something or someone that does not prove forwarding for our lives.

Given the program’s longevity and span of influence, there has been quite a lot of research on its effectiveness… hence my interest in attending. I just need to figure out how I’ll get it to fit in my schedule!