10 Things I Learned From My Mindfulness For Health Course

1. The magic of the breath

• This changed my relationship with work-based stress.
• It allowed me to dampen down my ‘fight and flight’ sensations - the adrenaline-fuelled feeling where your heart is racing and you are ready for flight or fight!
• I was able to activate my parasympathetic nervous system – the calming part of the nervous system which slows everything down.  When I measured my breathing rate on occasions I noticed it had come down to 4 breaths per minute – amazing!
• The benefits of using breathing techniques were immediately apparent to me – it was like a magic wand!  I could physically feel symptoms of stress dissolving and, bonus, it’s so quick to use – done in a couple of minutes.

2. Turning inwards with awareness

• I was able to bring awareness to thoughts, emotions, and sensations that were present.
• This was enormously helpful to me and I often used it in conjunction with breathwork.
• I was able to identify the signs of stress in my body in their infancy before they escalated.
• For me, feelings of stress showed up initially as tension in my jaw and tongue.  As it progressed other symptoms included heart palpitations; feeling frazzled, and; an upset stomach.
• Mindfulness enabled me to use the turning inwards as my barometer to the state of what was happening in my body.
• Once I noticed the signs, I was able to put 'nurturing practices' in place to stop the stress from escalating.
• The meditation techniques I found most useful included: stopping and noticing what was going on in my body; the 3 Step Breathing practice, and; Body scan.

3. The importance of Gratitude practices

• I have been using a gratitude journal for several years before doing the course.
• The course changed how I wrote the gratitude and the number of gratitudes I recorded.
• I learned that we all have a negativity bias, which is trying to do us a favour in protecting us from danger.
• For every ‘negative’ it is thought that we need to balance it out by noticing 5 things to be grateful for.
• During the course, I reported 5 – 10 gratitudes per day.
• As I wrote them I tried to capture the feelings that I had experienced at the time – this I found powerful and allowed me to re-live the positive emotions that had been conjured up.  Often I could feel the energy glowing in my heart.

4. Allowing time to sink into gravity

• This is the act of literally allowing the tension to be released from any areas where you are holding it.  For me, this is the neck, shoulders, throat, jaw, hands, and stomach.
• I found this very grounding and surprisingly quick to complete – it just takes a moment of awareness to notice the holding and then a moment to consciously release the tension into gravity, allowing a sense of heaviness and relaxation.

5. Looking at thoughts and emotions rather than from them

• I find it so easy to go on a ride with my emotions and thoughts – and before long I am in a full-blown soap opera wondering what happened!
• I found it particularly helpful to look at thoughts and emotions when trying to switch off from work.  I found they just kept popping into my head as ‘monkey chatter’ during times when I was trying to relax/unwind from work.
• I noticed that when I turned to the thought and looked directly at it without engaging, the thought was like a little mouse, and just scurried off with its tail between its legs because it had been spotted. The thought just seemed to melt away and the image of the mouse made me smile!
• Over time I noticed the strength and frequency of the thought reduced.

6. Bringing mindfulness to movement

• I noticed how nourishing this was when doing movements during my day, especially just before bed.
• I incorporated this into my functional activities during the day – particularly on workdays when stress was more prevalent for me.
• I might notice I was ‘flapping’ and then start to deliberately slow my movement, performing 1 task at a time. I found this deliberation really calming.
• I used it with breathwork when performing my yoga stretches – it allowed me to work towards my ‘end of ranges’ – to maximise my stretch into the 'sweet spot'.

7. Learning to pace and to notice the things that caused stress

• I learned how to keep a pacing diary and set baselines for my daily activities to reduce stress escalation.
• My scores showed that taking a 5-minute 'nurturing break' after every 55 minutes of work, resulted in me keeping my stress levels at a manageable level.
• I combined this with breathwork which I used in those ‘dead moments’ such as waiting for my computer or phone to turn on.
• By using the pacing activity, I recognised that one of my biggest stress points was first thing in the morning.  During this time I was often trying to sort my treatment plans for the day; sign in for work; do my lateral flow test; do a quick check and respond to my emails; set up my sat nav; sort any tasks that had come through from colleagues; gather PPE; write my work diary for the day – all in 45 minutes!! So by recognising the impact of this I was able to break the tasks down and complete some of them the evening before - so the morning was not so stressful.

8. Noticing secondary suffering

• I noticed that I often made my primary suffering (the trigger) worse by adding lots of stuff on top and often catastrophising or adding additional layers to the story.  This was not deliberate – it is just how ‘thinking’ works.
• Now when I notice it happening it can make me laugh or smile to myself and I then have the power to name it and change it!

9. Broadening awareness to reduce overwhelm

• Useful for me.  Sometimes I get too caught up in the minute details of something and start to feel overwhelmed with all the information coming at me – when in fact, all I need to do is step back and look at the bigger picture.

10. Learning about the emotional regulation system

• I’ve read about this before – but it didn’t resonate at that time!
• I recognised that most of the time I operate in the Achieving / getting things done mode (Dopamine – Doing mode).
• When I am working I seem to be in the Doing mode AND the Threat mode - resulting in my work-based stress and anxiety.
• During working days I noted that I spent no time in the Soothing/contentment mode – hence the introduction of my ‘nurturing’ activities made a significant difference to me.

The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts.
Marcus Arelius

I hope my learning points help at least 1 person.

Mindfulness is a practice and as such needs to be practiced with patience and kindness towards yourself.

Think of it in 2 stages: seated meditations and mindfulness which you then bring into your every day.

It has made such a big difference to my life and I would not now be without it.

Resources:

www.breathworks-mindfulness.org.uk - for useful resources and information on courses

‘Mindfulness for Health a practical guide to Relieving pain, reducing stress and restoring wellbeing’ by Vidyamala Burch and Danny Penman, 2013 Edition

Related blog posts:

My reasons for doing the 8 week online mindfulness for health course