How To Bust Stress With Mindfulness

Are you worrying, hurrying or stressed? Stress comes with a long list of damaging effects of stress like heart disease, high blood pressure, accelerated aging, anxiety, depression, anger, forgetfulness, learning difficulty and sleep disorder. When we are stressed, we try to forget about stress by doing something else such as shopping, eating, watching a movie, listening to music, or even taking mind altering substances. By doing so, we might get a temporary relief from the stress but often end up more stressed. A good news is that scientists discovered very effective way of reducing stress with our mind. Jon Kabat-Zinn, Professor of Medicine Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, was one of the first Western scientists who discovered and demonstrated the effectiveness of mindfulness in its clinical applications, especially stress reduction. Since he introduced Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) in 1979, University of Massachusetts Medical Center Research and other researchers elsewhere have found mindfulness is effective in reducing stress and provides other benefits. Mindfulness training is now becoming an essential stress reducing skills being offered growing number of hospitals, clinics, universities, psychiatrists and psychotherapists in US and other countries.

Mindfulness is awareness of one’s physical and mental experiences. Mindfulness is also an innate ability of human mind, which sees things as they really are without distortion, prejudice or bias. But mindfulness is different from thinking. If thinking is doing, mindfulness is being. For example, you are aware of thirst. This awareness is an example of mindfulness. If you are trying to make a choice between tea, coffee or water. If you were aware of the thinking while you were thinking, the awareness is another example of mindfulness.

In recent years, UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) scientists were intrigued by the therapeutic effect of mindfulness and investigated with a support of National Institute of Mental Health. The UCLA study found that mindfulness positively affects brain functions, e.g. a simple awareness on anger reduces anger. When you are angry, simply be aware of or tell yourself “I’m angry”. You will notice a calming effect.

When you are stressed, a stress response occurs. The stress response is also known as the fight or flight response. The stress response helped our ancestors to survive in life threatening encounters with predators. The stress response includes adrenaline production, increased heart rate, and other reactions that are needed in fighting or running away from the predators. The stress response is subject to false alarm. For example, when we lose job or simply worry about such possibility, our body responds with the same kind of stress response triggered when our ancestors were being attacked by a tiger. False alarm can leave adverse effects in our body. Thus it is important to realize a false alarm when it occurs. Mindfulness is about perceiving things as they really are without distortion or bias. When you apply mindfulness, to stress, it helps us realize a false alarm. When our mind is aware of the false alarm, the stress response is diminished or thwarted from being elevated to the full scale stress response. As a result, adverse effects of stress in our body are minimized.

Try the following exercise for 1 minute when you are stressed. 1) Notice physical symptoms of stress that you are experiencing such as increased heart rate, shallow breath, tightened muscles or tiredness. 2) Pay your attention to your mind and notice thoughts or memories that accompany the stress, or something that makes you worried, feeling overwhelmed, angry, depressed, frustrated, or afraid. Be aware that you are stressed or tell yourself that “you are stressed”. While you are aware of your stress, your stress is lessened. Repeat the exercise if it is desired.

If your mind wanders while you are doing the exercise, your mindfulness is not strong enough to be effective. Our mind tends to wander without focus. You can easily test to see if you can effortlessly sustain mindfulness for a period of time. For example, while you are driving a car or taking a shower, see if your mind is in the car or in the shower or thinking something else. If you want to take advantage of full power of mindfulness, you will need to develop your mindfulness so that you can sustain your mindfulness unwaveringly with clarity long enough to see the in-depth causes of your stress as they are without distortion or bias.

Just as you build muscles in your body, you can build mindfulness muscles in your mind with training and exercise. Here is a simple mindfulness exercise that will help you develop mindfulness. Do this while you are eating your meal or food. 1) Start to eat your food normally (but without rushing it). 2) Notice taste and texture of the food in your mouth. As you chew the food, notice changes in taste and texture. 3) When your mind wanders or lose focus, bring your attention gently back to your eating.

Here is another mindfulness exercise, which develops mindfulness (especially on your mental experiences) and can act as an antidote to stress at the same time. 1) Choose a person who you are strongly grateful to. 2) Recognize all the kindness or benefits the person provided to you. 3) Notice feeling of gratitude towards the person. 4) For a minute, focus your mind on the feeling of gratitude that you are experiencing. You probably noticed calming effect in your mind and relaxation in your body while doing this exercise. Likewise, you can exercise mindfulness in your other daily activities such as walking, taking a shower, commuting, etc. The more you exercise and use mindfulness, the more benefits you get.

You will need to develop mindfulness at least for several weeks in order for mindfulness to be effective. (For example, the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program trains participants for 8 weeks). Mindfulness is not a substitute for medicine or medical professionals. If you need medical attention related to your stress, you should see a doctor or visit clinics, hospitals that offer a mindfulness based stress reduction or management program.

Mindfulness is a powerful stress buster. Mindfulness also helps you deal with life’s challenges and stresses more calmly and effectively. Next time you encounter stress, you don’t have to shopping, eating, watching a movie to forget about stress. Instead you should welcome it. Because each time you encounter stress, the stress trains your mindfulness smarter and more sophisticated in its ability to bust stress and protect you from damaging effects of stress.

Related articles;

• Mindfulness introduction by Mental Health Foundation www.bemindful.co.uk
• Mindfulness exercise introduction.  http://www.meditationgeek.org/2010/01/mindfulness-exercise-introduction.html
• Mindfulness training bust stress, CNN, http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/06/01/mindfulness.training.stress/index.html
• Meditation on prescription: charity urges new remedy for depression, Guardian, http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/jan/05/meditation-on-nhs-urged
• Group therapy ‘beats depression, BBC, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7754632.stm
• Is Buddhism Good for Your Health?, New York Times,  http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/14/magazine/is-buddhism-good-for-your-health.html?pagewanted=1
• Mindfulness, Wkipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness_(psychology)
• Introduction to Center for Mindfulness at University of Massachusetts Medical School http://www.umassmed.edu/Content.aspx?id=41252

Sung Yang is an avid meditator. He occasionally teaches and writes about meditation. He received his first meditation training about 30 years ago. Ever since he learned and practiced various meditation techniques.

Don’t Forget To Follow PickTheBrain on Twitter!!