Times of Uncertainty

Coronavirus is forcing the world to reevaluate priorities. 

In the midst of uncertainty it's only natural to feel more anxious about what the future has in store for us.

This is where Mindfulness and The Power of Now come to the rescue.

How to calm the anxious mind

• Breath work
• Gratitude
• Keep your mind in the moment 
• Wash hands thoroughly, take showers, leave shoes at the door, disinfect ...

More on this video below





El Coronavirus está forzándonos a re evaluar prioridades.

En medio de tanta incertidumbre es natural sentir más ansiedad y preocupación sobre que el futuro nos depara.

Aquí es donde Mindfulness y El Poder del Ahora vienen al rescate.

Cómo calmar la mente ansiosa

• Trabajo de Respiración
• Gratitud
• Mantener la mente en el momento presente
• Lavarse las manos, ducharse, dejar los zapatos en la puerta de entrada, desinfectar... 

Más sobre estos temas en el video

5 Mindfulness Exercises

*Today's Video

Mindfulness is being in the present moment without judging. 

This awareness is the basis of a different state of consciousness, and is used in therapy to treat PTSD, CPTSD, anxiety and depression.

Mindfulness seems easy by definition. At first it's difficult to put the monkey mind to rest but soon enough you'll go back to it whenever you need to calm down, relax or focus. 


What is Mindfulness?

"Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way, on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally." -Jon Kabat-Zin

In 1970 psychologist Jon Kabat Zin developed Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) to treat his patients. 

He run tests on buddhist monks who are well known for their meditation capabilities and neurologists found impressive results. 

It's widely known among scientist and therapists that there's a positive correlation between mindfulness and wellbeing.

The first exercise will introduce you to mindfulness. It's where all the other variations stem from: Your breath. 

When in doubt always go back to your breath.


1) Breathe Mindfully

Find a comfortable position. 

Focus your attention on your breathing. What does it feel like? Listen to the sound.

Bring attention to your belly. Feel it rise and expand when you inhale. Feel your belly fall every time you exhale.   

Continue to focus on your breathing.

Whenever thoughts come up and you notice your attention drift away, acknowledge that thought and let it go like a cloud in the sky. 

Go back to your breathing.

2) Conscious Observation 

Choose an object. Any object. A cup of tea, a pen. Any object at hand. 

Now let it absorbe your complete attention. Just observe. Being conscious of what you are looking at gives you a sense of being aware.

Now observe how the mind frees itself of thoughts and focuses on the present moment.

You can practice this exercise using your ears as well. Close your eyes and listen. What sounds are present in the room?

3) Body Scan


4) Count to Ten

Center your attention on counting. 1,2,3... If you loose concentration and thoughts interfere start again.

What usually happens is this "1,2,3..I forgot to call Margaret" "1,2,3, I need to buy milk" "There comes a thought again..." 1,2,3 

Seems easy but it is not! ha!

5) Sit Down and Observe Your Thoughts

This is a good exercise for people that are very stressed and busy and can't focus on breathing long enough.

Just sit down. And don't try to eliminate or let go of thoughts. Simply observe them when they come up. Don't get involved with them. 

Notice your thoughts as if you were an outside observer: "Ok, now I'm thinking about my meeting with Carol tomorrow" 

Enjoy the weekend!

Why Is Mindfulness So Powerful?

*Photo Credit: my 14 year old son :D


Why do we need to practice being in the now? Right where you are. What benefits can we obtain from meditation? 

Neurological research on mindfulness, the practice of being in the present moment, shows many advantages to our health: a stronger immune system, better sleep, and a decrease in stress and cortisol levels in the brain. 

Negative cognitions and emotions, such as shame, shut down the brain. On the other hand, meditating on love and kindness physically changes the brain, sculpting and strengthening our neural pathways. 

Our brain flourishes on repeated good thoughts. Isn't this amazing?  

In today's video I try to remind myself why I need to meditate more, and keep doing yoga periodically, by sharing with you the benefits of being more mindful.

Breathe in... long breath out... you are already good at this! 

P.S. A Guided Breathing Meditation

How To Practice Mindfulness: A Quick Exercise

How was your mindful eating practice? Were you able to focus on what, and how you were eating? If you did, even if it was for 30 seconds, it's a success. Pat yourself on the back. 

Today, I thought I'd share an exercise we can do in the car when we are waiting for the light to turn green. Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk who was nominated by Martin Luther King Jr. for the Nobel Peace Prize, explained this at mindful.org. 

"...make use of the red light. You can sit back and relax--take the ten seconds the light is red to practice mindful breathing and release the tension in the body. So next time you 're stopped at a red light, you might like to sit back and practice... "Breathing in, I'm aware of my body. Breathing out, I release the tension in my body"  Peace is possible at that moment, and it can be practiced many times a day--in the workplace while you are driving, while you are cooking, while you are doing the dishes... It is always possible to practice releasing the tension in yourself."

What do you think? Is this helpful? Are you an anxious driver or a peaceful one? Let me know! In my case, I can get pretty anxious whenever I'm being late. Otherwise, I tend to remain calm and enjoy the ride. What about you?

Next wellness Wednesday will be about adding kindness to your everyday life. Stay tuned!

P.S. The Body Scan Meditation, Mindful Walking Meditation, Breathing Meditation, Practice mindfulness everywhere.

How To Practice Mindfulness: Let's Go For A Walk.

Were you able to follow last week's 3 minute body scan meditation? In my case, although it sounds simple, it can be challenging to calm down this "restless monkey mind"!

As you may already know, these series of blog posts, on how to practice mindfulness, aim at providing you (and me) with tools to train your mind, and develop a set of skills to improve our overall well-being, while reducing negative emotions and hopefully respond with resilience to factors outside of our control.

Mindfulness of Walking

The principle to perform a walking meditation is similar to the one used for the body scan: basically bring awareness to what your body is doing. It's all about mindful meditative attention.

• If you prefer, and it's possible where you are, remove your shoes. Please don't go barefoot down a snow covered street, ha! Find a place, where you can walk for, at least 10 steps.  It could be outside, or in the comfort of your own home.

• Start by being still. Feel the connection of your feet to the ground. Notice your breath. Don't make any effort to change your breath flow. Simply notice how your body breathes.

• Notice your surroundings. Sounds? Sights? Smells? Is it cold? Hot? Let your thoughts and emotions be. Hold or clasp your hands at the front or at the back. Or let your arms be by your sides.

• Shift your weight to the left leg and move your right foot forward, feel your right foot hit the ground. Now shift your weight to the right leg and lift your left foot forward, repeating the process. (Yes, I am aware that you may already know how to walk, haha!)

• Continue with this mindful walking, paying attention to the soles of your feet, your heel, toe, heel toe moving, lifting, placing.

• Find your own rhythm. Notice your breath, your spine, your torso, your head over it, and your shoulders and arms.

• Notice any thoughts, become aware of them, and let them go by returning your attention to your mindful walking.

Now that you know what this is all about, next time you go on a walking trip to the store, try this technique. It's a great way to enjoy the experience of, actually having a body, that is able to take you places. 

As Dr. Seuss once said...Oh, The Places You'll Go!

"You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who will decide where to go..."

Let me know how your mindfulness practice goes! Have you tried any of these techniques yet? 

Stay tuned for next week's mindfulness practice post! It's one of those topics that extend to more meaningful levels of our daily lives...Hmm...very mysterious of me to put it that way.
  



P.S. How to mindfulness: Try This Easy Technique First and A Breathing Meditation. Also on Cultivating Well-Being. 

How To Practice Mindfulness: The Body Scan

How's your mindfulness practice going? Last "How To Practice Mindfulness" post explained a breathing technique. Although it seems easy, given that breathing is something we do without even thinking about it, I found that paying close attention only to my breath, wasn't exactly a piece of cake. I had to let go of a lot of thoughts. Lot's of butterflies flying in my garden! Especially with two boys on summer vacation! How was your breathing meditation? Did you give it a try?

If you are looking for another technique to become aware, and promote well-being and relaxation, while building internal energy, here goes another one:  the body scan meditation.

Ideally, practiced daily for about 20 minutes to half an hour, the body scan aims at bringing awareness to each individual part of the body, in order to finish the meditation connecting each part to the body as a whole.

How to practice a body scan? 

1. Lie on your back. Spread your legs out and your arms to the side, palms up.

2. Notice what it feels like to be supported by the ground.

3. Check in with your left toes and see how they feel. Are they tense, or cold? Direct your breaths. Focus on the point of your attention by breathing deep into your toes. Whatever that means to you. The idea is to promote awareness to each body part and see how they feel in a non-judgmental way. The objective is simple awareness.

4. Let your awareness continue upward to your arch, ankle, calf, knee, thigh and then do the same with your right leg.

5. Continue with your lower back, abdomen, chest and shoulders. Then arms, hands, neck and head.

6. After you have scanned each and every body part, focus on how fingers connect to hands, hands to arms, and so forth. See how the body is a perfect whole, that unites by breath, flowing in and out.

Here's a 3 minute  UCLA guided body scan meditation. Hope you can put this into practice, and maybe let me know how it goes? Until next week's post on how to practice mindfulness!




P.S. How to practice mindfulness: try this easy technique first.

How To Practice Mindfulness: Breathing Meditation.

How was last week's practice? Were you able to remain fully present while doing your every day activities? I have to say I did better. I tried to be more aware. Sometimes I did, sometimes I forgot, but whenever I remained present I felt much more at ease. How did it work for you?

For today's weekly post on mindfulness techniques I thought we could practice a short breathing technique. It's also called meditation. Before you run out the door, I'll explain. Meditation is not a religion, nor is it part of a zen/mystic, new-era-thing.  It's simply a way of training the mind. The same way you train your body if you workout. 

Why would you want to train your mind? In the words of Matthieu Riccard (scientist and Buddhist monk * ) "the mind is a restless monkey". It's always producing thoughts and consequently bringing up emotions. Sometimes, these emotions, become too much to handle and we end up feeling stressed, anxious, with sleeping problems, uncontrollable anger, jealousy or even sadness. 

Meditating can be as simple as breathing mindfully. What I like about Matthieu Riccard's view of mindfulness is that he adds a critical component: cultivating loving kindness, compassion, altruism, or the wish for others to do well and flourish, simply because it's a win-win situation for all. He explains the difference between simple mindfulness and mindfulness with loving kindness and compassion, here. A sniper can be mindful too, you know? (!!)

How to breathe mindfully or meditate?

1. Sit comfortably. No need for advanced Yogi positions. 

2. Close your eyes if you want. Otherwise, relax your gaze. Become aware of the coming and going of the breath. How it feels. Pay attention to your stomach, your lungs, your nostrils. Is your jaw clinching? 

3. Thoughts will come. Become aware of the thought, of the fact that you are being distracted by it, and let it go. Don't elaborate. Let thoughts pass by, like butterflies visiting flowers in the garden. Let thoughts go. 

4. Return your awareness to your breathing.  

Here's a great UCLA five minute guided breathing meditation. Enjoy, and let me know how it goes! Until next week's post on how to practice mindfulness!



P.S. How to practice mindfulness: Body Scan Meditation



* Due to my background in Professional Counseling, my interest in mindfulness occurred as a consequence of trying to explain and simplify the components of well-being so that I could write clearly about them. By doing so, I came across the work of Matthieu Riccard, who has made (and is making) such an impactful contribution to the psychology of well-being.

How To Practice Mindfulness: Try This Easy Technique First.

These series of weekly posts, about mindfulness techniques, will explain one technique per week in hopes that you (and me) will put them into practice, and may be check in next week to see how that went.   

First things first...What is mindfulness?

Mindfulness is being aware of your thoughts, your body, and feelings. It involves being in the present moment, with the experience, in a non judgmental way.  

What is it good for?

It's a powerful healing tool used for stress reduction, anxiety, sleep problems and many other clinical conditions.

How to Start? Easy Technique First.

I'd say, in order to ease into mindfulness, practice Informal Mindfulness. Have you ever multi tasked your way into the dining room, bringing more than you can handle to the table, only to realize, a few seconds later, that you have dropped half of what you were carrying and even managed to hit your thumb against a chair? (?!) I have! 

Informal mindfulness would be the exact opposite to multitasking. Single-tasking is achieved by doing one thing at a time and being fully present, paying attention to what ever it is that you are doing at a specific moment in time.

Leave the autopilot for another day. Start practicing mindfulness by engaging all your senses and be fully present when you pet your dog, drink your favorite cup of coffee, play a card game with your kids, or even do the dishes. Breathe, inhale and exhale peacefully while you are at it. Be fully present. Acknowledge moment to moment sensations. 

Put this into practice, cultivate mindfulness, by focusing your attention on your sensations during your everyday activities, and see what good things this technique unfolds. (No more thumb hitting for me, please!)

Stay tuned for more formal techniques next week! Have you ever practiced mindfulness? Are you keen on multitasking :/? 

P.S. Cultivating Well Being Series

Cultivating Well-being: An Antidote to Anxiety

Cultivating Well-being series' third post is focused on worrying and anxiety. I wanted to let you know about a very effective technique that we can all implement. It's deeply related to our innate ability to become aware of our emotions.

Last Tuesday's post was about 5 ideas that are crucial to well-being. One of them was to limit negative thoughts and worrying. 

But, how do we do that? Easier said than done, right?

Well, it turns out it is not that difficult. The answer? Mindfulness and awareness. What is mindfulness? 

"..a mental state achieved by focusing one's awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one's feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique."

It's a simple and powerful tool that all of us can put into practice, that is used to become aware of our emotions. In this case, destructive ones, such as jealousy, anger or anxiety. 

Usually, those who suffer from anxiety, get carried away by negative thoughts and fear which will only lead to more anxiety and worry. 

The best way of dealing with it would be to first, realize what it is that you are feeling: anxiety. Once you recognize this emotion, a complete shift occurs. You become aware of it. This is when a space or distance is created between what you feel and yourself. It's as if you are contemplating the emotion.

This simple change of state has the power, if sustained, to decrease and eventually vanish the damaging emotion.

Matthieu Riccard explains this very clearly when he says that, if you stop adding wood to a fire, it will eventually extinguish. Same thing with the preoccupation that makes you anxious. 

If you look at what you are feeling with the "eye of the Mind", also known as "your consciousness", you become aware. 

Now, you have the power to direct your thoughts. This is the time to guide thoughts to a calmer, more positive state. As Riccard says:"if you are aware of it, you are not [anxious], you are aware of it". 

Apparently, it requires practice and lots of focusing on your breathing! But it can be done. Well-being is a skill that can be learned through practice. 

I thought I would share the good news. Well, actually those who meditate have known this for ever, but only recently, not many years ago, psychology has been incorporating these types of techniques to their practice.




P.S. Cultivating Well-Being #4 (Why Altruism Works For Our Own Good?)