I am honoured to be a Featured Teacher on Insight Timer's home page for the upcoming week. I love this app and am so proud to be part of a global community of teachers, producing – mostly free – content for the 26 million meditators who use Insight Timer across the globe.
If you would like to try one of my breathwork practices, mindfulness, self-compassion or IFS meditations, or guided-imagery practices, check out my collection at: insighttimer.com/danrobertstherapy
Love ❤️
Dan
Image by Medienstürmer
For many years, I really struggled to establish a daily meditation practice. I tried and tried, sticking to it for brief periods before losing the habit again. Then, finally, around 14 years ago I did an eight-week mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) course, which involved so much practice that it became second nature – and so part of my daily routine.
And I have never looked back. Today, meditation forms the foundation of my day – I practice every morning, which has a subtle but important effect on the rest of my day. That morning meditation definitely helps me feel calmer, more centred and grounded, with a greater sense of balance, whatever the day might throw at me.
But, having struggled to establish my own practice for so long, I understand that it’s not easy. Many of my clients also struggle to establish a daily routine, so I help them problem-solve that. Here are three things I suggest to them, which you may find helpful if you’re in that want-to-meditate-but-am-struggling-to-start place yourself.
Just sit. There is a wonderful – and typically pithy – saying from Zen Buddhism: Just sit. Meaning, meditation going ‘well’ or ‘badly’, just sit. Enjoyable or not, just sit. Noticing a benefit afterwards or not, just sit. Feel like meditating that morning or not, just sit.
This is crucial because to develop a regular practice takes effort, discipline and determination. It’s not easy. Sometimes it’s enjoyable and you feel calm, grounded and quiet of mind. Other times your mind is so busy, minutes go by before you wake up and think, ‘Wait! Wasn’t I supposed to be meditating?’
Doesn’t matter. There is a reason it’s called a meditation practice, or a yoga practice. That’s because meditating once might be nice, but won’t make any difference to your overall mood, wellbeing or mental health. Whereas meditating every day for years definitely will. So the first step in developing a regular practice is just to show up every day, no matter what, and meditate.
Thinking isn’t wrong. This is especially important for beginner mediators, because a common misunderstanding is that ‘good’ meditation means being calm, serene (probably in a perfect lotus position) and with a peaceful, empty mind. Let me tell you, after many years of meditating, that rarely happens! Minds are busy, busy, busy – it’s just what minds do.
So let go of the idea that thinking while meditating is somehow bad or wrong, it’s really not. In fact, the primary purpose of meditation – especially in the Buddhist tradition – is to gain insight into the nature of your mind. So when you sit and, say, focus on the breath, you quickly notice how hard this is! Your mind is full of thoughts, worries, plans, fantasies, daydreams.
Jon Kabat-Zinn calls this the ‘thought stream’, which is exactly how it feels. A constant, swirling stream of thoughts, which we spend most of our lives swimming in, happily or often not. Just taking a step back and starting to observe this stream is a huge shift, because then we can start to question its truth – and its helpfulness.
So the oft-repeated teaching goes that you focus on the breath, notice your mind has wandered, gently bring it back, off it goes again, bring it back – 10, 20 or 100 times each time you practice. It doesn’t matter how often this happens, just keep gently bringing your attention back. This is like a push-up for your brain – and especially the prefrontal cortex (PFC), in which meditation helps build neural connections. And this is a good thing, because the PFC helps with your concentration, regulating your moods and emotions, having a sense of perspective, and a whole host of other good stuff.
Try different practices for different things. There are so many types of meditation and traditions, both secular and religious, that it can be bewildering. So a few simple tips. I would advise making mindfulness meditation your core practice. And mindfulness of breath is the simplest and most helpful mindfulness practice – you can try my guided meditation on Insight Timer, or choose another teacher you prefer. But start here, with a short (probably five-minute) practice and build up over time.
If you are really struggling, a guided meditation will be easier, because sitting in silence when you feel awful is tough. Try one of Kristin Neff’s wonderful self-compassion practices, or Richard Schwartz’s internal family systems meditations. Find teachers whose voice and guiding style feels good for you.
So mix it up, with silent practice forming the bulk of your sitting, but guided meditations when you are struggling or just feel like a change. That will also keep your practice fresh and maintain your interest over time.
I hope that helps. You may also be interested in my Insight Timer collection, which offers a large and ever-growing range of practices including breathwork, guided imagery and meditation practices drawn from various traditions.
Sending you love and warm thoughts,
Dan
Image by Stefan Widua
If you are interested in personal growth (which, as you’re reading this, I’m guessing you are), you will know that mindfulness is a helpful skill to learn. In fact, it can feel a little overwhelming at times, as mindfulness is touted as a sort of miracle cure by the media for problems including ADHD, depression, anxiety, chronic stress, eating disorders, substance abuse, chronic pain, insomnia and many more. Of course, it’s not a miracle cure but, happily, many of these claims are backed up by extensive research (psychologists have been researching mindfulness as a health-promoting practice for around 50 years).
So, mindfulness practice is clearly helpful for many of the common mental-health and some of the physical-health problems we all struggle with. And, as I often say in these posts, this is not new information for billions of people around the world – Buddhists have been practising mindfulness for 2,500 years; and devotees of yoga have been using similar techniques for even longer, so they probably greet the Mindfulness is Today’s Hot New Health Hack-type headlines with a wry smile.
One area of particular interest to me is the importance of mindfulness in healing from trauma. I specialise in treating complex trauma, so I am always looking for knowledge and skills that will help me help my clients. If you have a trauma history (and many of us do, whether we know it or not), here are three ways that mindfulness will help you heal:
The power of ‘noticing’. Until you know what the problem is, you can’t possibly solve it. So we need to learn how to notice all sorts of things in real time. For example, if you want to work with your inner critic, you have to notice that you’re being self-critical and say, ‘Oh, there’s my Critic again!’ Otherwise it’s just a constant flow of harsh, negative and self-demeaning comments passing through your mind (and triggering challenging emotional states like anxiety, stress, depression, low confidence or self-esteem).
How do we notice? With mindfulness, which allows us to take a step back and adopt an ‘observer’ position, so we see our thoughts arising, rather than being swept away by them/believing them to be The Truth.
Mindfulness is vital for emotional regulation. One of the biggest difficulties for trauma survivors is the overwhelming power of their emotions. There are many reasons for this, but simply put most of my clients struggle with intense waves of emotions like anger, fear, sadness or shame. This makes day-to-day life a real struggle – and can lead to using substances like comfort foods, alcohol or prescription/recreational drugs to numb out emotions that feel too big to handle.
Mindfulness helps with this problem in a number of ways. First, research shows that just noticing (see above) and naming emotions helps reduce their intensity. So thinking, ‘Oh, I’m feeling really anxious right now’ can help you feel less anxious. This is especially helpful when some emotions, like panic, seem to come out of the blue. (They never do – there is always a trigger, which again requires noticing to start learning which things trigger you and why.)
Second, using simple mindfulness practices like breathing into the part of your body where you feel tight or tense (because that’s how the emotion is showing up, somatically) can help soften and relax that part of your body, which in turn calms the uncomfortable emotion.
Third, mindfulness practice helps strengthen synaptic connections in the prefrontal cortex (PFC), the part of the brain (just behind your forehead) you need to regulate the more emotional, reactive parts of the brain, like the limbic system. Which leads to…
Mindfulness practice helps us find peace, calm and equanimity. Like all skills, mindfulness takes effort, practice and dedication to learn. That’s why it’s called a yoga practice or meditation practice. Doing it once won’t make much difference. But meditating every day, for long stretches of time, will help in many ways. As a long-time meditator, I can confirm that I am so much calmer, more peaceful and balanced than I used to be. It has helped me develop what Buddhists call ‘equanimity’, which essentially means balance. So if something triggers or knocks me, it’s easier to come back to a calm, centered presence.
This is partly because I have strengthened the neural architecture of my PFC, so have more access to resources that help me feel calm, as well as soothing and reassuring anxious/stressed/upset parts of my brain. In less jargon-y terms, regular meditation helps you feel a little happier, a little stronger, a little more able to cope with life’s many challenges. And that has to be a good thing, whether you have a trauma history or not, right?
–If you would like to know more about how mindfulness could help you heal your trauma, come along to my next webinar: Not Just Mindfulness, But Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness. It takes place on Saturday 12th November 2022 from 3-4.30pm. Places are either free, if you are struggling financially, or payable by donation if you can support my Heal Your Trauma project (after covering expenses, all donations go towards running the project and making trauma-informed help available to everyone, everywhere).
Book your place now using the button below.
Warm wishes,
Dan
Image by Brennan Martinez
I just finished a brilliant book – Waking Up: Searching for Spirituality Without Religion, by Sam Harris. If you’re interested in spiritual growth, personal development, mindfulness, Buddhism, or just want to expand your mind and improve your mental health, I strongly recommend it. And it’s got me thinking a lot about enlightenment. Is it even a thing? And if so, is it accessible to the likes of you and me, or just to shaven-headed folk who sit for 18 hours a day in some lofty monastery in the Himalayas?
To answer the first question: yes, I am convinced that enlightenment is real. Here are a couple of definitions from Matthieu Ricard – a Buddhist monk and all-round wonderful (and enlightened) human being: ‘Enlightenment is a state of perfect knowledge or wisdom, combined with infinite compassion,’ which sounds a bit daunting, right? I’m not sure I will ever achieve that level of perfection, however hard I try!
But his second explanation sounds much more achievable: ‘Enlightenment is an understanding of both the relative mode of existence (the way in which things appear to us) and the ultimate mode of existence (the true nature of these same appearances). This includes our own minds as well as the external world.’
Put more simply, in Buddhism enlightenment is often defined as waking up. Over 2,500 years ago, the Buddha taught that we are all walking around in a dream, with at best a fuzzy sense of reality. For example, I often write in these posts about feeling defective or not good enough. Why do so many of us feel that way? Because we are trapped in a (bad) dream, in which we are somehow less than other people, incompetent, dislikable, or whatever negative, self-critical story we have been telling ourselves since we were children.
So, as Matthieu Ricard explains, becoming enlightened means waking up and understanding how things really are – both in the world and our own minds.
Still sound daunting? OK, try thinking about it like this. I once heard another Buddhist teacher explain it beautifully. He said that we may never reach that state of ‘perfect knowledge or wisdom’, but we can all step on to the path leading in that direction. And the path is right there beside you. All you have to do is step on to it (try it now, if you like – it’s right there!).
How do we step on to this path? Well, reading books like the one above, or anything explaining Buddhism, meditation, mindfulness or how to generate positive mental states such as metta, equanimity or compassion. Jon Kabat-Zinn’s books are all wonderful, as are those by Sharon Salzberg, Kristin Neff and Rick Hanson.
Developing a yoga or meditation practice (or preferably both) are also fairly simple and doable ways to step on to that path. Working with a skilled therapist, who can help you tell yourself a kinder, more compassionate story about your life, will also get you moving in a helpful direction.
And attending webinars and workshops, like my Heal Your Trauma events, or those of any other teacher who makes your brain light up and heart feel warm – Dr Gabor Maté is one of the most brilliant teachers we have, so do check out his books and events.
If you need some help with developing a meditation practice, check out my large collection of guided meditations on Insight Timer – they are all free, with optional donation. And there are thousands of other wonderful teachers on the app, so feel free to explore them too.
Again, enlightenment sounds like a big, scary, impossible word – but it really just means waking up. Seeing things more clearly. Treating yourself and all other living beings with kindness and compassion. Understanding that everything changes, so it’s unhelpful to try and grasp on to it, or try to be rigidly in control. Knowing that this life is probably the only one we have, so it’s infinitely miraculous and precious. Don’t waste it berating yourself for things you never did, or faults you don’t possess.
Let me leave you with a little mantra for the day, to help generate some self-warmth and self-compassion. Try it often throughout the day, silently repeating each phrase on the in-breath:
May I be safe
May I be well
May I be free from suffering
Sending you love, metta and warm thoughts, wherever you are in the world,
Dan
Image by Taylor R
If you’re having a tough time right now, you might try a whole host of things to help you feel better. And in many ways, that’s great – I am all for working hard to make a positive change in your life. But something I often see with my clients and those I teach is that they are trying too many things, all at the same time.
So, in addition to our therapy, they are practising yoga and one or more forms of meditation, reading three different self-help books at the same time, microdosing psychedelics, having couples therapy and life coaching, intermittent fasting, giving up gluten/dairy/sugar, wild swimming/Wim Hof-ing, cleansing their chakras and trying, shall we say, many other less-reputable forms of healing…
Sound familiar?
Now, I am not casting aspersions on any of this stuff (apart from the chakra cleansing – sorry, that’s a step too far for me). I am 100% passionate about healing, growth and change, both yours and mine. I spend almost every waking moment thinking about, studying and practising this stuff. And I support you trying all sorts of healing – from mainstream, evidence-based therapies like schema therapy CBT, EMDR or internal family systems and Eastern traditions such as yoga, Buddhism and various schools of meditation.
My general rule is, if it doesn’t do you any harm – and you’re not using it instead of a more reputable/effective treatment – be open-minded and give it a try. Why not?
But it can be a real problem when people try too many things at once, then give up because they’re not working or just find them a bit ineffective, so get discouraged and disheartened. Let me tell you a story, which comes from my former life as a health journalist and speaks to this problem.
Men’s Fitness magazine sent me off to a branch of the world-famous Shaolin Temple, in Tufnell Park, of all places! This really is a branch of the actual Shaolin Temple, in north London, which blew my mind from the outset. (Here’s the website, if you don’t believe me: shaolintempleuk.org).
I went to interview a tiny but terrifying Shaolin monk, who taught me all sorts of kung-fu magic, which was great fun. But he also told me something, which has always stayed with me. He said, ‘It’s better to practice one kick 10,000 times than 10,000 kicks once.’
Let that sink in for a moment…
I often tell my clients this story, especially when I feel they are trying to pack in too many personal-growth strategies at once, or want to learn lots of new breathing techniques, etc every session. It’s much better for me to teach them one thing, like 4-7-8 Breathing, say, then get them to practice that every day until we next meet.
If you’re struggling right now, feeling depressed, upset, lonely, anxious, hurt or overwhelmed, first of all I’m sorry. No-one likes to feel those things. As well as reading this blog, let’s thing about one thing you can change today that might help. Here’s a list of helpful things you could try – please read it and choose only one:
Start practising yoga (Yoga with Adriene is free on YouTube and a great place to begin)
Establish a daily meditation practice. You can check out my ever-expanding Insight Timer collection, or find one of the many thousands of teachers on Insight Timer who resonates with you (if it helps, some of my favourite teachers are: Sharon Salzberg, Tara Brach, Richard Schwartz, Kristin Neff, Chris Germer, Elisha Goldstein, Vidyamala Burch and Melli O’Brien)
Visit a Buddhist Centre near you – if you live in London, I recommend Triratna Buddhist centres like this one. You might bump into me there! That’s a great way to learn all about Buddhism, as well as mindfulness, metta and other forms of meditation from serious, long-term practitioners
Start exercising – jogging, swimming, cycling, going to the gym, dancing… Whatever you enjoy and will be able to commit to long-term
Begin therapy – if you have a trauma history, make sure you find a trauma-informed therapist like me. There are so many great therapy models, but I suggest schema therapy, CBT, EMDR, IFS, compassion-focused therapy and TIST as good places to start
Try wild swimming – there is a large and ever-growing evidence base on its benefits for mind and body. Cold water is best, if you can bear it!
I could go on, but that’s enough to get you going. Remember, your challenge is to try one and one only this week. Dedicate enough time and energy to whatever you choose to see if it’s helping (of course, some of these things will take more than seven days to make a difference, but that’s a good place to start).
I hope that’s helpful for you. Sending you love and strength on your healing journey.
Warm wishes,
Dan
Image by Lesly Juarez
This short practice is adapted from Rick Hanson’s wonderful book, Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm and Confidence. He reminds us that the human brain is overwhelmingly focused on protecting you from threats. Let’s think about why that might be. For millions of years, our ancestors evolved to live in the wilderness. They formed small bands of hunter-gatherers, living in caves or fortified villages surrounded by hungry, poisonous and dangerous animals, as well as other bands they mostly lived alongside peaceably, but who could attack at any moment. This was a dangerous time to be human.
So your brain evolved to live in this world – not the 21st-century world we live in now, which for most of us involves an urban existence, in peaceful democracies and with far fewer life-or-death threats than your brain evolved to deal with.
But your threat-focused brain still operates as if you were living in the forest, or out on the savannah. And this is why all human brains have an in-built negativity bias, meaning you are laser-focused on bad stuff – threats, worries, painful memories, financial difficulties, relationship troubles… You think about that a lot and pour huge amounts of mental energy into ruminating about the past or worrying about the future.
When good stuff happens, you enjoy it for a moment, then it’s gone. And you move quickly to hungrily searching for the next thing to worry about. This is not your fault – it’s just what brains do.
As Rick Hanson says, your brain is like Velcro for the bad and Teflon for the good. So we need to build our mental muscles to help us pay as much attention to good stuff as we do bad.
Here’s a short, powerful, neuroscience-derived practice I use with all my clients, as it’s so helpful for correcting that negativity bias, helping you focus on and enjoy pleasant experiences and stop obsessing about unpleasant ones.
Start by finding a comfortable position, either sitting or lying down and closing your eyes. Take some deep breaths, in through your nose and out through your mouth, counting four seconds in and four seconds out. Keep breathing, letting the breath be calming and nourishing for you. Let your abdomen rise and fall with each in-breath and out-breath.
Now think about something good that happened to you recently. This could be something from a whole spectrum of pleasant experiences, from tiny moments of joy, like eating a delicious piece of fruit, seeing pink blossom framed by blue sky, or reading a book you found deeply enjoyable; right up to powerful, profound experiences like asking someone to marry you, winning an award for your work, the birth of your first child, or someone you love deeply recovering from a scary illness.
Visualise that experience in as much detail as possible – really imagine that you are there and it’s happening to you in the present moment. Where are you? What do you see around you? Are you alone or with someone? How does this experience unfold – is it a conversation, phone call or email exchange? Or is it just something you see, hear, smell or taste? Focus on the sensory details of your experience as vividly as possible – the more vivid this is the better.
Now focus on how you are feeling during this experience. What emotions do you notice in your body? Do you feel calm, happy, joyful, excited, proud, satisfied, relieved, inspired, moved, awestruck… Or something else entirely?
Really focus on the visceral experience of the emotions in your body. For example, you might feel an inner warmth, or a lightness in your body, or perhaps a pleasurable upsurge of energy. Whatever you are feeling, just focus on it, enjoy it and let it soak into your body for around 60 seconds. Then take a deep breath and open your eyes.
So, here’s the miraculous bit – you just hard-wired that experience and the positive feelings linked to it into your brain. It only takes 10 seconds to do this, but the longer you allow for this process the better. Plus, you are simply enjoying pleasant experiences fully and completely, so the longer you do that the more enjoyable it will be for you.
Try to get into the habit of doing this whenever something good or enjoyable happens. If you build this practice into your daily life, over time you will start to tilt the scales of negativity and positivity in your brain. Eventually, you will find yourself ruminating and worrying less about bad stuff; and feeling calmer, happier and more content.
Now continue with your day, looking out for positive experiences to hardwire.
I very much hope you enjoy this practice – I have recorded it as a Hardwiring Happiness Talk and Meditation for Insight Timer. You can listen to the recording, plus my collection of meditations, breathing techniques and guided imagery using the button below.
Warm wishes,
Dan
Image by Hari Nandakumar
Mindfulness of Breath is the core meditation practice in both Buddhist and Western, secular mindfulness traditions. When you have established a regular meditation practice, it’s beneficial to sit in silence, mindfully focusing on your breath, sounds, thoughts, body or any other point of focus. But if you are a beginner, it’s a good idea to listen to guided meditations first, as sitting in silence for long stretches of time can be challenging (and will quickly introduce you to your busy, restless mind!).
That’s why I have recorded a series of Mindfulness of Breath meditations for Insight Timer: five-minute, 10-minute, 15-minute and 20-minute versions. All of these practices are free (as are tens of thousands of meditations by myself and other teachers on the InsightTimer app), with optional donations if you so wish.
You will also find Loving-Kindness practices, a Body Scan, a Safe Place Imagery, Box Breathing and Compassionate Breathing techniques, a Four-Stage Self-Compassion Practice and much more. I will continue adding to my collection of meditations on the app – including trauma-sensitive mindfulness practices. I hope you find these and my various other Insight Timer meditations helpful – use the button below if you would like to listen to them now.
Warm wishes,
Dan
Image by Jeremy Bishop
When I am helping people with a trauma history, I always recommend adding a meditation practice to their daily routine. We know from all the research that meditation is incredibly helpful for trauma survivors – especially mindfulness and self-compassion practices. Building your mindfulness muscles is important, because it helps you stay focused on the present moment, rather than ruminating about the past (which can cause depression) or worrying about the future (which will probably make you anxious).
Mindfulness practice also helps strengthen neural connections in the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that helps you calm and regulate emotions, think more rationally, have perspective on your problems and step back to see the big picture, rather than getting bogged down in upsetting details – all crucial elements of trauma recovery.
Self-compassion is also key, even though it can be a tough skill to master for trauma survivors. You may find it hard to like or accept yourself, even if others like and accept you. That’s very common, so please don’t worry about it. There is a huge range of self-compassion resources available now, so try reading blogs like this one, listening to podcasts or using guided imagery/meditation practices. You may also find Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer’s eight-week Mindful Self Compassion course helpful.
I have recorded a wide range of practices for the Insight Timer app, including guided imagery and breathing techniques, as well as numerous meditation practices. I use these with my therapy clients and they also form a key resource of my Heal Your Trauma project. They are all free, with an optional donation. If you would like to try them today, you can find my extensive collection on the Insight Timer app: insighttimer.com/danrobertstherapy
I very much hope you find them helpful.
Warm wishes,
Dan
Image by Sage Friedman
I recently joined Insight Timer as a teacher – and will be recording and uploading breathing techniques, guided imagery and meditations over the coming weeks. If you haven’t tried it yet, Insight Timer is a free meditation app – you can choose to make a donation, if you want to, but there is no obligation to do so and you can find thousands of free meditations from hundreds of teachers.
These cover every length of practice and subject you can imagine – you will also find meditations, teaching and courses from leading figures in the trauma therapy field, such as Richard Schwartz, Kristin Neff and Dan Siegel.
I have used the app myself for many years, so am excited to be joining its global community of teachers. My first practice is the Compassionate Breathing technique I teach to all of my clients, and use myself, on a daily basis. (I wrote about this in my last post, which also features a step-by-step video guide).
This is a simple but highly effective practice that you can use any time you’re feeling stressed, anxious, angry, agitated or upset. Over time, it will help regulate your nervous system – which is important, especially if you have a trauma history – and help you feel calmer, more relaxed and at peace in your daily life.
If you would like to try this, or any of my other practices, just click on the button below.
I very much hope you enjoy them.
Warm wishes,
Dan
Image by Nathan Dumlao
One of the biggest misconceptions about mindfulness meditation is that you should be able to clear your mind of all thoughts – and that, if you can’t do that, you are somehow getting it wrong.
As anyone who has tried meditating knows, not only is it impossible to stop thinking – as if you could turn off some kind of mental tap – but also that the whole point of mindfulness meditation is to become aware of how your mind works.
And a central part of that is to begin noticing the ceaseless whirl of thoughts that accompanies you throughout your every waking moment. When you meditate, perhaps focusing on your breath, thoughts naturally and inevitably arise.
The point of the practice is to notice this, then gently escort your attention back to the breath. That is meditation, not achieving some perfect state of complete mental silence and tranquillity.
That said, there are times when we might want to quiet the mind. With my clients, that might be when their thoughts are racing, making them feel highly stressed, anxious or agitated. Or it could be to help with insomnia – especially those 3am ‘what if…’ worries when everything looks bleak and scary.
I recently tried a superb mindfulness practice designed to quickly and effectively quiet the mind. I loved it, so have tried it with my clients and it really seems to help them too. The practice is offered by meditation teacher Bodhipaksa (you can try it for yourself on Insight Timer – where you can also make a small donation, if you wish, to thank him).
Here is my version of the practice, for those who like to read and not just listen to instructions:
This practice takes around 10 minutes, so find a quiet time in your day when you won’t be disturbed. Switch your phone off, but set a timer for 10 minutes. Sit on a straight-backed chair or cushion, finding a posture that is upright but relaxed.
Start by becoming aware of the points of contact between your body and the cushion/chair/floor. Notice the weight of your arms and hands resting in your lap. Then shift your awareness to your breathing. You don’t have to change your breath in any way, just let your body breathe itself.
Normally in mindfulness of breathing we focus on one point in the body, like the nostrils, chest or stomach rising and falling. In this practice, we will try something different – start by bringing your attention to your upper back. Notice the muscles expanding on the in-breath and contracting on the out-breath. Keep your focus here for a minute.
Now, while still holding the back in your awareness, also focus on your belly rising and falling. Zoom right in to the contact between your skin and clothing. What’s that like? You might notice warmth, coolness, friction, softness, or perhaps nothing much at all, which is perfectly fine.
Then add an awareness of the breath entering and leaving your nostrils, flowing down your throat and into the lungs. So you are now holding three distinct parts of the body in your awareness, all at the same time.
You might start to notice a sort of dance between these three areas of the body, as the breath flows in and out. Stay with that for a few minutes until your timer goes off. Slowly and gently open your eyes.
When I have tried this practice, holding three separate areas in awareness is effortful. It’s not easy, so it takes up a lot of mental bandwidth. I found there wasn’t much left for thinking, so my mind automatically became quiet and still. I hope you find it helpful too.
Warm wishes,
Dan
Image by Patrick Schneider
Mindfulness is a real buzzword at the moment. From an obscure Buddhist practice it has become recognised by some of the world's leading doctors, scientists and psychologists as a remarkably simple, easy-to-learn yet highly effective tool for improving our physical and mental wellbeing.
Jon Kabat-Zinn is one of the leading figures in this mindful movement, and if you want to learn more about it his wonderful book, Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation for Everyday Life, is the best place to start. There's also a great video of him teaching mindfulness to Google employees on YouTube, if you're more visually-minded.
Mindfulness is backed up by a substantial body of research proving it to be an effective weapon against a wide variety of physical and mental ailments. Kabat-Zinn's mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) programme at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center has been running since the 1970s. It has proven effective for people suffering from chronic stress, generalised anxiety disorder and panic, chronic pain, fibromyalgia, MS, psoriasis and cancer.
Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) is an integration of MBSR with cognitive therapy. It was developed by three clinical psychologists – Mark Williams, John Teasdale and Zindel Segal – to teach patients who had experienced depression skills to disengage from habitual, automatic and unhelpful patterns of thought, especially 'rumination', in which the mind goes over and over negative thoughts. The evidence shows that MBCT can halve the relapse rate in patients who repeatedly suffer from depression.
So what is mindfulness? Well, put simply, it's a way of developing the ability to pay deliberate attention to our experience from moment to moment. Rather than worrying about the past or fantasising about the future, it's about being aware of what's going on in our mind, body and day-to-day life – and doing this without judgement. One of the reasons mindfulness is so powerful is that it teaches us to suspend judgement and self-criticism, to regard ourselves and others with kindness and compassion.
At the heart of mindfulness are meditations like the one below – ideally, we will develop a daily practice, even for just 10 minutes every day. Having finally knuckled down to my own daily practice, I can assure you that the results are well worth it. I feel calmer, more centred and less buffeted by the day's many trials and tribulations.
But the beauty of mindfulness is that you can practice anywhere, doing anything: washing up, eating, walking, cycling, brushing your teeth. Try taking a break from what the Buddhists call your 'monkey mind' on the way home from work today. Feel the breeze on your skin; really listen to the birds singing and distant murmur of traffic; see the leaves shivering on trees; look at the infinite beauty of clouds and sky. How does it feel?
Here's a short mindfulness meditation for you to try – I recommend doing this as soon as you wake up, when the day's distractions haven't yet crowded their way in. You can also use this any time you feel stressed or anxious:
Switch your phone to silent, then set a timer for 10min, so you're not worrying about how long you’ve been meditating.
Get comfortable – sit in a chair, cross-legged on the floor or lie down.
Close your eyes and become aware of your breathing. Nothing more, just become aware of the flow of air over your lips and nostrils, in and out. Don’t try to change your breathing, just breathe in and out naturally.
When your mind gets bored and demands your attention (as it inevitably will), don't give up or criticise yourself. Remember that through meditation we are trying to cultivate awareness – so be aware of your thinking, as you are aware of the sounds you hear and sensations in your body. Gently turn your attention back to your breathing until the timer goes off.
Once you feel comfortable sitting for 10min, try 15min, then 20min, and so on. And remember that, like anything, the more you practice the easier it gets.
The best thing about mindfulness is that it's free, can be practised anywhere and only takes a few minutes. If you suffer from stress, anxiety, depression or one of the physical ailments listed above, I strongly recommend it.
Warm wishes,
Dan
Image by Greg Rakozy
Mindfulness is a real buzzword at the moment. It's hard to pick up a newspaper without coming across an article extolling its virtues. Mindfulness meditation programmes have been introduced into corporations like Google and Facebook, as well as schools, government departments and a whole host of other settings – it feels like everyone has suddenly switched on to the power of meditation.
But what exactly is mindfulness and how can it help with psychological problems like depression or anxiety? The first thing to say is that, although we in the West are only learning about mindfulness now, in the East people have been using mindfulness techniques for 2,500 years. Mindfulness is a cornerstone of Buddhist practice, used to calm and focus the 'monkey mind' (which normally just jumps around from one thing to the next).
Mindfulness was first introduced into the medical mainstream by Jon Kabat-Zinn in the 1970s – he developed an eight week mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) programme, to help people with chronic pain and other serious medical problems. This proved so successful that a team of psychologists adapted it to help people with psychological problems, especially recurrent episodes of depression. They called this new programme mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) and it proved equally effective.
The key idea in mindfulness practice is learning to focus on your moment-to-moment experience, rather than being swept away by the storms of anxious or depressive thinking that drive psychological problems. As with both cognitive and schema therapy, we have a large body of evidence showing that mindfulness works.
On a personal note, I have had a daily meditation practice for years, and absolutely vouch for its power to calm and centre me for the day ahead. I have also taught many clients to meditate and seen the huge impact it has had on their problems with anxiety and depression.
Here is a simple sitting meditation you can try right now:
Switch your phone off, then set a timer for 10 minutes, so you don't have to worry about how long you’ve been meditating.
Sit in a straight-backed chair, cross-legged on the floor or lie down. Try to relax your body, letting your shoulders drop and face muscles soften.
Close your eyes and become aware of your breathing – the flow of air over your lips and nostrils, in and out. Don’t try to change your breathing in any way, just breathe naturally.
If your mind gets bored and gets distracted (as it probably will), don't give up or get frustrated. Every time you notice your mind has wandered gently turn your attention back to your breathing until the timer goes off.
Once you feel able to meditate for 10 minutes, extend the time to 15 minutes, then 20 minutes, and so on. And remember that, like anything, the more you practice meditation the easier it gets.
Warm wishes,
Dan
Mindfulness meditation is very much in the news these days. Mindfulness is increasingly being taught in schools, corporations, to athletes, veterans, the police and even MPs in the Houses of Parliament! And for good reason – a regular meditation practice has been proven to help you feel calmer, less anxious and depressed, to respond better to stressful events, deal with chronic pain or illness with greater balance and equanimity, improve concentration, memory and overall wellbeing.
As someone who teaches my clients to meditate, I have seen first-hand what a difference it can make for people struggling with mental health problems. And as a regular meditator for over six years, I know from personal experience what a profound difference it makes to one's life. I genuinely believe that life is so much happier and more positive as a direct result of my meditation practice and am deeply grateful that I made meditation a part of my daily life.
When I am teaching clients to meditate, I first direct them to Mark Williams and Danny Penman's excellent book, Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World. Mark Williams is a British psychologist who helped develop mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), an eight-week programme to help people deal with stress, anxiety and especially recurrent bouts of depression.
This book is based on the MBCT course, but is also a wonderfully clear and simple guide to mindfulness meditation – it's the perfect place to start if you are interested in bringing the transformative power of mindfulness into your life. It also includes a CD of guided meditations by Mark Williams, which will really help when you're getting started.
If you would like to take an MBCT course, make sure you find a reputable place to study, like the Mindfulness Project in London (londonmindful.com). I also think that a blend of mindfulness and schema therapy is an excellent way to tackle a wide range of psychological problems.
Warm wishes,
Dan
Image by Lesly Juarez
In recent years, mindfulness has gone from being a little-known (in the West) form of Buddhist meditation to a hugely popular, much-written-about practice. It's hard to pick up a Sunday supplement these days without reading something about mindfulness, whether it's being taught to schoolchildren to deal with exam stress, or embraced by corporations such as Google, Facebook and eBay – it has become one of the buzzwords of our age.
This, of course, is a great thing – I strongly believe that everyone should meditate, and if we all lived our lives along Buddhist principles many of the world's problems and most of our cruelty and inhumanity to each other would be transformed overnight. But I am concerned about the misunderstandings of mindfulness, so wanted to set the record straight.
Mindfulness – especially in a psychotherapy context – is a skill. I teach my clients mindfulness techniques like I teach them any other skill, like how to identify and challenge negative thoughts; how to use relaxation techniques to de-stress and reduce anxiety; or how to 'push against' their avoidance in order to face and overcome their fears.
To understand this, it's helpful to think about the difference between formal and informal mindfulness practices. Formal practices involve sitting (usually, although they can include movement) in a quiet room, closing your eyes and concentrating for 20 or 30 minutes on your breath, body, thoughts or some other point of focus.
Informal practices simply involve waking up to the sensory experience of your moment-to-moment experience, whether that's looking intently at a leaf, cloud or sunset; concentrating on the many and varied sounds coming to your ears; eating your apple or sandwich and relishing every taste, smell, texture and colour of the food.
Although I encourage my clients to develop a formal practice – and have a daily practice myself – it's the informal practices that can be so powerful if you are suffering from a psychological problem like depression, anxiety, chronic stress or an eating disorder.
That's because they allow you to choose where to place your attention – on the negative thoughts swirling through your mind, the painful emotions and physical sensations in your body, or... something else. Anything else.
Here's an example:
You are sitting in a cafe, having a pleasant day, when you receive a text message from your ex-boyfriend saying they want to see you. You have only just got over the breakup and this text, out of the blue, triggers a cascade of 'what if' thoughts...
'Why does he want to see me? What if he's changed his mind? Does he still love me? Maybe he's met someone else and wants me to hear it from him. God, that would just kill me...'
Unsurprisingly, these thoughts trigger a wave of powerful emotions: anxiety, upset, hope, fear, sadness, jealousy...
Within a few seconds, you have been catapulted from feeling happy and calm to being tossed around on waves of emotion. Then you remember your mindfulness training, close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. You sit upright and let your tense shoulders drop and relax.
You focus on the warm, milky, chocolatey cappuccino in front of you, inhaling deeply of its aroma and then take a sip, tasting the coffee and noticing the sensation as it travels down your throat. Your mind keeps trying to pull you away with a string of 'what ifs' but each time you simply notice the thoughts, then gently but firmly bring your attention back to the coffee.
Your emotions naturally subside and you feel calmer. You put your phone away, deciding to respond to the text tomorrow, rather than rushing a reply you might regret. And you smile, at how just being mindful helped you out of a dark place.
Of course, it's best to develop both a formal and informal practice, but understanding why you are doing so can help you overcome the inevitable trials and tribulations involved. Developing this skill is, I believe, one of the simplest but most powerful steps you can take in overcoming your problem, whatever it might be.
And once you learn how to apply them, mindfulness techniques are free, with no horrible side-effects, unlike some of the other treatments on offer.
Warm wishes,
Dan
Image by Third Serving
I recently posted about Metta Bhavana, or loving-kindness meditation, giving you the first two steps of directing loving-kindness to yourself, then a friend – you can find the full meditation below. Just to recap, in Pali, the Buddha's language, metta means ‘love’ (in a non-romantic sense), friendliness, or kindness.
Bhavana means development or cultivation. But you don't have to be a Buddhist, or have any interest in Buddhism, to benefit from this practice – mindfulness meditation is increasingly taught as a secular, non-religious series of practices – loving-kindness is one of these.
As a therapist, I help many people who are harshly self-critical or full of self-dislike. Sadly, this internal self-attack often leads to psychological problems like depression, low self-esteem, chronic stress, anger or anxiety. Increasing your sense of kindness and compassion – towards yourself and others – is a proven way to generate positive mental states such as joy, love, calmness, equanimity and strength.
The full Metta Bhavana practice traditionally encompasses five stages, so allow five minutes for each stage. Here is a step-by-step guide to the practice:
This practice will take 25 minutes, so switch your phone to silent (if it has a timer, set it to repeat after 5 minutes) and make sure you will not be disturbed. As with all meditation, it's important to attend to your posture, making yourself comfortable on a cushion on the floor or a straight-backed chair, sitting with your spine, neck and head in alignment. Your posture should be upright and alert but relaxed.
Bring your awareness into your body, starting in your feet and travelling slowly all the way up to your scalp. If you notice any tension or discomfort, allow that part of the body to soften and relax. Then bring your awareness to the heart region – it can help to place your hand over your heart and feel the warmth this generates. Allow this warmth to permeate into your practice.
In stage one, you direct metta towards yourself. You can visualise your face, perhaps seeing the metta as a golden light shining from your heart and enveloping your whole being. Or remember a time when you felt happy, or proud of yourself – there is no set rule, so whatever helps you get in touch with positive feelings towards yourself is fine. (If you don't feel anything, that's not a problem – feelings will come in time, so don't try to force them). Repeat these phrases in your mind: 'May I be well. May I be happy. May I be free from suffering.' Say them slowly and deliberately – this a great gift you are offering yourself, so don't rush it.
If you become distracted by thoughts, sounds or body sensations, that's not a problem. Simply notice that your attention has wandered and gently bring it back to the phrases.
In part two, we direct metta towards a friend – this should be someone you feel positive about, not a person with whom you have conflict or difficulty. Repeat: 'May you be well. May you be happy. May you be free from suffering.' If you feel like varying the phrases to suit this person, that's fine – so it could be 'May you be free from stress. May you be confident. May you be free from anxiety.' Again, don't force this, but if it happens naturally that's fine.
In part three, we direct metta towards a neutral person. This can be someone you see regularly but have never spoken to, maybe in the supermarket or your favourite coffee shop. See this person's face in your mind's eye, then repeat 'May you be well. May you be happy. May you be free from suffering.'
Part four entails directing metta towards a difficult person in our lives. At first, it's best to choose someone you are having a little difficulty with, not your worst enemy. Unsurprisingly, this is generally the hardest stage, but remember that when you fill your mind with negative, angry, hostile thoughts, or fill your body with emotions like resentment or hatred, you are the one who is suffering, not them. And the Buddha taught that all beings deserve our compassion, not just the ones we like!
Repeat 'May you be well. May you be happy. May you be free from suffering,' perhaps visualising golden light flowing from your heart to the difficult person. If you struggle, place your hand over your heart to generate warmth in this region, then try again. If you feel numb or angry, that's fine, just accept these feelings and continue repeating the phrases, as having a positive intention is the most important thing.
Finally, we direct metta to all life. You may want to start by imagining yourself your friend, the neutral and difficult persons, sending metta to each in turn. ('May we be well. May we be happy. May we be free from suffering.') Then expand that circle to include all of your friends, family, community, residents of your city, country, continent... expanding the flow of metta until you cover the whole globe. Then include insects, fish, birds, mammals, reptiles... ('May all life be well. May all life be happy. May all life be free from suffering.')
After 25 minutes, allow yourself to sit quietly, noticing if you feel any different than when you started. If not, that's fine, but you may notice a greater sense of softness, an uplift in your mood, or feelings of warmth and friendliness. Just allow whatever's happening right now to be there, then slowly open your eyes and start moving your body; and take this new attitude into the rest of your day.
Warm wishes,
Dan
Image by John Peters
Most of us now know that meditation is good for us. Part of the recent upsurge of interest in meditation – and especially mindfulness practices – has been a deluge of media articles explaining why mindfulness is so helpful. And, of course, it is.
There is a large and growing body of research proving that regular mindfulness meditation can reduce stress, tackle anxiety and recurrent episodes of depression, help us feel more relaxed, centred and in tune with our lives. And let's not forget 2,500 years of Buddhist psychology and mind-training, in which mindfulness is a key tool.
The only trouble is, many people start meditating with the best intentions, only to give up when they find it way more difficult than expected (and advertised in all those glossy magazine articles). I have been meditating almost every day for six years and, let me assure you, it is still a struggle on some days.
My mind is restless and I find my thoughts wandering for minutes at a time. I am fidgety and my body just won't settle into a comfortable posture. Sometimes, I even think 'What's the point of this? It's such a struggle, maybe I should just give up!'
But I don't, because I am committed to that daily practice for the rest of my life. Why? Because I also know how wonderful meditation can be, especially when we sit for longer periods. That's when the mind naturally settles – like sediment in a bowl of water – and we can reach deep states of calm, quiet and peacefulness.
I also know that these pleasurable states are rare – and are actually not why I practice. Counter-intuitively, the practice is not necessarily about feeling peaceful and relaxed. It's about being disciplined, sitting every day at (ideally) the same time, making that deep commitment to my personal growth and development.
And sitting there while my mind tells me it's bored, restless, irritable, dissatisfied and that I should open my eyes and make the coffee now is developing my mental muscle – the one that helps me deal with daily irritations and upset with calm and steadiness (known as 'equanimity' in Buddhism). The one that helps me resist cravings for the chocolate bar I don't really need, that extra glass of wine, the must-have shirt that's 50% off in a sale.
That is why I practice – and it's why just sitting with the discomfort, without acting or reacting, is one of the reasons meditation has such profound long-term benefits.
As the Zen saying goes: 'Just sit'. Meaning: just meditate, every day. Easy, hard; relaxing, frustrating; fascinating, boring. Just do it and over time you will feel the benefits.
Warm wishes,
Dan
Image by Aiden Craver
'Bibliotherapy' is an important part of cognitive therapy, either to run alongside a course of therapy or as a self-help tool. I often recommend books to my clients, partly because there is only so much time in a session, so it's much more useful for them to read up about their particular issue and for us to discuss their findings next week.
But I also find that many people like to understand why they might be having problems and find their own strategies for solving them – another important idea in cognitive therapy, because ultimately I want my clients to be their own CBT therapist.
In this post I will focus on mindfulness, an ancient Buddhist practice that, since the 1970s, has been adapted by Western psychologists to help treat a range of physical and mental difficulties. The idea is that you can read one or all of these books, depending on which appeal to you. And you can read the whole book or dip into the chapters that seem most relevant to you.
1. Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation for Everyday Life, by Jon Kabat-Zinn. This beautifully written, wise, eminently readable book is one of my favourites. Kabat-Zinn is, more than anyone else, responsible for introducing mindfulness to the West. He started using mindfulness techniques to help people with chronic stress, physical pain or serious illness at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in the '70s, which paved the way for other practitioners to use mindfulness either as a standalone technique or combined with other approaches like cognitive therapy.
The author explains with great clarity exactly what mindfulness is and how you can integrate it into your life, either with 'formal' practices like sitting or walking meditation, or 'informal' practices such as being completely mindful of whatever it is you're doing, from washing the dishes to gazing at a glorious sunset or preparing and eating a delicious meal. If you're new to mindfulness or meditation in general, this is the perfect place to start.
2. Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World, by Mark Williams and Danny Penman. Another good beginner's guide, this introduction to mindfulness theory and practice is written by Mark Williams, a clinical psychologist and one of the UK's leading mindfulness teachers, and Danny Penman, a health journalist and author. It offers a clear, easy-to-follow path through all the basic mindfulness techniques, and includes a CD of guided meditations by Williams – who has an incredibly gentle, soothing voice.
As an aside, if you ever get the chance to see him speak, grab the opportunity. He is an excellent speaker who really embodies the calm steadiness that regular meditation can bring.
3. The Mindful Way Through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness, by Mark Williams, John Teasdale, Zindel Segal and Jon Kabat-Zinn. If you want to take a mindfulness course for issues like stress, anxiety, depression or chronic pain, there are two basic formats: mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT).
Both run over eight weeks, with a combination of meditation, guided imagery, yoga and other exercises in the class and at home. Jon Kabat-Zinn developed the MBSR programme first (see above) and in the early '90s the other three authors began exploring the use of mindfulness to treat depression, especially repeated bouts of depression which can be hard to treat.
They combined elements of Kabat-Zinn's MBSR programme with cognitive-behaviour therapy to come up with MBCT, which has proven extremely effective at treating recurrent bouts of depression – as effective as antidepressants, in fact.
This is another warm, rich, wise book, which leads you through the steps of an MBCT programme, while explaining why we get depressed, what we now understand about depression and the brain from MRI scans and other research into its physical make-up and functioning, and how psychologists around the world are now exploring the meeting point of Buddhist psychology, neuroscience and cognitive therapy, with intriguing results.
It also includes a CD of guided meditations by Kabat-Zinn, which I use as part of my daily practice, so can thoroughly recommend.
Warm wishes,
Dan
Image by Kazuend
Three of the core Buddhist meditation practices are the body scan, mindfulness of breathing and Metta Bhavana, or loving-kindness meditation. In Pali, the Buddha's language, metta means ‘love’ (in a non-romantic sense), friendliness, or kindness. Bhavana means development or cultivation.
But you don't have to be a Buddhist, or have any interest in Buddhism, to benefit from this practice – mindfulness meditation is increasingly taught as a secular, or non-religious series of practices – loving-kindness is one of these.
As a therapist, I help many people who are harshly self-critical or full of self-dislike. Sadly, this internal self-attack often leads to psychological problems like depression, low self-esteem, chronic stress, anger or anxiety. Increasing your sense of kindness and compassion – towards yourself and others – is a proven way to generate positive mental states such as joy, love, calmness, equanimity and strength.
The full Metta Bhavana practice is traditionally in five stages, so here are the first two – I will go through the full practice in a later post:
1. This practice will take 10 minutes, so switch your phone to silent (if it has a timer, set it to repeat after 5 minutes) and make sure you will not be disturbed. As with all meditation, it's important to attend to your posture, making yourself comfortable on a cushion on the floor or a straight-backed chair, sitting with your spine, neck and head in alignment. Your posture should be upright and alert but relaxed.
2. Bring your awareness into your body, starting in your feet and travelling slowly all the way up to your scalp. If you notice any tension or discomfort, allow that part of the body to soften and relax. Then bring your awareness to the heart region – it can help to place your hand over your heart and feel the warmth this generates. Allow this warmth to permeate into your practice.
3. In stage one, you direct metta towards yourself. You can visualise your face, perhaps seeing the metta as a golden light shining from your heart and enveloping your whole being. Or remember a time when you felt happy, or proud of yourself – there is no set rule, so whatever helps you get in touch with positive feelings towards yourself is fine. (If you don't feel anything, that's not a problem – feelings will come in time, so don't try to force them).
Repeat these phrases in your mind: 'May I be well. May I be happy. May I be free from suffering.' Say them slowly and deliberately – this a great gift you are offering yourself, so don't rush it.
4. If you become distracted by thoughts, sounds or body sensations, that's not a problem. Simply notice that your attention has wandered and gently bring it back to the phrases.
5. In part two, we direct metta towards a friend – this should be someone you feel positive about, not a person with whom you have conflict or difficulty. Repeat: 'May you be well. May you be happy. May you be free from suffering.' If you feel like varying the phrases to suit this person, that's fine – so it could be 'May you be free from stress. May you be confident. May you be free from anxiety.' Again, don't force this, but if it happens naturally that's fine.
6. After 10 minutes, allow yourself to sit quietly, noticing if you feel any different than when you started. If not, that's fine, but you may notice a greater sense of softness, an uplift in your mood, or feelings of warmth and friendliness.
Just allow whatever's happening right now to be there, then slowly open your eyes and start moving your body; and take this new attitude into the rest of your day.
I very much hope this practice proves helpful for you.
Warm wishes,
Dan
Image by Anthony Tran
When you are feeling stressed or anxious your thoughts might race, making it hard to slow down or focus on what you're doing. Although this is completely normal, it can feel really unsettling, as the content of those thoughts is likely to be negative or frightening, so it's a bit like watching a scary movie stuck on fast-forward...
If this is a problem for you, here is a simple mindfulness meditation technique that can really help:
1. First, make some quiet time for yourself – take 10 minutes out of your busy day, that to-do list can wait! Switch your phone to silent and make sure you won't be disturbed. Find a comfortable position, either cross-legged on a cushion on the floor, or sitting on a straight-backed chair. Make sure your spine, neck and head are in alignment – erect but not tense, so you are sitting with a sense of calm alertness.
2. Set a repeat timer on your phone to 5 minutes, then close your eyes and settle into your body. Do a quick scan of your whole body, from the tip of your toes to the top of your head, noticing any areas of tension and allowing those parts of the body to soften and relax. You can imagine breathing into the tense area, then releasing any tension on the out-breath.
3. Bring your attention to your breath, following the entire breath cycle as it travels into the nostrils, down the back of your throat, into the lungs, then back along the throat and out of your nose. Notice the way your chest and belly rise with each in-breath, then fall on the out-breath. Don't try to change or control the breath in any way, just let your body breathe itself – which it does every second of your life, whether you notice or not.
4. Start counting after each breath cycle, beginning with 1 – so breathe in, out and mentally count 1; in, out, 2; in, out, 3 and so on until you reach 10. If you find yourself carried off by thoughts, that's fine – be kind and gentle with yourself, direct your attention back to the breath, then go back to 1.
5. If you find yourself counting 20, you have got distracted! Again, just go back to 1 and start again.
6. When you hear the first timer signalling 5 minutes, you can choose to continue counting, at the beginning of each breath cycle – so count 1, in, out; 2, in, out; 3, in, out and so on. Or, if your thoughts have settled and quietened down you can drop the counting and just focus on your breath.
7. When you hear the second timer, that's 10 minutes. Slowly open your eyes and gently move your body. Resume your day, carrying this calm, mindful attention into your next activity.
Warm wishes,
Dan
