How Can Mindfulness Help Your Corporate Wellness?

 

Recently, mindfulness has become more prominent in Western society, with companies even adopting mindful techniques as part of their corporate wellness programmes. Not only does mindfulness aid your mental and physical wellness, it also helps your work performance and leadership skills. Mindfulness also instills a greater sense of meaning and satisfaction in your life, meaning you’ll be happier when hump day rolls around.

 

According to Rachel Clements, BSc Hons, M Psych, MAPS, co-founder and Director of Psychological Services and Principal Organisational Psychologist at the Centre for Corporate Health, ‘Mindfulness is focused awareness of the present moment. It allows us to live our life fully conscious as to what is going on around us, such as a simple sensation like feeling the warmth of the sunlight or noticing the complex interplay between our internal dialogue of our thoughts and emerging feelings. By tuning in to our internal thought processes and by having a greater insight in to them, we are able to recognise that our thoughts are just thoughts and that they don’t necessarily represent reality.’ So how can you live your life more mindfully?

 

1. Observe: Clements recommends, ‘Try to bring the focus of your attention to the present moment and tune in to what is going on in the present i.e. focus on what your body position is, what it feels like, identifying any thoughts or feelings that may be present, or simply grounding yourself in what is going on around you at the moment. Mindfulness aims to shift one’s attention away from analytical thinking to observing thoughts, feelings, and one’s bodily reactions as activated by the five senses (e.g., sight, sound, taste, touch, smell).’

 

2. Describe: ‘Tune in to the small details of what you are observing and simply describe these to yourself,’ Clements instructs. ‘For example, you may observe and describe the contours of the chair in which you are currently sitting, against your body. When eating a strawberry you may observe and describe what the texture feels like in your mouth as you take a bite or you may savour the sweet taste which you may never have taken the time to notice before. When in a meeting you may focus on the person in front of you and really listen to what he or she is saying, being present to every word. When walking, you may notice and describe what your body feels like as you are putting one foot in front of the other, noticing the position and weight of your body as you balance etc.’

 

3. Reduce: Clements details, ‘Studies have revealed that multi-tasking places so much of a cognitive load on ourselves that our performance deteriorates. Therefore, in order to save time, maintain performance and wellbeing we are better off practicing mindfulness by doing one thing at a time and being fully present in that experience. Task switching in which we alternate tasks however remain fully present when undertaking each one, is often a better alternative for us.’

 

4. Accept: ‘It is important to be open and accepting of how you are thinking, feeling or behaving in the present moment,’ Clements asserts. ‘Adopting a witness perspective of you observing yourself in a situation allows some distance from a situation which we may be entwined in, allowing us to perhaps view the situation from another perspective. When practicing mindfulness, try to refrain from making comment or evaluating experiences as good, bad, right, or wrong, and try not to control or avoid the experience even if it seems unpleasant at the time. In mindfulness an experience simply “is what it is”.’

Categories: Acceptance, clements, corporate wellness, fully present, mindfulness, moment, multitasking, nbsp, practicing mindfulness, present, present moment

How to Become More Emotionally Stable Using Mindfulness

Don’t you wish you were the kind of person who stopped to smell the roses? You might think; who has the time?! However, not only is slowing down good for your emotional wellbeing, it’s also an important tool in mental health. Research has shown that mindfulness, or the practice of consciously and non-judgmentally observing the present moment, is linked to better wellness, with naturally mindful people reporting being more emotionally stable during the day and more relaxed at night.

 

For a University of Utah study, 38 people aged 20-45 completed a questionnaire that measured how naturally mindful they were, including their ability to notice their surroundings and act consciously. According to Paula Williams, PhD, associate professor of psychology at the University of Utah and co-author of the study, ‘People who are more mindful are able to stay somewhat separate from shifts in their body and their emotional state. They’re more observant, as opposed to reactive.’ So, if mindfulness puts you in control of your body and emotions, how do you introduce it into your daily life?

 

Susan Evans, PhD, professor of psychology in clinical psychiatry at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Centre, advises starting your mornings with 30 minutes of sitting quietly and focusing on your breath. ‘When your mind wanders, come back to your breath,’ she says, as this allows your mind and body to transition from a resting state to an active state more effectively. When you get to the office, don’t be afraid to get up and leave your desk when you need a minute to clear your head. ‘We get caught up in a lot of thoughts about the future, the past,’ Evans explains. ‘This is an opportunity to kind of break out of that.’ Step outside and observe what’s going on around you, like what the clouds are doing.

 

When it’s time for your lunch break, actually take a break to eat lunch. It can be tempting to grab a sandwich and carry on typing with one hand, but Evans notes that stopping to eat will help you to enjoy your lunch more, slow down, and—as an extra perk—eat less of it. Really try to zone in on the texture and taste of your meal. Finally, when you’re having a conversation, try to be present in it. Mindful listening helps you to get out of your own head, and you may even build stronger relationships.

Categories: body, emotionally stable, evans, listening, Lunch Break, mindful, mindfulness, naturally mindful, nbsp, people

How to Reduce Your Arthritis with Mindfulness Meditation

If you have rheumatoid arthritis, or other wellness concerns caused by chronic inflammation such as asthma, mindfulness meditation can help to reduce your symptoms. This is according to a new study from researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which found that mindfulness meditation can help people with conditions in which psychological stress is known to contribute to pain.

Melissa Rosenkran, lead author of the study published in the journal Brain, Behaviour and Immunity, noted the convenience and benefits of practicing mindfulness meditation to combat arthritis. ‘The mindfulness-based approach to stress reduction may offer a lower-cost alternative or complement to standard treatment, and it can be practiced easily by patients in their own homes, whenever they need,’ she said.

In conjunction with the Centre for Investigating Healthy Minds in the Waisman Centre, neuroscientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison tested exactly how effective mindfulness meditation can be in reducing pain. This study was the first of its kind, as, unlike any other pain study before, the researchers established controls for other therapeutic mechanisms that may influence the pain intensity, such as social interaction, instruction, or learning new skills.

By way of comparison, the investigators looked at two different approaches to reducing stress. The first was a programme designed to enhance health in ways that weren’t associated with mindfulness meditation and the second was, obviously, mindfulness meditation. Using capsaicin cream, the researchers induced inflammation in volunteers and then measured their immune and endocrine levels. These levels were measured again after the participants were trained in either of the stress reducing techniques. The researchers also induced psychological stress using a tool called Trier Social Stress Test.

The results of the study demonstrated that behavioural changes were still effective in reducing emotional stress, but the mindfulness meditation-based approaches helped these people deal with pain associated with inflammation better. However, Rosenkranz warned that this doesn’t mean mindfulness meditation is a magic pill to reduce pain. ‘This is not a cure-all, but our study does show that there are specific ways that mindfulness can be beneficial, and that there are specific people who may be more likely to benefit from this approach than other interventions,’ she said.

How to Reduce Your Arthritis with Mindfulness Meditation

Categories: meditation, mindfulness, Mindfulness Meditation, Pain, psychological stress, Research, rheumatoid arthritis (RA), Stress, study, wisconsin madison

The proven benefits of Mindfulness-based Art Therapy

It has long been established that complementary methods of stress reduction are vital to sufferers of terminal illness. At minimum, they can make a difficult situation tolerable, and at maximum, may even provide the emotional wellness necessary to lift one out of illness and back into physical health. Multiple trials prove the effectiveness of complementary practices on overall wellbeing. A recent study at the Jefferson-Myrna Brind Center of Integrative Medicine details the specific benefits to be gained by the practice of Minfulness-based Art Therapy (MBAT). The study is unique as it is the first time that the physiological benefits of MBAT have been approached in research.

The study was performed on 18 sufferers of breast cancer, none of whom were con-currently receiving cancer treatment. They underwent a MBAT therapy programme consisting of two parts. The first part consisted of breath awareness, yoga and general mindfulness practice. The next part consisted of art activities undertaken while employing the attitude of mindfulness learnt previously. The second aspect of the MBAT program aims to promote self-regulation and coping mechanisms in participants.

Assessment of the effects on participants, as compared to the control group, were taken by two evaluative techniques. A typical psychological questionnaire was posed both before and after the programme. In addition to this, physiological results were sought by the use of Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI) scans, which give a picture of cerebral blood flow in response to activities. As expected, the participants in the MBAT programme reported significantly less anxiety after their course. Blood flow in the brain was also shown to be significantly increased, especially in regard to its emotional centres; the left insula, responsible for perceiving emotions; the amygdale, responsible for regulating stress; the hippocampus, responsible for the stress response and the caudate nucleus, responsible for the reward experience.

The results are significant for providing physiological proof to support methods already informally known to improve the wellness of cancer sufferers. Cerebral blood flow can be said to correlate strongly with a reduction in the experience of stress, which in turn improves immune functioning. Accordingly, these benefits help the cancer sufferer to gain a higher quality of life as well as the strength to fight their disease.

Categories: art therapy, complementary, mindfulness