People often ask me when they begin to practice mindfulness whether it is necessary to meditate. In truth I think the answer must be yes. While it is true that we can practice being mindful in many ways, through the way we eat, work and engage in our daily lives, if we want to really develop traction in our mindfulness practice then meditation is key. People experience great results from just making an effort to be more mindful in everyday life, cultivating presence and openness and intentionally being grounded in the senses, noticing our bodies and having a friendliness towards our own experience. However, regular meditation makes these benefits even more pronounced.

In the same way that we benefit from practicing any new skill we take up, whether it is a sport, hobby or other creative pursuit, so too mindfulness practice is enhanced by having a regular meditation practice. Meditation helps us systematically rewire our brains: out of default mode and into a state of being engaged paying attention to the present moment. When we do this repeatedly we form new neural connections in the prefontal cortex and develop our mindfulness muscle. In meditation we get to really notice the thoughts and the mental chatter of the mind, we pay attention to the stories and distractions without engaging in them and even when we do follow them down the old well worn track we consciously choose to bring our attention back to the present moment, moment after moment.

Using a Guided Meditation

If you have never meditated before you might like to try using a guided meditation. There are many free apps available and you can download recordings from the internet. You might try UCLA guided meditations, Headspace, Smiling mind or Jon Kabat Zinn to name just a few. If you would like to get assistance with developing a meditation practice you can contact me via this website!

Leading yourself through a Sitting Meditation

Sit somewhere comfortable where you won’t be distracted. Set your timer/phone to what feels doable for you. You could start small, say 5 minutes and build up to longer as it feels more manageable. Allow yourself time to settle and arrive, letting go of what has been going on prior to now. You might notice sounds outside or noises in the street. Gradually bring your attention to your body and notice your posture, sit comfortably but not so you will fall asleep!

Gently notice any patterns of tension in your body and feel free to let that go. Notice any mental tension, anxiety or stories in your mind and gently let that go also, just by noticing and bringing your attention back to your body. Now bring your attention to your breath. Notice the breath as it comes in and out, see if you can notice the pause between breaths and when your attention wanders, as it naturally will, gently bring it back to your breath. The practice is not to stop thoughts and mind wandering but rather to notice and gently bring your attention back each time you notice. The practice of mindfulness is simply to recognise when the mind wanders and bring it back to the breath. To this breath in this moment.

This is the first article in a series I am offering on ways to practice mindfulness. In these articles I will explain what mindfulness is and is not, and explore some of the myths around mindfulness. We shall look at the effects of practicing mindfulness every day in our lives in basic easy ways as well as ways that might require more commitment and challenge.

Here I explain why mindfulness is so hugely popular and successful and how you can cultivate your own mindfulness practice, dipping in and dipping out, just as it suits you, experimenting with what works for you and tailoring your own personal programme that benefits your life and brings you more health, happiness and well being, as well as improving your relationships.

Understanding Mindfulness-What’s all the fuss?

“Mindfulness is all the latest buzz”, a client of mine commented the other day. “And seriously, I’ve tried meditation, and it just doesn’t work, for me I mean. Maybe for others but not me and I hate all this body talk anyway. I’m just no good at this body stuff, I’m more of a head person myself.”

I had to agree, at least with the idea that mindfulness is becoming like the latest fad. Mindfulness has become a like a feeding frenzy. All those studies, which are coming out almost weekly, have shown that mindfulness changes particular regions of interest in the brain, the hippocampus, the cerebellum, the insular cortex and posterior cingulate; but we need to know that as exciting as this is, in terms of neuroplasticity and what it means for our health and well being, mindfulness has been around for a very long time. It has a history in many various traditions all over the world, ranging in religions and cultures of great diversity. Mindfulness is not new, it is only that we now know with complete certainty that it works! We know from brain scanning and the latest research and science that mindfulness reduces stress, anxiety and disease. It is associated with lengthening the telomeres in our brain which are associated with ageing. Quite literally mindfulness can extend the quality and quantity of our lives.

The question is, can we crystallise this into a common path, a journey if you like that all of us can be engaged in, no matter who or where we come from?

Mindfulness quite simply is present moment awareness in the senses, being engaged and noticing (non-judgementally) whatever it is you are experiencing. It is commonly believed that mindfulness is only about positive things but that is a myth. Mindfulness allows us to welcome all of our experience, not just the things we judge as good. We find after practicing mindfulness for a time, we can welcome and open to the experience of negative emotions rather than fighting them, reacting to or resisting them which just adds stress and anxiety, confusion and tiredness to our life’s journey. Our mature development as human beings requires us to be able to hold our own experience, and even when there’s trauma, big and small, to be able to pay attention on purpose to what is going on for us at any given moment. Mindfulness is the perfect vehicle to facilitate this!

Starting a Meditation Practice

There are so many ways in which people can develop skills in being more mindful. One of the most beneficial is to have a daily meditation practice. If this feels too onerous to you, maybe you could contemplate starting small. Even 5 minutes a day can have an effect! Begin by thinking about when you are most likely to feel like meditation. For some, it’s early morning, for others it’s after lunch or in the evening. Pick what works for you.

What is Your Motivation

Sense into what you are hoping to achieve by meditation and allow yourself to fully feel the aspiration for your meditation. Rather then coming from a place of should, duty and obligation, see if you can connect with the positive feelings of being more centered, calm, able to concentrate more or relax more. Let yourself know and anchor to what is your own personal intention for meditation. Is it to reduce stress? To improve your brain health? To stay calmer in relationships? To be a more mindful parent?

This then allows you to honour your own commitment to yourself and to more easily come back when you notice you are not keeping up the practice. A foundational quality of mindfulness is that we hold our own experience without judgement. So just like we notice our thoughts then come back to the space of awareness meditation without judgement so too when we forget to practice we gently bring ourselves back.

Pick a place that is quiet and where you won’t be disturbed. Set a timer for yourself so that you can sit and meditate without worrying about when to finish and make it for a duration to start with that feels doable. You might even like to keep a meditation journal, recording for yourself any insights or effects you notice as well as reminding yourself to show up for yourself in your new habit. This could be your own accountability journal. We all have habits so we may as well create good ones! Think of cultivating a meditation practice as developing a new muscle or building a new habit. It won’t always feel easy and you won’t always feel like it, but knowing you have decided ahead of time to build this habit allows you to just do it!

In the next article I will explain how to meditate. Please feel free to leave your comments and questions.