Mindfulness Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Nuggets

Hey there everybody, and welcome to this presentation on mindfulness and cognitive behavioral therapy. This is part of the cognitive Behavioral Therapy Nuggets series. I'm your host, Dr. Donnellice Snipes. Mindfulness means turning off autopilot and being non judgmentally aware of your thoughts, feelings, needs and behaviors in the the present moment. There's a lot in that sentence there. Turning off autopilot is the first thing and autopilot is when you are going through the motions, doing what you always do and not even really having to think about it when you get up in the morning. For me, a lot of times in the morning I'm on autopilot, I get up, I kind of stagger out of my bedroom and go into the kitchen, start making coffee, sit down, pick up my phone and start reading the news. I mean that's. I do it every morning and I don't even really think about it anymore. And I'm actually trying to become more mindful and not open the news in the morning. But it's important to recognize and really think just for a minute about your day today or even your day yesterday. How much of your day was spent on autopilot? How much of it were you really aware and making conscious decisions about what to do next? The second part of this phrase is or sentence is being non judgmentally aware. And so often we should ourselves to death. And it's important when you notice your thoughts, your feelings, your needs, your behaviors, it's just notice it be like, oh, okay, I'm doing this or I'm feeling this way or I'm thinking this way. It is what it is. And I know that that phrase drives some people crazy. It is one that I use a lot. So if you don't like it, you can choose your own or you know, own it. So you find that it's empowering, whatever you want to do with it. But non judgmental awareness means noticing what is in the present and not judging it. It's not good, it's not bad, it just is. That's mindfulness. Okay? Mindfulness helps you connect your thoughts, feelings and behaviors. When you start becoming mindful, you may start noticing that when you are feeling anxious, then you start having thoughts that tend to be more helpless and hopeless, which may trigger you to want to self medicate by eating or drinking or doing something else. So mindfulness can really start helping you connect the dots. And that's really one of the best things about mindfulness. Mindfulness promotes prevention and early intervention. Mindfulness. If you're being mindful and you're checking in with yourself, you're saying, what am I thinking, feeling and needing right now so you can notice before your blood sugar drops that, hey, it's been a few hours since I ate. Maybe I need to eat. Or you know what, I haven't had much water to drink today. Maybe I need to drink, or I've been sitting at the computer for an hour and a half and I haven't gotten up and moved around or stretched. Probably ought to do that before I start getting a kink in my neck or back or something. So mindfulness can help you be more aware of what you're doing to prevent problems, as well as be aware when your stress response is starting to kick off or you're starting to have pain or discomfort somewhere so you can do something about it before it becomes a big problem. How much faster do you recover if you notice that you're not feeling so well, you're starting to feel a little run down, and you start taking care of yourself versus waiting until you have a fever of 104 and you're snotting all over the place. You know, then it may take longer to get better. And yes, I know most viruses run their course in seven to 10 days. However, you can mitigate the intensity of the symptoms if you start taking good care of yourself and doing things to bolster your immune system. Think about how operating on autopilot may have contributed to sickness, anger, outbursts, or even relapses of depression over the past few months for you. How do you do it? Mindfulness is difficult and easy at the same time. It's difficult in that it requires some discipline to do. It is easy in that doing it is actually pretty straightforward. So start with being mindful. As soon as you wake up at each meal and before you go to bed and you may be thinking, I'm going to spend all my day, my whole day, being mindful. Not really. Mindfulness takes a minute, maybe 90 seconds most of the time. When you wake up in the morning, start with being mindful. Just think to yourself, how do I feel this morning physically and emotionally? Generally, when we wake up, we have a pretty good idea whether we're optimistic and excited for the day or we're waking up on the wrong side of the bed or somewhere in between. So just lay there for a second or even think about it when you're drinking your first cup of coffee, how do I feel physically and emotionally? Non judgmental. However I feel is how it is. Why do I feel that way? Maybe I feel Anxious. Why? Why do I feel anxious, apprehensive, or why am I dreading going to the office today? Just explore it. Think about why that's going on so you can make more informed decisions about how to address it. And then what do I need right now? To continue feeling great or to improve the next moment? So if I wake up and I'm feeling great, I'm feeling energized, I'm feeling happy, I'm excited to go to the office. Well, that's wonderful. What do I need to do to keep that momentum going? What's the next step forward? If I'm feeling tired and dreading going to the office, then I need to explore why do I feel that way? And what is. What do I need to do? What is the next thing I can do to improve the next moment, to make it, to help me lean into that distress so I can get through it. Become more mindful in your actions, either as you're doing them or at least in reflection at the end of the day and. Oh, let me go back to that last slide for a second. For your morning and evening mindfulness and at your meal times, you can download apps, you know, like they use for reminding you to take your medication, or set up push notifications in your calendar to remind you to do it, at least for a month, if not three months. Having those push notifications coming in can help you create that habit. Okay, so you're doing your mindfulness when you wake up and before each meal and at the end of the day. Great. Now we want. Once you get the hang of that, it's important to start trying to become more mindful in your actions, either as you're doing them or. Or in reflection at the end of the day by asking yourself, is doing this an effective use of my energy to help me move toward the things and people that are important in my life? Or is this what a happy, healthy, successful person would do? So, some examples, getting sucked into video games. I have a bad habit of getting sucked into. I call them video games. I don't know what, you know, they're technically called, but the game apps on my mobile device. And you know, I can spend an inordinate amount of time doing that, becoming mindful of my actions, asking myself, before I even open it, is this an effective use of my energy to help me move toward the things and people that are important in my life? And generally, the answer is no. If I want to play for a little while to help me relax, what can I do? How can I mindfully do that. And that may mean setting a timer for 30 minutes so I can engage with the game for 30 minutes, but then I will get off. So it's helping me relax, but it's not sucking up hours and hours out of my day. Dwelling on resentment. Oh, my gosh, that takes a lot of energy. Holding onto anger. Remember anger and anxiety. That's part of the fight or flight response. It's part of your stress response. It's there to tell you that there might be a problem and to give you energy to check it out and if there is a problem, give you more energy to deal with it. Anger and anxiety are not meant to be nurtured. They are not, you know, things that we want to hold on to. So dwelling on resentments is almost never a effective use of our energy. So when you recognize that you're doing that, remember asking yourself, what can I do to improve the next moment? If I notice that I'm dwelling on anger or resentments, I know that it's not an effective use of my energy. I know. So what can I do to improve the next moment? Eating unhealthfully. It's another one. Mindful awareness of what I'm doing. Does that mean I eat healthfully all the time? Oh, heck no. I love food and I love junk food as well as healthy food. Having a snack, being mindful of what I'm doing if I want. Right now. Ginger snapshot. Being mindful of what I'm eating. Not just sitting down with a box and eating it while I'm watching tv, but being mindful of what I'm eating and recognizing how it fits in to my goals in life. How does that fit into my vision of being a happy, healthy, successful person? You know, healthy people have snacks and occasionally have treats as well. You know, so healthy people don't bar themselves most of the time for from, you know, junk food. But healthy people are wise about it, and they eat mindfully and pay attention to what they're doing. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And mindfulness can give you that ounce of prevention. It can make you aware of what you need so there's. So that you don't end up having problems. And when you start having problems, you know, if something triggers your anxiety, for example, mindfulness helps you intervene early so it doesn't spiral out of control and wear down your energy and break down your immune system and impair your sleep and make you grumpy and hurt your relationships. You know, if we let things go, they can really fester out of control. Mindfulness helps us become aware of as soon as they start happening. So we can figure out how do I improve the next moment? Mindfulness is essential to health and well being. It just is. If you live on autopilot, you are probably going to miss big things that will end up festering and spiraling out of control. So being mindful is essential. Basic mindfulness is not meditation. All mindfulness is is becoming your own consistently empathetic and responsive best friend. You are becoming your own bff, checking in with yourself a few times a day and going, how you doing? What can I do to help you out? And when you start becoming aware of your actions as your own best friend, you're checking in going is is this really the best way to use your energy? So mindfulness can be a very practical, useful tool to help you begin your journey towards health and happiness.