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The Compassion Challenge

There are few moments in the past 15 years, since beginning to practice mindfulness that I have felt outmatched by the challenges to my equanimity.

But the current political situation here in the U.S. is putting my practice to the test and I could really use the support of my friends and colleagues in the field to support me through what I am experiencing. This is not about who to vote for, or who not to vote for, but something even bigger and more timeless than that. It is about how to have compassion for the people we find truly, profoundly, deeply repugnant and fearful.

I am frequently inspired by Miller Williams’ poem entitled Compassion:

Have compassion for everyone you meet,
even if they don’t want it. What seems conceit,
bad manners, or cynicism is always a sign
of things no ears have heard, no eyes have seen.
You do not know what wars are going on
down there where the spirit meets the bone.

I admit that I “do not know what wars are going on down there where the spirit meets the bone” in Donald Trump, but I also am struggling mightily to bring my compassion practice to bear on this man. I have practiced Loving-kindness meditation many, many times over the years, and guided others in the practice, often incorporating “the difficult person” into that practice, but never have I found it so difficult to do so as I have with him.

When I am intentionally cultivating compassion and invite him into awareness the well runs dry, so to speak. I simply cannot connect with my usually-present wellspring of compassion because of my gut-level emotional reaction to him and his behavior. Perhaps this is not far from what a victim of violence might feel toward his or her perpetrator, but for me, this is a deep and disconcerting struggle.

In less reflective moments, I find myself musing wistfully about actual physical harm befalling this obviously wounded man, and that is also entirely unfamiliar. And frankly quite jarring and unsettling to boot.

I find myself mirroring the name-calling, ridicule and disparagement and simultaneously not wanting to be stooping to that level.

When I see the way all sides in the political debate retreat into divisive tribalism, name-calling, blaming and bigotry, there is a very deep part of me that does not want to be swept up in it as well. I know my strong opinions play a role here, but how do I find a way to bob on the surface of this tidal wave of hatred and fear and be able to truly look deeply inside and know that I have met difficulty with a truly open heart? This practice can’t only “work” on the easy, the mundane, the routine and the familiar. It has to hold us up and carry us through when the stakes are truly life-altering, if not outright life-threatening. How do I find my feet in this tsunami of reactivity and find a way to navigate forward with some sense of clarity, wisdom and most of all, compassion?

And once my feet have been located, the big question for me is about the way forward. Is there an action that can rise above my reaction? There is the practice of “fierce compassion” that calls us to mobilize when there are wrongs that need to be righted, as Sharon Salzberg says “to feel outrage when it arises . . . and to cultivate power and clarity in response to difficult situations” but it’s that clarity that that seems remote and inaccessible at this pivotal moment in history. I find myself mirroring the name-calling, ridicule and disparagement and simultaneously not wanting to be stooping to that level. I have to admit that I’m a bit ashamed that I find myself doing this and that has my head spinning. My options feel narrow and mostly insignificant. I am overcome by fear and easily seduced by the fleeting pleasure inherent in schoolyard taunts and snide Facebook posts.

I don’t know what to do except to breathe, to give myself compassion for the fear and terror that rises in me for the future, for myself, for my friends, for my children and for this planet

I have to say I was inspired by what appeared to be a throwaway line in President Obama’s convention speech: “Don’t boo. Vote” That sums it up but I’m left asking if this is enough. Just silently voting seems so incredibly small, which is how I actually feel, when I think about it. And I want to be bigger. Bigger than this small self of mine, bigger than the rhetoric and the bigotry, big enough to hold myself tenderly and soothe my trembling heart.

I don’t know what to do except to breathe, to give myself compassion for the fear and terror that rises in me for the future, for myself, for my friends, for my children and for this planet. Maybe this is enough, to collectively take a moment (and a breath) to pause and let the visceral reaction to this predicament run its course, so that collectively we can breathe out together and do what needs to be done. I take some small comfort in knowing that many of us across this country and around the world are also feeling some version of this dread and that we share the common humanity of that experience. But somehow that isn’t enough to sustain me. What is a person to do? I really don’t know.

 

 

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Meditation: Spacious Sky of Awareness (18:23) - Tara Brach

Meditation: Spacious Sky of Awareness – This meditation begins with a body scan that enables us to awaken our senses. We relax open fully to include the changing flow of sounds and sensations, in a spacious, open awareness.

photo: Jon McRay

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Bringing Joy to the Table

Do you put the needs of others before your own? Would you rather please others than express your own emotions and wants? Do you believe that putting yourself first is an act of selfishness? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, then food generosity practice could be valuable for learning how to be generous to yourself. Generosity is an important aspect of creating a healthy relationship with food, as well as being an essential part of mindfulness. Practicing generosity is especially useful for sensitive people with food issues who find it difficult to express emotions—and who give too much to others while neglecting their own needs.

Usually, we think of giving as an act that we do for another person. But the fact is that generosity begins with oneself. If you have ever been on an airplane, then you are familiar with the safety drill that the flight attendants give before the plane takes off. When demonstrating how to use the oxygen masks, the attendants tell passengers to put their own masks on first, and only then to help children with their masks. The point here is clear: There are times when you need to take care of your own well-being and health in order to help and give to others.

In terms of meals and food, there are several ways to offer yourself this form of self-giving and generosity. For example, instead of rushing your meal or eating convenience food on the run, you can take the time to prepare a healthful meal. By choosing nourishing foods and allowing your body to receive it with thankfulness and acceptance, you are generously giving to all of your body: the heart, the bones, the lungs, the muscles, the brain, and more. You could say that eating is the ultimate form of giving because it enables you to have the energy to help others. You can also practice generosity by allowing yourself to truly appreciate, enjoy and savor food by slowly and mindfully tasting and chewing it.

By asking for help, you are actually giving.

Another positive way to offer self-generosity is by asking for assistance from others, whether for developing a meal plan, working with a professional, or getting help managing food portions and exercise. When you ask for help, you are allowing another to share and give in return. As Saint Francis of Assisi says in his wise Simple Prayer, “For it is in giving that we receive.” By asking for help, you are actually giving. One last way of being generous with food involves sharing food as a resource with others. This could be expressed in such ways as inviting someone to dinner who would enjoy companionship, sharing or making food for someone who is sick or in need, or volunteering for a food bank or other food organization. This does not mean that you have to “give until it hurts,” but that everyone has worthwhile gifts to share. Each day offers a new way to invite generosity into your practice of eating mindfully. Which ones will you discover today for yourself—and for others?

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Just 6 Seconds of Mindfulness Can Make You More Effective

Some days it’s really draining to be a senior executive. You sit in meetings for hours on end, and every decision you need to make is difficult—all of the easy decisions have already been made at levels below you. On those days, you know you could be a much more effective leader if you could approach each meeting with a fresh perspective. But in order to do that, you first need to put down the baggage you carried in from all your previous meetings. You can do it. And you can do it in just six seconds.

I led the creation of a Google training program called “Search Inside Yourself,” which was designed to help people put down that mental baggage and approach each new situation with a present, focused mind. It quickly became the most highly rated course in all of Google, with huge waiting lists. Search Inside Yourself works in three steps. It begins with attention training to create a quality of mind that is calm and clear. We then focus on developing a depth of self-knowledge that leads to self-mastery, because when you can clearly and objectively see when and how you are triggered, you can begin to effectively deploy mental and emotional strategies to skillfully navigate those situations. Finally, we cultivate mental skills such as empathy and compassion, which are conducive to better social skills.

When you can clearly and objectively see when and how you are triggered, you can begin to effectively deploy mental and emotional strategies to skillfully navigate those situations.

Many participants have told us that they became better leaders and gained subsequent promotions thanks to the skills they learned from Search Inside Yourself. For example, one engineering executive learned to manage his temper and gain increased clarity by, in his words, “learning to discern stories from reality.” He became so effective that he was promoted, even after transitioning to a part-time role. Another participant learned to handle stress so much better that her physical health visibly improved. A sales executive, already a good communicator due to the nature of his job, learned that when he listened with empathy, spoke with moral courage, and held a caring attitude for the person he was interacting with, he became an even more effective communicator and executive. Over and over again, our participants tell us the training changed their lives.

These skills did not take long to learn. In every example above, the benefits were realized with fewer than 50 hours of training. But getting the training’s earliest benefits doesn’t even require 50 hours.

My colleague Karen May, vice president at Google, developed the ability to mentally recharge by taking one “mindful breath” before walking into every meeting. It takes her roughly six seconds, and in that time she brings her full attention to one breath, resetting her body and mind.

There are two reasons why taking just one mindful breath is so effective at calming the body and the mind. The physiological reason is that breaths taken mindfully tend to be slow and deep, which stimulates the vagus nerve, activating the parasympathetic nervous system. It lowers stress, reduces heart rate and blood pressure, and calms you down. The psychological reason is that when you put your attention intensely on the breath, you are fully in the present for the duration of the breath. To feel regretful, you need to be in the past; to worry, you need to be in the future. Hence, when you are fully in the present, you are temporarily free from regret and worry. That’s like releasing a heavy burden for the duration of one breath, allowing the body and mind a precious opportunity for rest and recovery.

To feel regretful, you need to be in the past; to worry, you need to be in the future. Hence, when you are fully in the present, you are temporarily free from regret and worry. That’s like releasing a heavy burden for the duration of one breath, allowing the body and mind a precious opportunity for rest and recovery.

This skill is used by some of the world’s best athletes. For example, I once asked tennis superstar Novak Djokovic about it, and he confirmed that the mental technique has game-changing consequences (literally, for him). The ability to reset and calm the body and mind in mere seconds is how athletes like Djokovic sustain high performance for extended periods.

The ability to calm the body and mind on demand has profound implications for leadership. Imagine that you’re responding to a severe crisis with your peers and everybody but you is frazzled, because you alone can calm down and think clearly. The ability to think calmly under fire is a hallmark of great leadership. The training and deployment of this skill involves paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally. The more you bring this quality of attention to your breath, the more you strengthen the parts of your brain involved with attention and executive control, principally the prefrontal cortex.

This ability is one in a collection of mental and emotional skills that form the foundation of highly effective leadership. Another such skill is the ability to assess yourself accurately, beginning with your moment-to-moment experience of emotions, and culminating in you clearly knowing your strengths, weaknesses, and purpose in life. Studies show that accurate self-assessment is a necessary condition for outstanding leadership because it enables people to build effective teams around them that add to their strengths, complement their weaknesses, and contribute to a clear, common purpose.

Learning to calm the mind starts with being more mindful of the body. By bringing mindful attention to the body, you strengthen the part of your brain called the insula, which is highly correlated with strong emotional awareness and empathy. When combined with practices such as journaling, this improves self-assessment, and when combined with practices such as mindful listening, it strengthens empathy, all of which lead to higher emotional intelligence.

Even if your company doesn’t have a mindfulness training course like Search Inside Yourself, you can begin to benefit with your first mindful breath, in the first six seconds. Try it today, and see how much more present, effective, and productive you can be.

This article originally appeared on hbr.org, the website of the Harvard Business Review. View the original article.

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10 Mindful Attitudes That Decrease Anxiety

Mindfulness is, in short, the practice of being aware of what’s happening or what you’re experiencing in the present moment. It’s being here and now without judgment. This is a capacity that all human beings possess. Whenever you bring awareness to what you’re directly experiencing via your senses, or to your state of mind via your thoughts and emotions, you’re being mindful.

Although more research is needed to illuminate the mechanisms at work, it’s clear that mindfulness allows us to interrupt automatic, reflexive fight, flight, or freeze reactions—reactions that can lead to anxiety, fear, foreboding, and worry. By bringing mindfulness to our actual experience in the moment, we can increase the likelihood of exerting more conscious control over our behaviors and attitudes. In so doing we learn to work with our intention, wise effort, will, discipline, and capacity to be kind to ourselves. These are all resources that can be harnessed and cultivated.

With that in mind, there are certain attitudes that play an important role when working with anxiety mindfully. These attitudes are central to mindfulness, and fostering them will help you develop and sustain your practice. It’s similar to adding nutrients to the soil to cultivate a vibrant and healthy garden. By attending to the attitudes of mindfulness, you can support your practice and help it flourish. And just as a well-tended garden bears seeds and fruit, so too will practicing mindfulness help foster all of the attitudes of mindfulness. Keep in mind that you may find slightly different lists of the attitudes of mindfulness in other places. Below are the qualities that we believe all play an important role in working with anxiety mindfully.

1) Volition or intention is the foundation that supports all of the other attitudes. Your intention, will, or volition is what sets you on the mindful path to working within yourself to gradually transform your anxiety and find more ease, freedom, and peace. By bringing intention to working with anxiety, you’re developing persistence in seeing yourself as whole, capable, and resourceful.

2) Beginner’s mind is an aspect of mind that’s open to seeing from a fresh perspective. Meeting anxiety in this way, with curiosity, can play an extremely important role in transforming your experience. When you’re willing to adopt another point of view, new possibilities arise, and this can help you challenge habitual anxious thoughts and feelings.

3) Patience is a quality that supports perseverance and fortitude when feelings of anxiety are challenging. Patience offers a broader perspective, allowing you to see that moments of anxiousness will pass in time.

Mindfulness allows us to interrupt automatic, reflexive fight, flight, or freeze reactions—reactions that can lead to anxiety, fear, foreboding, and worry.

4) Acknowledgment is the quality of meeting your experience as it is. For example, rather than trying to accept or be at peace with anxiety, you meet it and your experience of it as they are. You can acknowledge that anxiety is present and how much you don’t like it, even as you apply patience and see anxiety as your current weather system, knowing it will pass.

5) Nonjudgment means experiencing the present moment without the filters of evaluation. In the midst of anxiety, it can be all too easy to experience a secondary layer of judgment on top of the already uncomfortable anxious feelings. Stepping out of a judgmental mind-set allows you to see more clearly. When you let go of evaluations, many sources of anxiety simply fade away. When you feel anxiety, adopting a nonjudgmental stance can reset your mind into a more balanced state.

6) Nonstriving is the quality of being willing to meet any experience as it is, without trying to change it. With nonstriving, you understand the importance of being with things as they are—being with your experience without clinging to or rejecting what’s there. (Note that nonstriving relates to your present-moment experiences during meditation and doesn’t in any way negate the value of setting a wise intention to grow, learn, and change your relationship to anxiety.) In the midst of strong anxiety, the first response is often to flee or get out of the situation. If you can pause and really be with your experience without exerting any force against it, you gain the opportunity to know your experience more clearly and choose your response. You can also become less fearful of the physical sensations, thoughts, and emotions that accompany anxiety.

7) Self-reliance is an important quality for developing inner confidence. With practice, you can learn to trust yourself and your ability to turn toward your anxiety or any other uncomfortable feeling. In turning toward these feelings, it’s important to bring other qualities of mindfulness to your experience, allowing the feelings, acknowledging them, and letting them be.

In time, you can learn to ride a wave of anxiety until it dissipates, just as a storm runs its course in the sky.

8) Letting be or allowing is similar to nonstriving. It’s a quality that gives space to whatever you encounter in the moment. For example, if anxiety comes up as you meditate, you could choose to work with it by allowing the feeling to be there. In time, you can learn to ride a wave of anxiety until it dissipates, just as a storm runs its course in the sky.

9) Self-compassion is a beautiful quality of meeting yourself with kindness. Yet, sadly, so many people are their own greatest adversaries. Most of us probably would never treat another person the way we sometimes treat ourselves. Self-compassion will naturally grow as you practice meditation. And bringing this quality into your experience of anxiety can be like being your own best friend in the midst of hardship, offering your hand in a moment when help is needed. As your self-compassion grows, you will come to know that you are there for yourself, and your anxiety will naturally decrease.

10) Balance and equanimity are related qualities that foster wisdom and provide a broader perspective so that you can see things more clearly. From this perspective, you understand that all things change and that your experience is so much wider and richer than temporary experiences of anxiety and other difficulties.

PRACTICE:

Take some time right now to slowly reread the descriptions of the attitudes of mindfulness. After reading each one, pause and reflect upon what it means to you, especially as you begin to work with anxiety. Take a moment to try on each attitude and see how it feels. As you do so, tune in to how you feel in your body, mind, and emotions. Finally, after trying on each attitude, briefly describe your experience, noting how it felt. For example, did it feel natural or easy to adopt a particular attitude, or was it difficult? If it was difficult, why might that be? Was the attitude unfamiliar, or did you feel yourself resisting it in some way?

 

This article has been adapted from A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook for Anxiety by Bob Stahl PhD, Florence Meleo-Meyer MS, MA, and Lynn Koerbel MPH.

 

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Breaking The Interruption Habit

I waited for my six-year-old, Opal, to be thoroughly occupied in her bedroom before I started to unload the dishwasher.

And yet, the moment I clicked the dishwasher door open—“MOM!!”

I headed down the hall and stuck my head into her room— “Yes?”

“Could I have a snack?”

I grabbed her a snack and strolled back down the hall to deliver it, making a mental note to put the snacks lower where she can reach them. If the hallway had better lighting, I’m sure you’d be able to see the tracks from our frequent travels back and forth to Opal’s room.

I told her that I’d be in the kitchen and that I really wanted to unload the dishwasher before lunch and before the baby woke up from her nap. “If you need me,” I said, “please come down the hall and talk to me. But only if it’s important. I’ll come check in when I’m done.”

I barely made it through emptying the silverware—seconds later— when, “MOM! I need you!”

I dashed halfway down the hallway and loud-whispered: “I’m in the kitchen, honey! Come talk to me in here!” (My speedy response was because I didn’t want her to wake up the baby.)

She yelled through her closed door, “What?!”

“I don’t want you to wake up the baby! Can you come talk to me in the kitchen?”

“But I need you!”

Sure, it would have been more effective to go in and talk to her in person, but I was determined to make the point that she should come to me and, more importantly, to let me finish my one attempted god-forsaken task. My (not entirely thought-through) logic was that I would hold my ground and she would have to really decide if she wanted/needed me badly enough to walk the distance to where I was physically standing. Opal had gotten into the habit of calling Jesse and I from across the house for menial things, instead of coming to where we are to ask us. We’ve asked her ad naseum to come to us, please. Not to bellow demands. We’ve tried time and time again to convey to her what is worthy of interruption and what is not. My theory is since she can’t see us and what we are doing when she yells from the other room, in her world system, it doesn’t count as an offense.

No matter what I am doing, that thing it is interrupted an average of 3 to 5 times before completion, without discrimination. There are days where it takes the whole afternoon to scrub the toilet, a 30-second job. That particular dishwasher day, I was determined to complete my task without succumbing to our standard choreography of disruption.

It occurred to me later, however, that I did NOT communicate the shift in my perceptions with Opal, and my newly blossomed expectations of her. I had just made up my mind and got to my application of this decision.

Again, I loud-whispered from the hallway, “Sweetie, I really want to finish what I started. If you need me, please come to me. Otherwise, I’ll check on you in five minutes.” Good. Clearly communicated. I gave myself a mental thumbs-up and made my way back to the kitchen before she had a chance to intercept.

I picked up the pace, shoving coffee mugs into the cupboard, rushing to finish before the next interruption, when Opal arrived in doorway to the kitchen. She sprayed perturbed-ness in my direction with her glare.

“Mom, it was an emergency.” (She needed a drink.)

Sometimes I complete my day feeling like my time is more of a mosaic of shattered attempts at various things rather than a strung-together collection of whole moments.

There is much to be said about this scenario. It could all but be memorized and performed for future generations or anthropology majors as an example of the theatric mess-ups of human nature, the dramatic attempts of non-verbal communication that parents make. Moments that have a decent, genuine motivation but that are executed horribly. I knew all this as it was happening. If I had watched myself from afar, I would’ve confirmed my own ludicrous behavior. Yet, I just couldn’t continue the way things were, with the constant interruptions.

To break it down, my wish to be able to successfully accomplish a task from beginning to end was not unfounded. Sometimes I complete my day feeling like my time is more of a mosaic of shattered attempts at various things rather than a strung-together collection of whole moments. When my primary company is under the age of seven, I often finish my day mealy-brained, short-tempered, and ready for a drink. It feels like my IQ has dropped, along with my mindfulness. The whole thing is utterly fatiguing.

But there is more to it than merely being an inconvenience to me.

There is also the fact that it seems crucial to teach my daughter to respect that there are other things going on beyond the tiny bubble of her being.

What’s more, we live in a world of constant interruptions. (Even as I wrote this sentence, I had two text messages come in on my phone that I admittedly glanced at.) One of the great teachings for the next generation will be to educate them on the importance of focus in this fragmented world, of staying on task—and allowing others to stay on task—until completion.

In an article by Nicholas Carr in the Telegraph that studied the fragmenting effects of the Internet, he said, “When we’re constantly distracted and interrupted, our brains can’t to forge the strong and expansive neural connections that give distinctiveness and depth to our thinking. Our thoughts become disjointed, our memories weak.”

Bingo.

Simply put, chasing the tail of one interruption after another does make you less able to focus, less able to concentrate and see a notion, conversation or task through to the end. The same way following every thought that pops into your head during meditation would leave you feeling utterly drained and undisciplined at the end. The opposite of mindfulness.

In meditation, the instruction is to follow the breath. And when a thought arises, you label it “thinking” and go back to the breath. As tempting as it is to label Opal’s disruptions as “distraction” then disregard them completely and go back to the breath, that application doesn’t quite work when applied to little humans.

God willing, I will have many, many more years of having a child in my house. And, frustrating as it is, interrupting is what they are supposed to do—to find where they fit in the space. And what parents are supposed to do is give feedback and create boundaries so their children don’t run wild with endless stoppages and intrusions.

Terry Carson, M.Ed., certified parenting coach and educator, says kids learn in small steps. Their learning is more successful when a parent can chunk down lessons into manageable pieces. Each step must be mastered before the next step is taught. And it’s not up to the parent to decide when the learning should be mastered. It’s up to the child.

It’s important to be patient and allow children to go at their own pace. This could take a few days or a few weeks. Carson encourages parents to avoid making comments such as How many times do I have to tell you? and to watch your child for readiness before you move onto the next training lesson.

Ahh yes. It would probably be a good idea for me to practice being patient with Opal as she learns to be more patient with me.

When we don’t practice what we ask of our children, the hypocrisy creates a disconnection between them and us. (Opal checks to make sure my bed is made first thing in the morning, and long before I check to see if she made hers.) Modeling for our kids is the most obvious way of teaching what kind of behaviors we’d like to see more of in them, and makes our simple requests of them feel much more appropriate.

When looked at through this lens, there are endless ways in which I could set a better example of staying-the-course on an average day. I do have my phone close by most of the time and, admittedly, I check it when I hear the ubiquitous ding of an incoming text, even while we are in the middle of a game of Uno. The phone is a big one. I’ve even gotten in the habit of taking a quick glance at my email while in the car at a red light. She can see this from the back seat; she can feel the frivolous time-filling nature of this gesture. What may seem like a tiny distraction to me may be perceived as something that ransacks my attention and attunement with her. The quality of my time.

I’ve even gotten in the habit of taking a quick glance at my email while in the car at a red light.

The original intent of this article was to raise the question of how to employ mindful parenting in order to train my child away from her interruption-habit.

But, clearly, when I look at this issue mindfully, the real training that needs to happen is my own. And the real question is how can I practice being more discerning of what I do (and do not) allow to penetrate my space in any particular moment in order to offer her guidance and model good habits.

Opal said to me the other day, “How come I’m always the one who needs to do the learning? How come I’m the only one in the house who gets in trouble?”

Perhaps we’d have better luck if Opal felt we were in it together. We could notice the moments when we unconsciously interrupt others or allow ourselves to be needlessly interrupted, and perhaps we could have a laugh about it. One thing I have learned in my decades on this planet is that changing a habit is much more accessible when the whole thing is cushioned in the acceptance of our imperfect human-ness—not when a behavior is demanded into being by a frustrated parent (real or internal)!

This approach also gives more opportunities for tiny celebrations: Good job, Opal! I finished unloading the dishwasher without interruption! Let’s sit on the back porch with a lime popsicle and watch the baby pigeons flop around in the spruce tree. And…good job, mommy! You just made it through five stoplights without glancing at your phone once! A big hug is in store for you upon our arrival!

In my experience, success grows much more effortlessly from a child who already feels successful.

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Why Your Office Needs More Nature

A recent Gallop poll found that almost a third of American workers are disengaged and unhappy at their jobs. Could a dose of nature give them a boost?

According to a newly published study, workers exposed to sunlight and natural elements in the workplace report better moods, higher satisfaction with their work, and more commitment to their employer—something that Amazon would be happy to hear, as they construct massive greenhouses for employees around their downtown Seattle headquarters.

Workers exposed to sunlight and natural elements in the workplace report better moods, higher satisfaction with their work, and more commitment to their employer.

Researchers at Central Michigan University surveyed hundreds of workers from the United States and India and asked them about natural elements in their workspace, including views out of windows, office plants, and screensavers or wall prints depicting nature scenes. They also asked how much workers were exposed to direct sunlight (from working outside or being able to go outside during the day) or indirect sunlight (through windows), as well as surveying their levels of depression and anxiety symptoms, job stressors, job satisfaction, and commitment to their employer.

Analyzing the data, the researchers found that people with more exposure to natural elements in the office were less depressed, and more satisfied with and committed to their jobs, than those with less nature around them.

Even stronger links were seen for sunlight exposure. Indirect sunlight in the workplace was associated with reduced depressive symptoms, while direct sunlight was linked to increased job satisfaction and employee loyalty—suggesting, in general, that sunshine may be good for people at work.

Why might views of nature or exposure to sunlight have positive impacts on people at the office?

“There is a pretty large literature on the positive effects of nature and sunshine exposure in other settings,” says one of the study’s authors, Stephen Colarelli, though few studies have looked specifically at offices. “Nature has restorative effects, making people feel better in a variety of ways.”

For example, compared to views of walls or non-natural settings, studies have suggested that nature reduces stress, improves mood and recovery from surgery for hospital patients, and helps kids do better in school and feel more positive about their classroom experiences. Even the presence of plants in a room has been shown to increase kind and helpful behavior and well-being, which could have an indirect impact on work relationships and job satisfaction.

In this study, the results suggest that nature may buffer against the effects of stress: The relationship between job stressors and anxiety was weaker for workers exposed to natural elements, as was the relationship between job stressors and lower job satisfaction. There might be other reasons for this—perhaps workers in higher-level positions have offices with nicer views and have greater job satisfaction, regardless of stress levels—but the results held even after controlling for worker age [a proxy for greater responsibility]reducing the plausibility of this explanation.

The relationship between job stressors and anxiety was weaker for workers exposed to natural elements, as was the relationship between job stressors and lower job satisfaction.

“[Our] result helps support the notion that it is exposure to nature that is having the effects,” Colarelli says.

He notes that most companies and interior designers pay scant attention to nature and sunlight exposure, or neglect them in order to keep costs down. But, he suggests, if we want to improve well-being at work, we may want to look at environmental factors more closely.

To that end, he and his colleagues are exploring what types of natural views and built environments are most conducive to restorative effects. He’s also working with colleagues to look at the effects of nature views inside a factory environment in China. He hopes studies like these will support more efforts to bring nature into the workplace.

“We evolved in nature, and our species is adapted in many ways to a natural environment,” he says. “People are likely to feel better and experience greater well-being when their environments are in synch (are matched) with their human nature.”

 

This article originally appeared on Greater Good, the online magazine of UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, one of Mindful’s partners. View the original article.

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Using Mindfulness to Navigate “Self”

That Bird Got My Wings – Mindfulness & Heartfulness - Tara Brach

This talk looks at how we are imprisoned by a limited sense of who we are. It describes how the wings of mindfulness and heartfulness enable us to realize the spirit that is our essence. We then look at how we can bring the wings of freedom to our engagement with others. The talk’s title is the name of a book written by Jarvis Masters, a deeply wise and inspiring African American man currently on death row at San Quentin prison.  (a favorite talk from July 2015)

photo: Jon McRay

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Living with, and Loving, Your Imperfect Life

How to Save Your Marriage from Parenthood

I became a parent a year and a half ago, and my life changed forever.

When I was pregnant, lots of parents gave me advice (Enjoy going to the grocery store by yourself while you still can! Go out on dates! Clean your house!). One even warned me that becoming a parent would “rock my world.” I thought I understood. I thought I was prepared for the huge change coming. And while I wasn’t unprepared, I really had no idea exactly how life-changing becoming a parent would be.

Now I try to explain to my friends who don’t have children what exactly getting swept into parenthood felt like, and the best I have come up with is this—I had my daughter and she was more wonderful than I could have imagined, and the rest of my life fell into chaos. One of those pieces of my life was my relationship with my husband.

I had my daughter and she was more wonderful than I could have imagined, and the rest of my life fell into chaos. One of those pieces of my life was my relationship with my husband.

We look at each other and marvel that we used to sit around on the weekend and lament that we did not know what to do with ourselves. Now we would give anything to learn the secret to freezing time. Now we try to hold on as life rushes by. Now I tell my husband we need more time and he agrees but asks, “what time?”

In just a little over a year and a half, our life before baby is becoming a distant memory. Nights cuddled up on the couch together, lazy weekend mornings, and all-day hikes are a thing of the past. I know they’ll be back someday, but I fear in the meantime we might get used to the “new normal” of having very little time together. I worry that the stress of jobs, long commutes, lack of sleep, and the realities of taking care of a sweet little girl who can’t take care of herself yet will do a number on our relationship, and it might have bent into an unrecognizable shape by the time we again find ourselves able to cuddle up on the couch to watch a movie.

I worry about what parenthood might be doing to our relationship because I have spent the past 12 years studying the psychology of relationships and there are countless articles examining “the decline in marital satisfaction during the transition to parenthood.”

There are disagreements about how bad that decline really is, whether it is worse for men or women, and what helps prevent it. And because researchers can’t randomly assign people to have children or not, we can never have the necessary experimental evidence to definitely say that parenthood is bad for marriage. But studies of couples who were followed from before they had children until years after their first child was born (and compared to couples who did not have children) seem to consistently show that for a sizeable portion of couples, having a child is hard on the relationship.

But these studies also show that this hit to your relationship is not an inevitability. There is always variability and some couples in these studies aren’t in a downward trajectory after having their first child. Of course, we all want to know how to be one of these couples. Some of it is not easy to change—having more financial resources, having a planned pregnancy, and having parents who didn’t divorce have all been suggested as protective factors. And of course, prioritizing your relationship and finding time together as a couple is important. But that is easier said than done.

So regardless of your income level or whether you planned your pregnancy, even for those of you who can’t or don’t want to hire a babysitter for regular date nights, here are a few suggestions for how to maintain (or reignite) the spark in your relationship.

1. Prioritize sleep

Easier said than done. But researchers think that one of the reasons the transition to parenthood might be hard on relationships is because that adorable bundle of joy wreaks havoc on your sleep. When you’re low on sleep, you might find yourself feeling more irritable and hostile and reacting more strongly when something bad happens. And my colleague and I found that couples fought more, and were worse at resolving conflict, if either partner had slept poorly the previous night. Even if you are no longer dealing with nighttime wakings, you might still be suffering from a massive sleep debt. After several days of sleep loss, people report not feeling as tired, but they still perform poorly on mental tasks.

I, of course, am bad at prioritizing sleep—it’s hard to leave the dishes unwashed and the living room strewn with toys and sometimes you just want a little bit of me (or we) time at the end of a long day. But even if you are still waking up at night to care for your little one, there are things you can do to prioritize sleep. For example, try giving yourself a bedtime, don’t take your phone or tablet to bed with you, engage in good sleep hygiene so you’re not tossing and turning all night long, and even consider sleeping in a separate bed from your partner at times if you wake each other up. Think about whether there are ways to divide up the night so that you can both get a bit of consolidated sleep.

The bottom line: Everything is easier and better if you’re facing the day fully rested. You’ll be more efficient, get your work done faster, make fewer mistakes, and have more control over your emotions. So rather than stay up to deal with some household, work, or personal problem, get some sleep and see if that problem isn’t easier to solve in the morning. Oh, and forget the old adage “never go to bed angry.” Instead, try “if you’re angry, say I love you and goodnight, and see if it’s still a problem in the morning.”

2. Give each other the benefit of the doubt

Sleepless nights, a crying baby, and all the other demands of parenthood are added on top of everything you were doing before baby came along. Although a joyous time in so many ways, the transition to parenthood can also be incredibly stressful. Stress makes it difficult to be a loving and present partner.

So when your partner snaps at you, forgets to do something you asked them to do, or just isn’t as loving and affectionate as you’d like, rather than getting angry, trying chalking it up to the fact that, like you, he or she is probably sleep-deprived and stressed. Blaming minor relationship issues on external causes like lack of sleep or baby-induced memory loss can help you keep things in perspective, possibly preventing something small from turning into a big, sleep-deprived fight.

Of course, it’s hard to remember to give the benefit of the doubt, especially if you are running low on sleep, so you could try creating a rule for yourself (called an implementation intention). For example, every time you start to feel annoyed at your partner, you could repeat to yourself, “It’s not him, it’s the lack of sleep,” or something along those lines. You could also try to remember the last time you did something similar and remind yourself that you are both going to make a lot of mistakes during this time.

Of course, if you find yourself facing real relationship issues, it’s not healthy to just shrug them aside; there are things you can do to reduce conflict in your relationship. But it is still important to keep a good perspective.

3. Be appreciative

Little time and lots to do may mean you find yourselves taking each other for granted. Who has time to say thank for making dinner when you’re rushing to get the baby ready for bed? Plus, again, that whole not getting enough sleep thing—I have found in my own research that people tend to be less grateful when they aren’t getting enough sleep. But a little gratitude could go a long way.

Research shows that more grateful people are more satisfied with their relationships, and this might be particularly true during transitional times like having a baby. So little things, like recognizing your partner’s efforts, taking a few moments to feel lucky you get to share this chaotic journey together, or reflecting back on how you felt when you met and then expressing those feelings to your partner, might help keep the spark alive.

And if you start expressing your gratitude, you’ll likely find that your partner is more likely to express his or her gratitude as well. And how good would it feel to receive a heartfelt thanks for all those dinners you’ve made or those diapers changes that you thought went unnoticed?

4. Start a new (not time-intensive) hobby together

Research shows that engaging in novel activities together is good for couples, and this might be particularly true during the transition to parenthood when so much of your time is spent focused on things other than your relationships—especially if you find that your old hobbies don’t work well in your new lifestyle.

Sure, we go on walks pushing our daughter in the stroller, but it’s no longer reasonable for us to take day-long hikes up the mountains each weekend or make pancakes and watch a Psychmarathon on Saturday morning. Nights out at the movies or late-night dinners are also a thing of the past.

Even if you are able to engage in some of your old hobbies together thanks to a babysitter, it still might be worth finding a new hobby the two of you can start together. A new hobby could bring you together, give you something new to talk about, and provide you with a little bit of fun during a time when the majority of your interactions sans children might feel like business meetings.

A new hobby could bring you together, give you something new to talk about, and provide you with a little bit of fun during a time when the majority of your interactions sans children might feel like business meetings.

Of course, I’m not encouraging you to pick up skydiving (maybe after the last kid leaves for college?). Choose something not too time-intensive that you can easily fit into your new lives. If you both like reading, start a book club with just the two of you or take turns reading a chapter to each other before bed at night. Pick up a new game—I played boggle for the first time in years this summer and thought how easy and fun it would be to play 10 minutes of boggle together a few nights a week. Into food? Find a top-10 list for restaurants in your area and commit to trying one every few weeks and work together to plan out what you’ll eat before you go.

5. Commiserate with each other

When things are at their worst, don’t stew in silence. Remember you are in it together. Even if you’re not sleeping, are snappish, and have no time for appreciation or new hobbies, it might help you feel better about your relationship if you take the time to gripe together.

If you know that your partner is also tired and wishes more than anything he or she could run away to a deserted tropical island with you, you might not feel so alone and frustrated. It’s not that your partner doesn’t care, it’s that she is also struggling with getting through her day and forgets to tell you that she cares.

You could even schedule a weekly gripe session—just five minutes on Friday night to sit down and take turns complaining and commiserating with the other person’s woes could help you stay a “we” rather than turn into a “you” and “me.”

Did you have a hard time in your relationship when you became a parent? Did you find any strategies that worked? How old were your kids when you had time together again?

This article was originally published on Psych Your Mind. Read the original article.

This article originally appeared on Greater Good, the online magazine of UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, one of Mindful’s partners. View the original article.

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Brief Meditation: Arriving in Mindful Presence – (5 min) - Tara Brach

This brief meditation can support you in pausing and arriving again in the life that’s right here.

Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/.

With gratitude and love, Tara

photo: Susan Reviere

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Let Go of Being the Ideal Role Model

There’s a common misperception that practicing mindfulness imposes another idealized picture of what our lives as parents or lovers or close friends or leaders at work should be: Always calm, always in control, and always knowing what to do, like a stereotype from an old TV show. We can’t help but fall short of this idealized vision. Recognizing that view itself is something to notice, and then we can practice setting it aside.

Our relationships, our career, the way our kids turn out—these rarely match the pictures in our minds.

Maybe you love your spouse but he never remembers to take out the trash. Or your daughter is happier as an artist than a dentist. Or you were going be that boss who always stays calm but instead often loses your cool. Here’s a reflection that may help you align your view of what is with what’s really there.

Our relationships, our career, the way our kids turn out—these rarely match the pictures in our minds.

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One note of caution about family: If it’s too intense to contemplate your family life, skip this exercise. Mindfulness can be used around trauma but ideally when integrated into some kind of therapy.

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1. For the next week, notice when something isn’t fitting into your view of what your life “should” look like. Try writing it down.

2. After a week, look at your list. Notice first those things actually under your influence, such as logistics or a miscommunication that requires resolution. Of course, don’t judge yourself if you haven’t actually quite figured out how you’re going to manage, but recognize that you could when the time comes.

3. Now, set solid intentions that seem appropriate:

I’m going to try to schedule more family meals. I’m going to get the team together for informal eye-level chats.

For things that are not actually under your influence, how realistic is your picture of the situation right now? When you find your experience overly weighted by feeling you or someone or something “should” be better or different, pause. Focus your attention instead on a few breaths, or an activity with your loved ones, or another brief mindfulness practice.

Instead of treading down that rutted road again, take a moment to actively seek out whatever there is to enjoy as an imperfect person, living in an imperfect family, during any particularly imperfect day.

Take a moment to actively seek out whatever there is to enjoy as an imperfect person, living in an imperfect family, during any particularly imperfect day.

 

This practice is part of a feature article titled, “Living with, and Loving, Your Imperfect Life,” which appeared in the June 2016 issue of Mindful magazine.

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Why You’re Not Meeting Your Exercise Goals

When it comes to exercise, many of us are full of good intentions but not much action. I’ve been meaning to go to the gym, we tell our friends, and their heads nod in understanding.

We accept this state of affairs as normal, but maybe we shouldn’t. If we can’t get ourselves to do something like exercise, which is pretty much unequivocally beneficial—to our health, no less—what hope do we have in motivating ourselves toward more complex goals and aspirations?

Past research has linked mindfulness to better health, so a group of researchers set out to investigate whether mindfulness might play a role in the interplay between feeling motivated to exercise and actually getting up and doing it. And, indeed, they found that the more mindful we are, the more likely we are to translate motivation for physical activity into action.

In their study, published recently inMindfulness, researchers asked a group of 244 French students about their levels of mindfulness—moment-by-moment, nonjudgmental awareness of thoughts and feelings—in daily life. The researchers also asked why they were motivated to exercise (if at all) and how physically active they were over the past week.

In particular, they focused on intrinsic motivation. People who are self-motivated to exercise are more likely to find it fun and satisfying, rather than (for example) feeling pressured by a family member or guilty for skipping a session.

For less mindful participants, the intrinsic motivation to exercise wasn’t at all linked to higher physical activity. Even those who think sweating it out at the gym is fun weren’t exercising more than the rest of the group if they were also low in mindfulness. But as mindfulness increased, that link between motivation and physical activity became stronger and stronger. Mindfulness seemed to be activating participants’ intentions, and helping translate them into action.

What if you aren’t one of those people who finds exercise pleasurable? (Who are those people, anyway?) Many of us are somewhat less enthusiastic about physical activity, but still acknowledge it to be important and beneficial—a slightly different type of motivation. Can mindfulness still help us?

The researchers can’t say for certain—they didn’t analyze this in the study—but here’s how it might work: Mindfulness involves heightened attention and awareness, which can take us off of autopilot (where we loaf around and watch TV every night rather than taking a brisk walk, for instance). Mindfulness also involves acceptance, which could buffer against feelings of failure related to exercise (Why should I start now? I’m way out of shape). Mindfulness might help would-be exercisers acknowledge their doubts and insecurities, but still be open to opportunities for change.

Mindfulness also involves acceptance, which could buffer against feelings of failure related to exercise (Why should I start now? I’m way out of shape). Mindfulness might help would-be exercisers acknowledge their doubts and insecurities, but still be open to opportunities for change.

Future research may dig into these exact mechanisms, and also look at motivation and mindfulness in other domains. Could all of our latent intentions—to eat healthy, control our temper, or stay in better touch with friends—be activated with a bit of mindfulness? Perhaps so.

Now, all we have to do is motivate ourselves to practice mindfulness in the first place.

 

This article originally appeared on Greater Good, the online magazine of UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, one of Mindful’s partners. View the original article.

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How to Take Back Attention

Hard Time Meditating? Stop Seeking Results

Most of us take up meditation because we want something from it. Maybe we’ve read about the supposed benefits, and we’d like them for ourselves. It’s good to have a sense of intention—without it, we can easily lose our motivation, especially when nothing seems to be happening, or when something we don’t like is on the horizon.

However, striving for success usually gets in the way. As soon as we try to get something else, or be somewhere else, we move into desire or aversion, rather than accepting the reality of how and where we are. This creates trouble. We try to work out how to get calm, or get rid of negativity, or force insight to come. We start pushing for results. Peace can come with practice, but only when we stop trying to hold on to, avoid, or resist what’s already happening. Peace comes only if we practice it as the method. That means letting go of struggle, and making friends with reality.

As soon as we try to get something else, or be somewhere else, we move into desire or aversion, rather than accepting the reality of how and where we are. This creates trouble. We try to work out how to get calm, or get rid of negativity, or force insight to come.

This is why I love the reminder “Abandon all hope of fruition,” which comes from a set of mind-training instructions developed by Atisha, an eleventh century Tibetan meditation teacher. I find its message of seeming doom funny—the joke in meditation is that we get somewhere by not trying to get anywhere. It invites us to set no targets, and to let go of judging ourselves constantly against some invented measure from the past or the future. If you’re seeking peace, it will come when you stop measuring everything, including meditation, against an arbitrary yardstick.

The joke in meditation is that we get somewhere by not trying to get anywhere.

This letting go of judging our practice is precisely what’s trained in mindfulness of breathing. It’s wonderfully simple. Just notice and follow the breath as it’s happening right now. Let everything be as it is, and when you notice that the mind has wandered, gently come back to the breath. Just keep practicing this, and let the results take care of themselves.

Practice: Mindfulness of Breathing

1. Find a quiet place, and sit on either a chair or cushion. Choose a chair with a firm, flat seat, and hold your back upright (although not stiffly so). Let the soles of your feet meet the ground, and bring your hands on to your lap. If you sit on a cushion, you can be cross-legged. Let your body be untensed, inviting openness and confidence.

2. Decide how long to practice for. Your session can be as short as five minutes, or longer. You may find it useful to set an alarm to tell you when to stop, so you don’t have to think about it.

3. Bring attention to the sensations of breath in your belly. Let go of thinking about or analyzing the breath. Just feel it. Follow its natural rhythms gently with attention: in and out, rising and falling. Let thoughts, emotions, body sensations, and sounds be as they are—you don’t need to follow them or push them away. Just allow them to happen, without interference, as you direct gentle attention to the breath.

4. When you notice that your mind has wandered, as it likely will often, acknowledge that this has happened, with kindness. Remember, as soon as you’re aware of the wandering, you have a choice about what to do next. You can bring your attention back to the breath, and continue to follow it, in and out, moment by moment, with friendly interest.

5. Continue with steps three and four until it’s time to stop.

This article is an extract from Into The Heart of Mindfulness, by Ed Halliwell.

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The Power of Saying Sorry (When You Don’t Want To)

Conflict in relationships is not unusual nor is it always a bad thing. It can be constructive and help you work through issues, but egos can often get in the way of a healthy discussion. When we turn an argument into a critique of our partners we feel bad afterwards, but we don’t always apologize because we fear giving up power in the relationship. In reality, an apology is one of the most powerful ways to reconnect with your partner and seek forgiveness.

This short animation from the London School of Life shows how an apology can make all the difference. Explaining you are sorry for how you acted and explaining how you felt is an important tool for keeping up a healthy relationship.

A sincere and thoughtful apology is a meaningful message to our partners that we care, and an offhand “I’m sorry,” isn’t enough. “All apologies aren’t created equal,” says Christine Carter, a sociologist and happiness expert, “a good apology is something of an art.”

In “The Three Parts of an Effective Apology,” Carter explains what else needs to be said: tell them how you feel, admit your mistake and acknowledge the negative impact, and try to make the situation right. Putting in effort to make reparations shows that you’re apology is genuine.

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Brain Overload

I remember watching my nine-year-old son receive his diagnosis of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. As I listened to his doctor’s questions—Did he often lose things? Did he often interrupt people? Did he often have trouble finishing tasks?—it struck me that he wasn’t alone in answering all those questions with a “yes.” I was 48 years old, and could have easily filled a large suitcase with all the sunglasses, jewelry, cell phones, and notebooks I’d lost over the years.

Newspaper deadlines had kept my distraction more or less in check during the dozen years I’d been a foreign correspondent, based in Mexico and Rio de Janeiro. A full-time assistant and the constant excitement of scandals, coups, and natural disasters also helped me stay focused. But then I’d moved back to the California suburbs to freelance and raise my two kids—combining hyper-responsibility with minimal structure and even less support, with plenty of bent fenders and burned pots as the embarrassing results. Worse, far worse, was what I feared was the toll on my husband and children of my ready-fire-aim disposition, as, under stress, I’d blurt out insults and threats.

All of which helps explain why I, too, was soon in the patient’s chair, receiving my own diagnosis and officially joining the club—a large and rapidly expanding club—of several million adult Americans who struggle with ADHD.

In the decade since I first found my peeps, I’ve made a point of learning everything I could about this perplexing disorder. I’ve interviewed top experts, read scores of scientific studies and books, and authored and co-authored three books on the topic. I’ve also test-driven every one of the major and most of the minor recommended treatments that belong to what I’ve come to think of as the ADHD industrial complex. This includes medication, neurofeedback, special diets, exercise programs, and, yes, mindfulness meditation, which in recent years has gained increasing prestige as evidence accumulates of its effectiveness as a strategy to manage clinical-grade distraction.

There’s a lot more to say about mindfulness as a treatment for ADHD. But first let’s clear up two common misunderstandings about the neuro-predicament that has become a kooky hallmark of our frazzled era.

10 million + US adults affected by ADHD – An estimated 4.4% of Americans aged 18 to 44 suffer some degree of disability from ADHD, according to a 2006 survey by the National Institutes of Mental Health.

A Genuine Glitch

The most damaging misperception about ADHD is that it’s nothing more than a convenient excuse for slackers, spineless parents, and prescription stimulant addicts. Yet however much the label has in fact been abused, it’s also estimated that more than 16 million American children and adults genuinely suffer from this mostly genetic disorder—more hereditary than schizophrenia, and nearly as hereditary as height.

The classic symptoms of restlessness, impulsivity, and distraction derive from a glitch in the way the brain processes dopamine, a crucial neurotransmitter that affects motivation, interest, and self-control. Longitudinal studies have shown that those of us with authentic ADHD suffer many more accidents, injuries, academic failures, divorces, and periods of unemployment throughout our lives than our “neurotypical” peers. We also, not surprisingly, have significantly higher rates of anxiety, low-self esteem, depression, and suicide attempts. People joke about ADHD, but on balance it’s not really all that funny.

The other big myth about ADHD is that it’s only a problem for kids. True, the disorder typically arises in early childhood, detected by vigilant parents and teachers. At last count, more than 6 million youth—one in nine kids between four and 17 years old—have been diagnosed, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. To be sure, the number of adults diagnosed is less clear—we’re much less carefully tracked, and many of us have learned to cope with and disguise our symptoms—but researchers believe that serious symptoms persist into adulthood for more than half of all children who have the disorder. A 2006 survey by the National Institutes of Mental Health estimated that 4.4% of Americans aged 18 to 44 suffer some degree of disability from ADHD. That works out to roughly 10 million Americans.

In a startling milestone, in 2015 the number of American adults taking ADHD medications surpassed that of children, accounting for 53% of some 63 million prescriptions, according to data compiled by Shire Plc, which makes the top-selling Vyvanse treatment. The number of adult prescriptions is now increasing twice as fast as that of the overall market.

From this, we can infer that millions of adults are seeking help to cope with distraction. But—alas—we can’t infer that they’re actually being helped. Research suggests that prescription medication, usually in the form of stimulants such as amphetamines or methylphenidate (brand name Ritalin), can help about 80% of those diagnosed with ADHD. But quite often even when people find that the meds improve their focus, they can’t tolerate common side effects including insomnia, loss of appetite, high blood pressure, and irritability. That’s just one reason many experts I’ve interviewed consider medication as simply one potential tactic among many possible approaches, all of which have their strengths and weaknesses (See “What You Can Do about It,” below).

And that brings us back to mindfulness, which is gaining new respect among researchers and clinicians as a therapy for people with ADHD as evidence accumulates of its particularly beneficial impacts.

Life-management skills—impulse control, planning, organizing, keeping track of details in working memory—are part of the brain’s executive function. When it’s not functioning well, everyday life can go haywire.

Peer-reviewed Prestige

Studies abound suggesting benefits of mindfulness for the general population, particularly in reducing stress and anxiety. Given the unique stress and anxiety of living with ADHD, it seemed logical for researchers to explore whether training attention could make life easier for the most attention-challenged people.

“ADHD and mindfulness are two sides of the same coin,” says Mark Bertin, a developmental behavioral pediatrician in upstate New York, who uses mindfulness in his clinical practice treating children and families coping with ADHD.

“ADHD shows what it’s like to live with impaired executive function, which in many ways makes it hard to manage everyday life,” says Bertin, who regularly writes for mindful.org.   “On the other side of the coin, mindfulness shows the benefits of better executive function, making everyday life easier to manage.”

Life-management skills—impulse control, planning, organizing, keeping track of details in working memory—are part of the brain’s executive function. When it’s not functioning well, everyday life can go haywire.

By “executive function,” Bertin is referring to key cognitive skills such as impulse control, planning, organizing, and “working memory”—the ability to keep two or more things in mind at the same time. “These are all life-management skills, and when they’re impaired, as with ADHD, it can affect not just work and school but daily activities like eating, driving, and managing your to-do list,” he says. “That causes a lot of stress and overwhelm, and when you’re feeling like that, it makes it even harder to make skillful choices.”

The first research breakthrough came in 2008, with the results of a small study published in the Journal of Attention Disorders, reporting on a trial of using mindfulness as a treatment for ADHD. Eight researchers, led by Lidia Zylowska, a psychiatrist at the University of California at Los Angeles, enrolled 32 adults and adolescents in an eight-week class based in part on Jon Kabat-Zinn’s popular Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program. Their results were so encouraging that other researchers soon began testing the same hypothesis. In May 2015, Zylowska and two colleagues summarized several of these subsequent studies, conducted with children, teens, and adults with ADHD, in the journal Cognitive and Behavioral Practice. Their conclusion: there was “promising preliminary support” for the treatment approach.

The emphasis here is on “preliminary.” As the review pointed out, many of the studies were small and lacked comparison samples, or “control groups.” The authors called for more rigorous studies—and more are being done.

Even so, in a recent interview Zylowska called mindfulness “a lifesaver.”

“It has made a huge difference in my own as well as my patients’ life,” said the psychiatrist, who these days lives in Los Gatos, California, where she divides her attention among her clinical practice (comprising mostly adults with ADHD), her teaching of clinicians, and raising her eightmonth-old child.

Boys with ADHD tend to be more hyperactive and impulsive, and naturally attract more attention. Girls, with some exceptions, are more day-dreamy. They can slip under the radar, accumulating a buildup of mistakes, failures, injuries, accidents, and self-slights.

Zylowska was first drawn to study ADHD in 2003, when when she was in her late twenties and seeing patients at a UCLA clinic. A new mother was confiding how painfully overwhelmed she was feeling during what she knew should be a happy time. Before the baby came, she had been able to cope with stressful demands at work by taking lots of breaks and recharging herself in nature, but this was no longer possible.

The therapist found herself nodding in recognition.

She was then in the last year of her residency, transitioning from being rigorously scheduled to having much more free time to pursue her own interests. She found herself missing the structure, and worrying that she was sinking into a “rabbit-hole” of indecisiveness, spending too much time alone in her office, chatting on the phone with friends, or obsessing over what should have been routine administrative tasks.

“What resonated for me was this sense of at times having so much going on yet being paralyzed,” she recalled.

Zylowska was already interested in mindfulness. But that moment at the clinic ignited her curiosity about whether mindfulness might be of special use to people with ADHD.

In 2004, she and Susan Smalley, an accomplished researcher and now a professor emeritus in the department of psychiatry at UCLA, established the university’s Mindful Awareness Research Center. Three years later, they collaborated on the seminal study published in 2008.

“We initially faced a lot of skepticism from our colleagues,” Zylowska recalled. “Some said it was a setup for failure: You’re asking people who can’t sit still and focus to sit still and focus.”

To the skeptics’ surprise, the majority of the pilot-study patients not only endured through the eightweek course, but reported—and demonstrated—improvements in focus and mood.

Even so, Zylowska and Smalley thought they could make mindfulness even more user-friendly for people with ADHD, and so went on to devise a new, customized training program. Their eight-week course on “Mindful Awareness Practices for ADHD” features brief periods of sitting meditation—15 minutes at the most— combined with other modifications such as walking meditation, counting breaths, and imagery. Group discussions touch on concerns common to people with ADHD, such as that they talk too much and don’t listen enough.

1 in 9 youth diagnosed with ADHD – According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 6 million kids between four and 17 years old have been diagnosed.

Getting Rid of the Grease

For adults who’ve spent lifetimes coping with clumsy distraction, the practice of mindfulness and its accompanying teachings of acceptance and compassion for oneself and others can also be particularly helpful in coping with what Holly Seerley, a therapist in Mill Valley, California, calls the “greasy buildup” of the disorder. “That includes all the low self-esteem and negative self-talk,” says Seerley, who has led ADHD support groups for the past decade. “Like when you tell yourself, ‘I screwed up again. What a loser. I can’t believe I did that.’ ”

It’s all a matter of being able to shift your attention—a core feature of the practice. Says Bertin: “You just move from the judgment to the idea that this is how things are, and I’m working on it.”

For Deb Rowley, a psychotherapist and ADHD coach in Madison, Wisconsin, who was diagnosed with ADHD in 2009, this ability to shift away from negative thoughts is much more important than simply striving to have a still mind.

Rowley is one of millions of women who grew up struggling with ADHD and yet slipped under the radar, avoiding diagnosis, while boys of the same age got tracked and treated. Boys have historically been about three times as likely to be diagnosed as girls, although for adults, the rates are evening out. That’s because ADHD often manifests differently in boys than it does in girls. Boys tend to be more hyperactive and impulsive, and naturally attract more attention, while girls, with some exceptions, are more day-dreamy. The trouble with this picture is that by the time girls grow up, we’ve accumulated much more of that “greasy buildup” of repeated mistakes, failures, injuries, accidents, and near-to-the-ground self-esteem. Women with ADHD are significantly more prone than men to anxiety, depression, and suicide attempts.

Rowley has strong memories of being a distractible “social butterfly” as a child. “My first-grade teacher once tied me to my chair with my belt,” she said, although she added that “it was in the nicest possible way. I really liked that teacher.”

It wasn’t until she turned 42 that she ended up getting her diagnosis. “People kept telling me I seemed depressed,” she says. As it turned out, she was struggling not only with ADHD but with chronic physical health problems that recently led to a diagnosis of fibromyalgia.

She tried stimulants, but found, paradoxically, that they made her feel sleepy. She could never seem to figure out a helpful dose. But earlier this year, she first tried mindfulness, and has become a devotee. As she wrote in an email:

Relationships can become healthier when individuals hold their tongues periodically! I personally loved the first few times I heard my own voice inside my head calmly say, “Wow. Look at that…you’re pausing right now. You’re not going to react right back…you’re going to gently respond in a moment. Woot! Woot!” (Folks with ADHD often have to have their own personal celebrations!).

Rowley now enthusiastically recommends mindfulness training to her coaching clients, although she cautions them that it’s not inherently an ADHD-friendly approach. “I don’t say that because it’s impossible to sit still and clear your mind,” she said. “I say that because there has to be routine and you have to practice, and if you don’t, you won’t get anything out of it. So it’s really good to have a buddy or be in a class to keep you motivated.”

Her other advice to clients: “I tell them it’s not a luxury to smell the roses. It’s a treatment.” As awareness of ADHD expands and the number of adults diagnosed increases, there’s a bright side for the “neurotypicals.” Given that daily distractions and stress are also becoming more common, amid the fiercest bombardment of cognitive stimuli we humans have ever experienced, you might think of us folk born with clinical-grade distraction as our era’s coal-mine canaries. While we struggle with a biologically rooted handicap, we may simply be just a little further out on a continuum on which everyone else is now moving. The savviest of us are becoming pioneers for remedies, including mindfulness, that are sure to have increasing universal appeal.

My own journey with mindfulness has been one of fits and starts. Over the past decade, I’ve spent hundreds of hours trying, and usually failing, to sit and quiet my mind, and hundreds more in yoga classes, which are much easier to bear, despite how much I still watch the clock. As part of my initial research into possible treatments for ADHD, I even spent five days at a silent retreat at the Spirit Rock Meditation Center, just up the road from where I live—and even though I did it “lite,” taking notes throughout, skipping several meditation sessions to hike, and finding far too many excuses to talk to the staff—it was one of the most powerfully beautiful experiences I’ve had.

In the spirit of self-compassion, I’m trying not to judge myself harshly for all the times I’ve fallen off the mindfulness wagon, or for all the little tricks I’ve used to make my practice easier. I remember hearing the meditation teacher B. Alan Wallace say that counting the breath is like using “training wheels.” I think of that phrase almost every time I count—and then I usually think: that’s better than no wheels at all.

These days, my newest mindfulness crutch is one of the many commercial iPhone apps now on the market, and I must say it’s so far working quite well. I’ve managed to stick to a routine in which I wrap myself in a blanket first thing when I wake up and listen to the narrator on headphones for 20 minutes. Again, it may be training wheels, but they’re still better than none at all.

At this writing I’m on Day 23—and counting.

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Time to See a Psychiatrist?

“It’s natural to wonder to what extent this is a culturally created disorder, given that pretty much everyone these days feels distracted and overwhelmed,” notes Oregon Health & Science University psychiatry professor Joel Nigg, author of What Causes ADHD? But how can you tell for sure whether you have a genuine biological malady or merely a brain that has been Twitterized? There’s no blood test or brain scan (despite what you may have heard) that can diagnose ADHD—or any other psychological disorder, for that matter. Instead, a clinician will ask you questions from a checklist of the classic symptoms—forgetfulness, distractedness, impulsivity, and difficulty finishing tasks— and deliver a diagnosis only if those problems are chronically impairing your performance at school or at work. For a preview, you can ask yourself a few questions.

1 – Do I have more problems prioritizing my work and activities than most people I know?

2 – Do I have more trouble planning ahead than almost anybody else I know?

3 – Do I very frequently make careless mistakes and fail to finish tasks on time?

4 – Has this been typical of me for a long time? (Note here that the vast majority of people who have ADHD have had substantial symptoms by age 12.)

5 – Is there no other obvious explanation, such as drug addiction, a head injury, a sleep disorder, or— we really hope not—early signs of dementia?

6 – Have these issues caused me clear problems in my work and/ or relationships?

7 – Do I have any (and possibly many) close relatives also suffering from chronic distraction and impulsivity?

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What You Can Do about It

Let’s assume that a psychologist or psychiatrist, or even, as is increasingly the case, the family doctor, has diagnosed ADHD. Now that you know you’ve got it (or a friend or family member has told you they have it), what—along with mindfulness—can help? Here are a few of the most promising approaches, which can of course be combined.

Medication

Prescription medications are by far the most popular treatment for ADHD in children and adults, and research shows that the medications—usually stimulants such as amphetamines or methylphenidate (brand name Ritalin)—can help about 80% of those diagnosed with ADHD. But the downsides include possible side effects, such as insomnia and loss of appetite, on top of risks of dependence and abuse.

Exercise

I occasionally take prescription stimulants, and tend to mainline coffee, but my drug of choice is exercise: usually a swift hike, swim, or yoga class. Substantial research confirms that exercise revs up our brains, while releasing natural pain-relievers (endorphins) and antidepressants (serotonin). That’s why John Ratey, M.D., an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and author of Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, says that for some people with ADHD, intensive exercise may actually substitute for stimulants, while for most, it is a helpful complementary tactic.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) can yield benefits in as few as 12 one-hour sessions. In CBT, you learn to recognize and avoid destructive thoughts and beliefs. Such toxic thoughts—“I’m stupid,” “I’ll never succeed”—are common among people with ADHD. Research indicates that medication combined with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is more effective than meds alone. There is also the eight-week Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy program.

Neurofeedback

Neurofeedback, or biofeedback for the brain, has been drawing considerable attention recently as a potentially helpful, drug-free therapy for ADHD and especially for the stress and anxiety that so often accompanies it. The underlying theory is that people can learn to alter their own brain waves through practice and repetition. You do that practice with electrodes attached to your scalp, which send information to a computer program that provides rewarding or discouraging feedback. Some recent studies show positive results, but the scientific consensus is that more “gold-standard,” peer-reviewed research is needed. Moreover, neurofeedback is expensive, since most therapists recommend 40 sessions or more, at an average of $100 per session, and the field remains so unregulated that it can be hard to find a qualified practitioner.

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5 Helpful Books on ADHD

• Mindful Parenting for ADHD
By Mark Bertin/New Harbinger (2015)

• ADHD: What Everyone Needs to Know
By Katherine Ellison & Stephen P. Hinshaw/Oxford (2015)

• The Mindfulness Prescription for Adult ADHD
By Lidia Zylowska/ Trumpeter (2012)

• The Family ADHD Solution
By Mark Bertin/St. Martin’s (2011)

• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Adult ADHD
By Mary V. Solanto/Guilford (2011)

This article also appeared in the April 2016 issue of Mindful magazine.

The post Brain Overload appeared first on Mindful.

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