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Interrupting the Wandering Mind is Helpful for Depression


Research is proving, a wandering mind is not a happy mind. A study done by Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert found that 47% of the time, people were thinking about something other than what they were actually doing, and regardless of whether the wandering thoughts were positive or negative in nature, the more thinking time spent out of the present moment related to greater unhappiness (Killingsworth, M. and Gilbert, D., 2010). Considering these results and the increasing prevalence of depression and other mood disorders, it makes sense we learn strategies to interrupt and steer our wandering minds. Yoga and mindfulness can help you get there.

You might be wondering what is so bad about a wandering mind. For this, consider where your thoughts go when left to wander. The mind ruminates on past events; it elaborates in self-evaluation, comparing, and judging; it daydreams and imagines future scenarios (often negative); and it assigns stories to experiences. Wandering minds jump from direct experience into elaboration – taking you from the present moment into the past, future, or fantasy. As much as this can contribute to creativity, when left unchecked, the wandering mind develops habits of analyzing and projecting negatively towards ourselves and others, making it a very unhealthy addiction.

So, if being lost in our thoughts is making us unhappy, it is important to learn ways to lessen the mind’s natural inclination towards wandering. Ultimately this is about interrupting the moments when we get lost in thought and learning how to redirect ourselves back to the immediate experience, in other words, becoming more mindful. We can do this by accessing our senses – take a couple deep breaths and feel the sensation of the breath moving, smell the air, scan your environment, feel the weight of your feet on the ground, etc. We can also do this by immersing ourselves in the states of creative flow, choosing activities where we are totally absorbed into the experience of the activity, e.g., music, dance, art, gardening, etc.

In yoga and meditation, we practice embodied mindfulness, which is particularly helpful for interrupting the wandering mind. Embodied mindfulness is simply being aware of body experiences as they happen, and we learn to do this without narrating, evaluating, or judging what we are sensing. By noticing what you feel in your body, we teach ourselves to come back to the present moment through the internal sensations, heightening our interoceptive abilities. Embodied mindfulness also helps us build emotional resilience (Bo Forbes, The Neuroscience of Depression (boforbes.com). Regularly checking in to what you notice in your body, without needing to control, change or fix what we feel, gives space for the emotions to be there and helps them move in our bodies, and this can interrupt a cycle of rumination or feelings getting “stuck”.

Try these practices to strengthen your mindfulness skills and “rein-in” the wandering mind:

  1. Body-based Check-ins: Embodied mindfulness is a skill that can be practiced and it doesn’t have to be reserved to yoga class. You can do a couple minute practice anytime in your day.

    Start by settling your attention inwardly (it is helpful to close your eyes) and sense what you notice in your body (without the need to interpret, control, change or fix what it is that you feel). E.g., Do you have tension anywhere? How does your breath feel? Are there any feelings or emotions present and where do you feel this in your body? Are there any other sensations are present in your body and where? If at any time, you come across difficult feelings, see if you can meet them with self compassion. Try breathing into the feeling and notice how it shifts and changes over time.
  2. Mindfulness Meditation with Mental Labeling: In this style of meditation, you are developing the brain’s capacity to recognize when it has wandered off and to learn your habits of what types of thoughts you are ruminating on (giving you insight). Lastly, it gives you practice to how to let go of thoughts.

Find a comfortable seat, set a timer for 5-10 minutes, and close your eyes (or cast your gaze downwards if preferred). In the meditation you aim to keep your mind steady on one thing, usually the feeling of your breath somewhere in your body, and whenever your mind wanders away, the mind can be recruited to briefly step in and label the type of thought you’re having. For example, you can say “obsessing over details” or “negative self-judgment” or “revisiting the past”, and then you return your focus to back to your breath. This is repeated every time you notice your mind has wandered simply as an act of recognition. Don’t be discouraged if you repeatedly do this, that’s totally normal and it’s the important part of the training.

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Somatics and Yoga

For many of you who have attended my yoga classes, you’ll likely recall a portion of the class is devoted to gentle movement patterns linking breathing in and out. The pattern would go as follows: engage a body part (like shrugging the shoulders) on the inhale, and then relax or do the opposite motion (lower the shoulders) on the exhale. These movement patterns, are always done slowly and with mindful attention to the body’s sensations. This is pattern of movement is known as somatics, and is very helpful to reducing chronic muscle tension, pain, and retraining the nervous system out of habitual holding patterns.

Somatics describes any practice that uses the mind-body connection to help you survey your internal self and listen to signals your body sends about areas of pain, discomfort, or imbalance. Somatics can be applied to many different movement practices such as yoga, tai chi, dancing, Pilates, etc. As these practices become more mindful through the somatic process, they allow you to access more information about the ways you hold on to your experiences in your body.

Thomas Hanna, an educator in the field, coined the term in 1970 to describe a number of techniques that share one important similarity: they help people increase body awareness through a combination of movement and relaxation, and specifically a process known as pandiculation. Pandiculation in it’s original definition means the act of stretching oneself, especially on waking (picture the yawn and stretch). Pandiculation is our innate response to the sensations of lack of movement and to tension building up in our muscles.

A somatic exercises is essentially a voluntary pandiculation exercise. The muscles are contracted and released in such a way that feedback loop in our nervous system, which regulates the level of tension in our muscles, is naturally reset. This resetting reduces muscular tension and restores conscious, voluntary control over our muscles. This prevents the buildup of tension and pain in our muscles is critical to maintaining healthy posture and movement.

Somatics are a great resource for nervous system regulation. Breaking the cycle of chronic and unconscious tensing patterns in the body it so important for both physical and emotional health restoration, and this is why body somatic exercises are offered in my classes and individual work.

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Transitions

With September so close, it gets me thinking about transitions. There’s a big change coming up in our household this September. My youngest daughter Teagan is about to start Kindergarten, and what once was a highly anticipated event, has now become one with conflicting emotion. The other morning she asked me, “Mommy, how soon before I go to school?…I’ve been waiting since I was one years old!” Then later that afternoon, she said, “Mommy, I’m sad to go to school because there will be no more mommy and Teagan days”. Within these two statements, she captured the truth of our mixed emotions—both of us having relief and excitement of it finally being here, and the sorrow of loss of her babyhood and time spent together.

Now you might be wondering what this has to do with yoga. Well, what I realized in this recent while, is how important it is to recognize transitions onto their own entity. So often we compartmentalize events. In class we go from one pose and then to the next; we experience the pose while we are in it, and then our minds leap to then next one, rarely paying attention to how we got there. However, nearly half of the class is devoted to the time spent transitioning from one pose to the next, meaning if we don’t consider these transitions, we are barely present for much of the class!

It’s not a stretch (pun intended) to see how this plays out in our lives off the mat as well. How often do you catch yourself making big plans for the future, and the time leading up to event is just time spent waiting, or just time to get through. Yet, this time that we want to just “get through” makes up many of the moments of our lives, as mundane as they can seem at times, it can be these un-special, little moments in our day that may end up being the most precious memories in the twilight of our lives.

I had big plans for new classes and exciting changes with the studio this September, but as the time neared to plan it all out and post the schedule, I found myself feeling overwhelmed and indecisive. I realized my paralysis in planning was my body’s way of informing me that there is already too much going on—I am mentally and emotionally preoccupied soaking up the remaining time in summer, spending time with my family, and preparing for this next big milestone of Teagan starting school. So rather than jumping in with “new” and “busy” with the classes, I’ve decided to rest a while in the space before the next, absorbing all that needs to be experienced and learned right now.

In the spirit of honouring transitions, I’ve also decided to devote next Thursday’s mindfulness class (Aug 31 @ 7:15 pm) to be about paying attention to our transitions between the postures and in our lives. If this intrigues you, come on out! And if I don’t see you out in the studio, as September approaches, I wonder what it would be like for you to transition mindfully in your own life?

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Mindfulness & Self Compassion

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In my own yoga and meditation practice, mindfulness of my thoughts (becoming aware of my thoughts, as they occur), has been one of the most insightful and beneficial pieces to my personal growth. It has revealed to me habits and patterns in my thinking, such as my tendency for my mind to jump to comparing thoughts, doubting thoughts, and judgemental thoughts, and in times of stress, I noticed obsessive, worrying thoughts of the future. Although I’m not proud to admit that so many negative and worrisome thoughts frequent my mind, I also know I am not the only one with these tendencies, and many of us get conditioned in this way of thinking.

Mindfulness helped me identify the patterns in my thinking, but it wasn’t enough to change the way I was thinking. I like to compare this to being witness to discrimination against another person, and choosing to ignore it. The neutral indifference does nothing for your processing of the situation. So it was with me; there was a missing piece to my processing. I needed to acknowledge the unhealthy patterns in my thinking, but without making it another loop in negative self-judgement. That’s when I learned about self compassion’s relationship to mindfulness practice.

So what is self compassion? In its definition, it is simply the practice of speaking to yourself and treating yourself with kindness, caring, and acceptance. Or, better yet, treating yourself in a way that you would treat a dear friend. This nurturing way of being is often missing from the context of awareness, but in order to gain the benefits from our mindfulness practices, self compassion needs to be included. It is helpful to separate their definitions a little further to better understand this relationship:

  • Mindfulness asks us, “What are we experiencing in this moment?” Self-compassion asks us, “What do we need now in this moment?”
  • Mindfulness is about accepting moment to moment experiences… this thought, this feeling, and so forth. Self-compassion is about accepting “the experiencer”.
  • Mindfulness says “feel your suffering with spacious awareness,” (i.e. can you make room for it, can you be with it?). Self-compassion says be kind to yourself when you suffer.

Thich Nhat Hanh gives an eloquent description of how compassion works alongside mindfulness in his advice for working with negative emotions:

“The function of mindfulness is first, to recognize the suffering and then to take care of the suffering. A mother taking care of a crying baby naturally will take the baby into her arms without supressing, judging it, or ignoring the crying. Mindfulness is like that mother, recognizing and embracing suffering without judgement. So the practice is not to fight or supress the feelings or thoughts, but rather to cradle it with a lot of tenderness. Even if that mother doesn’t understand at first why the child is suffering and she needs some time to find out what the difficulty is, just her act of taking the child into her arms with tenderness can already bring relief. If we can recognize and cradle the suffering while we breathe mindfully, there is relief already.”

By breaking down this relationship between mindfulness and self-compassion, it became apparent to me that when we learn to hold our thoughts, emotions, and our feelings with caring acceptance, we acknowledge the bigger picture. We are saying to ourselves, this thought isn’t healthy but I acknowledge it this way and it is okay to have imperfections. Or, this feeling is uncomfortable, but it is real and it has something to tell me, and I will give myself time. It’s also about being more gentle with ourselves when habits repeat themselves, instead of beating ourselves up about it. For within the space of accepting ourselves with loving kindness, we set the stage for growth to happen, and this can make all the difference.
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Yoga for Your Brain: What You Need to Know About Mindfulness and Meditation

110203-064Here is a little Question & Answer piece to explain some basics around mindfulness and meditation, and how they relate to yoga.

What is mindfulness?
Mindfulness simply means maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment.

When we practice mindfulness, our thoughts tune into what we’re sensing in the present moment rather than rehashing the past or imagining the future. Mindfulness also involves acceptance, meaning that we pay attention to our thoughts and feelings without judging them—without believing, for instance, that there’s a “right” or “wrong” way to think or feel in a given moment.

How are mindfulness and yoga related?
Yoga teaches mindfulness each class when we become the observer of what we are noticing in our bodies and minds during a pose or transition. When your yoga teacher cues you to notice sensation, alignment, breath, and thoughts during class, she or he is cultivating the state of mindfulness. This is what makes the practice of yoga different than other physical sports/disciplines – you are learning to move with conscious awareness, and you are learning the skill of shifting your attention away from the unconscious mind-chatter to that of the observer, present to all that is happening in your mind-body from moment to moment.

What is meditation?
Look up the definition of meditation and you’ll get a lot of different answers. That is because within the practice of meditation there are many different styles and techniques. Most commonly, meditation means the act of giving your attention to only one thing in order to focus or affect the mind. Generally, a meditation practice follows a specific procedure to produce transformational results in some way, such as the development of concentration, emotional positivity, self-knowledge, calm, or spiritual growth.

Also, among the many forms of meditation, the process varies – some use an object or a sensation to fix the attention to, while others use chants and mantras (sometimes having a religious connection). There are also guided or content-directed meditations with the focus of achieving a certain state of being or emotion, e.g. cultivating a state of loving kindness or relaxation.

One of the most simple forms of meditation, and the one I am choosing to highlight in this blog, is Mindfulness Meditation; it is secular, well-defined, and researched with proven benefits. Mindfulness meditation uses the process of sustained focus, specifically by focusing your full attention on your breath as it flows in and out of your body. Here are the steps:

  1. Sit in a comfortable seated position with your back straight and eyes closed
  2. Notice the feeling of your breath coming in and going out. Pick a spot where you sense the breath to be most prominent (could be nose, chest, or belly), and focus fully on the sensation of the breath coming in and out.
  3. Your mind is going to wander off in thought constantly, and when you notice you’ve lost your focus on the feeling of the breath, let go of whatever you were thinking and start again, bringing your attention back to the sensation of the breath.

Many people think meditation is about stopping thoughts, but it is not. The mind thinks. That’s its job. The purpose of mindfulness meditation is to help us unhook from our tendency to get caught up in thoughts without any conscious awareness. The first time you meditate, you might notice the instructions are simple but the practice is difficult. You may keep getting lost in thinking about the past or future. The key is to remember that getting caught up in thoughts is normal. Just make note of thinking and return to the breath over and over again.

Why should we practice mindfulness meditation?
Because it is yoga for your brain!

During the meditation practice, every time your mind wanders into thought (and you notice this), and you bring your attention back to the breath, you are strengthening your brain. As Dan Harris explains in his YouTube clip, Meditation for Beginners, (link at bottom), “it is like doing a bicep curl for the brain.” This process of letting go of thought and returning to the breath, improves your concentration and focus, builds grey matter in the brain, and creates a shift in cortical processing (for a more in-depth review of the research showing how meditation positively changes the brain see these links: 7 Ways Meditation Can Actually Change The Brain or Harvard Unveils MRI Study Proving Meditation Literally Rebuilds the Brain’s Grey Matter in 8 weeks.

In my opinion, the greatest benefit of practicing mindfulness meditation is the way it helps us become aware of the self talk in our minds, and specifically to gain awareness of the preoccupation of fixations to things we like, and the aversion of things we don’t like. By watching our thoughts we get insight into the frequency of rumination and projection that is constantly going on in the brain, and we learn how we talk to ourselves. Consequently, mindfulness meditation is proving to be extremely helpful for mental health conditions, specifically for individuals with depression, anxiety, and PTSD, as well as for children as it improves their emotional regulation and focus/concentration.

How often do I need to practice to get benefits?
As a yogi, you are likely already learning the skill of mindfulness during your yoga classes. However, if you want to take this a step further, and get the brain strengthening benefits discussed above, start by setting aside 5 – 10 minutes per day for practicing mindfulness meditation. Here is the short YouTube clip to help you get started: Meditation for Beginners.

So, I hope this blog clears up some answers you may have had about mindfulness & meditation. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to comment or email!

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Get Grounded In 3 Short Steps

110203-064What does it mean to get grounded? To me, getting grounded means pulling ourselves out of our “heads” (out of our stories), and into the present moment. To do this we can use our physical body and our senses to anchor into present-time awareness. When we are present to what is happening now,  in our bodies and around us, we are no longer obsessing about future or past worries, and in this way we are grounding ourselves.

Whenever you are feeling mentally overstimulated or anxious, try these three short steps to feel more grounded:

  • Pause and notice your environment. Simply take a look around and look at the details, e.g. see the colour of the walls or weather in the sky, what objects are around you, look at their shape and texture… Look around, what do you see?
  • Feel you feet on the floor. Whether you are sitting or standing, shoes or no shoes, feel the connection of your feet to the surface below. Really feel that connection. If you are sitting you can also travel your awareness to noticing all the areas of your hips and legs making contact with your sitting surface.
  • Then bring your focus inwards and feel your breath coming in and out of your body. Notice how your breath feels right now. Where in your body do your feel your breath moving…? Continue to concentrate on the sensations of your breath moving in and out of your body and see if, at the same time, you can return to noticing your feet connecting with the ground and your back body to your seat (if you are sitting). Divide your awareness on both these things for one minute.
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