What is Mindfulness | 52 Life Skills Everyone Should Have

Hey there everybody, and welcome to this brief video on mindfulness. This is part of the 52 Skills Everyone Needs series. I'm your host, Dr. Donnellice Snipes. What is mindfulness? Well, mindfulness is the ability to be non judgmentally aware of the present moment. This includes the environment, what's going on around you, what do you see, hear, smell the situation, your feelings, thoughts, wants and needs. You know, you may be in the middle of the grocery store or in the middle of work and all of a sudden you notice, hey, I'm hungry. That's being mindful of what's going on. Mindfulness means turning off that autopilot and starting to become aware of everything in the present moment and the interactions between yourself, the situation and the environment. How am I impacting this discussion? This person? How is this person impacting me? And how is this setting impacting the way we are interacting? The way I interact with my friends at work is going to be different than the way I interact with my friends when we're not at work. I'm going to be more professional, probably more reserved at work, not so much when we're outside of work. So mindfulness means turning off that autopilot and becoming aware of the moment, everything that's going on. Mindfulness helps you become aware of your vulnerabilities so you can prevent distress and enhance happiness, safety and empowerment. Remember, vulnerabilities are those things that make us more likely to respond to distress or unpleasant things with an extreme response. When you are overtired, when your blood sugar's low, when you're in pain, when you're exhausted, when you're overwhelmed, those are all vulnerabilities. And when you're already in that state, your stress response system is kind of primitive, primed to react with an extreme reaction to any additional stress. That stress response system is saying, okay, you know, I'm already active, I'm doing what I can to keep things going. And then when something else comes, the stress response system basically says, really not one more thing, I can't do it, and tries to push it away. Mindfulness enables early intervention from distress because it increases your awareness of your thoughts, well, wants and needs and environment. So you can act or react before you're in a crisis. If you're mindful, then you will notice when you're starting to get that little feeling in the pit of your stomach, you're starting to feel a little bit edgier, agitated or frustrated. You'll notice that before it becomes full out fear, panic or anger. When you Notice those things early, then you can accept it. Okay, I'm starting to feel impatient here. What can I do and address it before you get to the point where you just kind of explode. Mindfulness has a lot of different principles, but the four that I really like to focus on non judgmental awareness of the moment and the constancy of change. Everything changes. Your body changes, the temperature changes, the smells that you're exposed to change. Everything is in a constant state of change. Things just don't stay exactly the same forever and always. Non judgmental awareness means being aware of what is going on with something, the state status of something in the moment and being aware of its changing. Think about the clouds. A lot of us when we were kids or maybe as adults will look at the clouds and we will see shapes in the clouds. But those clouds don't stay that shape. You see a teddy bear, you see a dinosaur or a dragon and it changes and you watch it morph. You recognize that that cloud is going to change. Just like your mood can change, the situation can change. Your feelings about a person or a situation can change. So the first principle of mindfulness is non judgmental awareness of how I feel or what I see or hear or smell in the moment and the fact that it doesn't have to stay that way and it's probably going to change. Beginner's mind is the next or another concept that we're going to talk about. Beginner's mind means seeing it for the first time. Little kids haven't seen a lot of things that we as adults have seen. So they are very curious whenever they see things for the first time and they ask a lot of questions. It's the why? Why did that happen? Well, why did that happen? Well, tell me more about this. And it can be easy to get impatient with children when they start being so inquisitive, because we've seen it all before and we recognize it and it's nothing new to us, but they are seeing it for the first time. Interestingly, when we're in the beginner's mind, even if we're looking at something, either thinking about something or actually looking at it for the first using that beginner's mind, we're looking at it as if we're seeing it for the first time, we often see things that we didn't notice before. So even as adults, no matter how old you are, there's the opportunity to notice things that you never noticed before. So the beginner's mind means seeing it with openness and Curiosity. Instead of saying, yeah, I know what that is, ignore it. Seeing it and going, hey, what else can I notice about this? What did I miss the last time I looked at it? Radical acceptance is a third principle of mindfulness, and I combine that with letting go. Radical acceptance means accepting the good with the bad and that it is what it is. I'm not going to try to change it. I'm going to let go of my desire to control things and my preconceived expectations. Radical acceptance is awareness of the moment and accepting it is what it is. I'm happy, Great is what it is. I'm angry, okay, is what it is. I'm not going to say I should or shouldn't feel a certain way. I'm just radically accepting what's happening in the moment. I got out of the car this morning and there was a rancid skunk smell. Radical acceptance, oh well, it is what it is. I didn't get upset or frustrated because I had to smell it. I just noticed it and said, well, some skunk got pretty upset and let it go. And how wonderful is that? Recognizing the constancy of change, that smell would dissipate after a while. I was grateful I didn't get it on me and just accepting the moment and participate by exploring how to improve the next moment. Linehan always talks about how every moment is an opportunity to change or an opportunity to begin again. So this moment has passed and we're in the next moment when you notice and radically accept how you feel. If that's not what you want to feel or if it's an unpleasant feeling, you can say, okay, what can I do to improve the next moment? Let me be mindful and look around at what's contributing to my feelings right now and what can I do to improve the next moment? Again, mindfulness takes us off autopilot, gets us actively involved and actively problem solving. In dialectical behavior therapy, Linehan talks about observing, describing, and participating. And participating is figuring out, okay, this is the moment, now how do I fit and what can I do to alter it if it's not what I want? Six Strategies to Develop Mindfulness the first one is probably the easiest. Breath Work Breathe. I talk a lot about foursquare breathing. Breathe in for four, hold for four, exhale for four, hold for four. That triggers the rest and digest reaction. That helps slow your breathing, slow your heart rate, and trigger that relaxation response. But when you're doing that, being mindful, when you breathe in, what does it feel like when the air comes in Your nostrils when you're breathing in that cool air, that warm air. If you're in the sauna or out on the beach or something, Noticing how it feels when you're. When your chest or your belly expands, hopefully your belly. Noticing how it feels as you start to get more oxygen in your system. A lot of times people will feel a little tingly or feel a little bit of energy when they breathe, or if you're breathing too fast, if you're not doing the square breathing, you may start to feel a little dizzy, like you do in the doctor's office when they're trying to listen to your heart and your lungs and they tell you to breathe in and breathe out. But noticing that being mindful just of your breath, you don't have your breath, you don't have life breath work is one of those things that you have with you all the time. Progressive muscular relaxation is another great tool to develop physiological or physical mindfulness. In progressive muscular relaxation, you start, I typically say, start at the head and move out through the toes, because you're going to tense and relax every single muscle group. So you're noticing, you're being mindful of the difference between what it feels like when it's tensed and what it feels like when it's relaxed. For those of us who grind our teeth at night, we become acutely aware of this. We start becoming aware of when our jaw starts to get tense, and we know what it feels like when it's relaxed, because a lot of us that grind our teeth at night also grind our teeth when we get stressed. So when we notice that our jaw is starting to get tense, we can override and force ourselves to relax those muscles. Many people store tension, store distress in their muscles, and by becoming aware of where you've got tension, where those muscles are tight, not only are you becoming more aware of your physical status, but you're also preventing pain. When you hold muscles tense for too long, they start to spasm, they start to knot up, they start to cause pain. Progressive muscular relaxation says, hey, you know, you start to learn how to notice, hey, I'm starting to get tense. When I'm working at the computer, I will notice if I start to bring my shoulders up and I start to hunch like this. And I'm like, okay, I notice I'm hunching my shoulders. I'm going to drop them down and feel those muscles stretch out. When you're tense, everything's tight. When you relax, when you let go of that tension, the tension actually kind of feels like, it goes out because you're letting the blood more freely move through your body. How awesome is that? Progressive muscular relaxation is an excellent tool, and there are a lot of scripts. I've got one on the YouTube channel. But there are a lot of other scripts out there that can guide you through progressive muscular relaxation so you can start to become again, become aware of tension in your body. Another strategy that I encourage people to do is what I call mealtime mindfulness. And this means practicing mindfulness. Just doing a mindfulness inventory at every single meal. That's three times a day. And for a lot of people, that's more mindful than they've been in a long time. It's not something that usually lasts for very long. But if you can at least check in with yourself before breakfast, lunch, and dinner and ask yourself, how am I feeling? What am I thinking? What are my needs? What are my wants right now? Do I have pain anywhere? All of those things. Becoming aware of the moment can help you address things before they even maybe start to cause a problem. If you are sitting in an environment and you're practicing your mealtime mindfulness at lunch, for example, you're in a restaurant and you notice, hey, I feel a little uneasy right now. Well, okay, why is that? Get curious. Nonjudgmentally. Accept it. Get curious. I don't like sitting in environments where I've got my back to a bunch of people. So if I'm sitting in an environment where I've got a lot of hubbub going on behind me and I can't see it, especially if I'm by myself, then, you know, I will move so I can see the activity. If I'm with somebody else, I've noticed, for me, I don't tend to feel as stressed because I assume that they're watching my back, so to speak. But mindfulness can help us notice how we feel in that context at that point in time. And then if we don't feel good, we can ask ourselves the question, how can I improve the next moment? The fourth strategy is what I call mindful action, or one thing in the moment when you're eating. Now, this is different than mealtime mindfulness. Mealtime mindfulness. You're just checking in with yourself at every meal. But mindful eating is actually taking time while you're eating to focus on, guess what? Eating. Notice the color of the food. Notice the smell of the food. Notice the taste and the texture and the temperature of the food that you're eating. All of that can help you Savor the moment and improve mindfulness. When you're more mindful while you're eating, it tends to slow you down a little bit. And you also become more mindful of when you're getting full. You can also do mindful action when you're doing things like studying or cooking or what have you. A lot of times we do those things and our mind is periodically jumps here, there and everywhere. Or sometimes when I'm driving, if I don't focus on mindful action, my thoughts are all over the place. Mindful action means bringing your attention to what you're doing in that moment. If your mind starts to wander, notice it and gently bring your attention to back on what you're focusing on. Don't get upset about it, don't get angry with yourself. Just notice that, hey, your mind kind of straight a little bit. Bring it back in here and get refocused. Some people who struggle with anxiety have difficulty doing that and staying on task because their mind keeps going over to this place. It keeps wanting to pull to the right. If that happens, write down whatever it is. If you keep going to this one particular thought, jot it down and set it aside and identify a time that you can focus on that. I have some people that I work with, with anxiety, have set aside 30 minutes of worry time each day, however you want to do it. But if you write it down, then your brain knows, hey, you're not going to forget about that. So a lot of times it'll quit dragging your attention over there. And you can also do mindful action in observational practices. Whether it's looking at the flicker of a flame in a fireplace or on a candle, or observing the clouds or looking at a lava lamp, whatever it is that you're observing, or even looking at a painting, if you go to a, an art museum or something like that, or even if you go to the symphony, you're not observing with your eyes, you're observing with your ears, but paying attention to that thing in the moment. When I go to the symphony, or even when I listen to classical music, I like to try to hear as many different instruments. I like to try to pick them out. Pick out the oboe and the trumpet and the trombone and the piccolo and those different things. It's what I do. But that encourages me to stay mindful. And then sometimes I'll think about, okay, I'm hearing this sound, I'm hearing this oboe. What feeling is that evoking in me? There are lots of different ways you can be mindful in an Action. But the key is focusing on what you're doing, one thing in the moment. Now, completely different strategy for mindfulness is what we call open awareness. And this is where you're not focusing your attention on any one thing. You are just opening your eyes, opening your awareness. This is very beginner's mind oriented. This is what a lot of very young children do. They just notice everything. And open awareness can be really awe inspiring if you are in a park or if you're in the woods, or again in a museum or any type of any setting, just being aware to what is right now. When I taught at uf, I used to take my students out outside of the building and we would sit in the courtyard for 10 minutes and I would have them spend five minutes with open awareness just jotting down everything that they noticed. What they smelled, what they heard, what they saw, what they felt. And then we would discuss, when we got back into the room, we would discuss what everybody observed. And I never had a situation where two people observed the exact, only the exact same things. They may observe, have overlapping observations, but inevitably everybody in the group would have at least one thing that nobody else had noticed. So open awareness can be really cool because you become more tuned into your environment. This is one of my favorite things in the morning. I live on a farm, I live out in the middle of nowhere. But open awareness, I notice the different sounds of the different birds or I noticed this morning there was a robin sitting in my nectarine tree. Yesterday, I was loading the dog into the car and I noticed in the darkness, all I saw was this little cottontail hopping away. I couldn't see the bunny. All I could see was the little white tuft on its cotton tail as it hopped away. But had I not been aware of what was going on, had I been focused on, you know, getting the dog in the car and not just generally aware of what was going on, I would have missed that. And how disappointing would that be? I love my bunnies. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 is another type of mindfulness. It's not quite open awareness, but it is more open than one thing in the moment. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 is also a great grounding activity, because when you're forcing yourself to look for these things, then your mind is not going to whatever that distressful thing is. So it's helping you get grounded and turn your attention to what's going on in the moment, in outside of your head. Five, four, three, two, one. Five things that you see, four things that you hear, three things that you Smell two things that you can feel. And if you do one, one thing that you can taste, and I don't always include one in there because, you know, you know, sometimes you're just really not tasting much. You may still taste your toothpaste from brushing your teeth in the morning or the coffee that you had 30 minutes ago, but you may not taste anything. Another variation of that. Instead of 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Just five things. Look around. What are five green things that you see right now? Or what are five things that you see? Or what are five things that you hear? If you're in the woods, for example, you can say, what are five birds that you hear? There are a lot of different ways to encourage yourself to become more mindful. And I encourage you to do ask yourself to find a little bit more than you think. You can easily find, like four things that you hear. Most people can rattle off two or three things pretty easily, but that fourth thing, they have to look for a little bit. And that encourages you to become more mindful. That encourages you to become even more aware of what's going on. And finally, number six, journaling. Journaling is a great way to develop mindfulness. If you write down your thoughts, you can see them and you can observe kind of what you're thinking, and you can go back and review them later and start to understand your thoughts a little bit more. Mindfulness encourages you to turn off autopilot and engage with yourself and the world around you. Mindfulness helps you notice your current vulnerabilities and triggers and act to mitigate or prevent distress. Mindfulness helps you train your brain to focus on one thing in the moment and improve your concentration. And has been shown to help people manage their emotions, feel safer and more empowered, and improve mood.