How to slow down

Do you feel driven and restless to the extend that you cannot sleep at night?

Are you wired and also tired?

Or do you have endless to-do lists that drive you mad and keep you up until late at night?

Is it  your mind that is in overdrive? Do you feel you cannot stop thinking? Are you constantly ruminating or worrying?

Maybe all of it? Or just some of these aspects?

When it comes to living our lives in our culture today it is really hard not to feel constantly rushed and driven. There is so much pressure on you. You are in information overload and surrounded by technology that is causing addictions and insecurities on a level we have never experienced before.

With all of that going on, How to slow down? is a vital question!

Here are some simple ways to begin to slow down.

Our culture excels in its focus on doing and achieving things. We take great pride in this and look down very unfavourably on those who do not achieve much and do not run around doing things all day long. And yet we also feel trapped and exhausted by the constant demand that this culture and the to-do list we create are putting on us.  You might even feel that you have become a slave to your to-do list.

This is an excellent place to start learning how to slow down in your life. I do not suggest chucking out the to-do list. It is after all a very useful tool that can help us greatly in managing our days, weeks and life. However, I suggest you start organising your to-do list. Use prioritising. Do you write your to-do list down in order or to you list things in  whatever order they come to mind?  Or worse, do you  have your to-do list in your head, forever changing, never ending?

So, how do you prioritise?  It is simple. Use the image below for inspiration. But before you start reflect on what you value in your life and what really matters to you.

Pause! Take a moment every once in a while during your day and simply pause.

‘What?! ‘You might say. “I have no time for this!”

Let me ask you: Do you spend time on social media, watch TV, play games on the phone or browse the internet? There is plenty of time there that you could use to do something that will actually help you to slow down and make you feel better.

So, pause once in a while. It does not have to be for long. Five minutes can make a huge difference. But this is what you need to do when you pause. You need to become present and connect with your senses and your breath. Pause and notice how it feels to breathe. Pause whatever you are thinking and start looking around and really see what surrounds you. Find something pleasing to look at and savour the experience. Alternatively listen, smell or feel. Use the sense you find most pleasure in. But for those few minutes, or seconds you do this refrain from analysing, judging and thinking about the experience. And as best you can drop fully into the present moment. Notice how refreshing that is.

Learn how to be mindful!

Mindfulness is the ancient art of mastering your mind and living your life more fully. If there is one way I know that is really effective in helping you to learn how to slow down, it is becoming more mindful.

Research has shown that Mindfulness can lead to:

• A 70 per cent reduction in anxiety
• A lot less stress and lower cortisol levels
• An ongoing reduction in anxiety three years after taking a course in mindfulness
• Longer and better quality sleep, with fewer sleep disturbances
• A reduction in negative feelings like anger, tension and depression
• An increase in disease-fighting antibodies, suggesting improvements to the immune system
• Improvements in physical conditions that can be stress related like psoriasis, fibromyalgia and migraines.

Want to know more? Read on!

Mindfulness has been in the media quite a bit and has been embraced by many celebrities across the board. Film stars like Gwyneth Paltrow, Emma Watson and Meg Ryan believe in it. Politicians like Boris Johnson, when he was mayor in London, made sure his staff at City Hall received free help with mindfulness. Public figures like Oprah Winfrey and Anderson Cooper, the CNN news anchor and journalist have embraced it. In fact Oprah Winfrey is so convinced by the power of Mindfulness that she has set up an entire television network – the Oprah Winfrey Network. The comedian Ruby Wax explored the topic of Mindfulness as part of her 2014 Sane New World tour. A number of leading footballers in the England Football Team were reported to be receiving help and support from psychologists and practising Mindfulness before and during the 2014 FIFA World Cup. The players wanted to find balance and the inner strength to cope with the pressures of the game.

Okay, just because some celebrities embrace something, that doesn’t mean this is good for you, right?  It’s just one of these fads, isn’t it? Actually no, not really. Unlike a lot of other things that come and go Mindfulness has been extensively researched ever since it was introduced in a clinical setting by Jon Kabat-Zinn in the 1970s. He wanted to help people with chronic illness and chronic pain to manage their condition better – and he did. He was so successful that his course, Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), is now accepted as an effective intervention in the American Health System and in the NHS in the UK. His project sparked the application of mindfulness ideas and practices for the treatment of a variety of conditions, such as addictions, eating disorders, self-harming, depression and anxiety, as well as stress-induced illnesses like migraine, chronic pain and insomnia. More recently it has been adopted in the field of performance enhancement.

You might feel you need a bit more information before you commit yourself. You might wonder what Mindfulness is and what is expected of you, if you try it. You might also think, how on earth can one practice can be so effective in so many different arenas of life? Well the answer to the latter is quite simple. Mindfulness is much more than a technique or a practice. It is a way of being. A way of being that is pretty different from the way we have been brought up, at least in Western culture.

That still does not tell you much about what it is. So let’s get to it in  a more concrete way. If you have a tendency to forget where you put things, or burn your toast, or have to go back to your car door to see if you locked it, YOU ARE NOT MINDFUL! You are in a state of mindlessness. What I mean by that is that your mind is either preoccupied with the past or with the future. You are not attending to the present moment.

If you suffer from anxiety, chances are that your mind constantly obsesses about the situations that cause you anxiety. You either ruminate about past events and/or you worry about the future and how that will impact on you. In fact you are creating more anxiety by doing this at moments when there is no reason to be anxious. What Mindfulness helps you to do, is to step out of this habit of overthinking and allows you to re-evaluate your reality, by simply helping you to stay in THE PRESENT MOMENT. There are two aspects to mindfulness.

1) The first aspect is that of focusing awareness to what IS in the HERE and NOW. This can range from observing the environment we are in, to our body and its sensations, our thoughts, behaviours and feelings.

2) The second aspect is that of adopting a particular attitude toward our experiences in the present moment. This attitude is characterised by curiosity, openness, acceptance and kindness. It is the attitude of a loving observer who appreciates what is without the need to change anything.

Is that it, you might say? Why do I need to do a course, if it is that simple? Here is the thing: staying in the present moment sounds simple as a concept, but it is really difficult to do. Go on, try it right now. Try to stay fully in the present moment for just 30 seconds, without wandering off into thoughts, memories, associations or mind chatter. Hm, you might find it is not easy at all. And that is why I am giving you this course.

I will guide you through the HOW TO of Mindfulness step-by-step and in many different ways. I know from my own experience and from my experience as a Mindfulness teacher and therapist that we all have different ways of learning, different ways of understanding and different preferences. What works for one person, will not work for another. This is why my course  looks at Mindfulness from a lot of different angles. Though the main way to understand and learn what Mindfulness really is, is by experiencing it. Mindfulness is an ancient Buddhist practice. What you will learn about Mindfulness is taken out of the context of Buddhism. Fear not, the way I teach Mindfulness is free from any religious content.

When Richard came to my Mindfulness course he told me that he had suffered from anxiety for 22 years. His anxiety peaked a year ago when he lost his job. Since then he had been unable to return to work. He had shared that one of his strategies to calm his anxiety was to always achieve the best and be very critical of himself. This is a very common strategy, which unfortunately often causes even more anxiety, especially if it is paired with perfectionism. His GP recommended he should try Mindfulness. When Richard arrived at the first session, he was very anxious. Fortunately the group was extremely small. It meant that he was able to explore his specific issues in relation to Mindfulness in some detail. Over the weeks of the course you could see Richard transforming. The more he understood what Mindfulness was and the more he practiced it, the more he seemed to become himself: bright, caring and full of life.

Here is what Richard says about the course in his own words: ” It was one of the best decisions I have ever made. Britta introduced me to Mindfulness over a 6 week course. The course involves a series of exercises which are reinforced with audio files and handouts to allow you to try them at home. These exercises provide you with essential life skills to cope with increasing pressures of work and society. Britta has been a fantastic mentor who is kind, calming, patient and accommodating. Thanks to Britta and Mindfulness I am now getting my life back and returning to work in the new year. I would recommend this course to anyone who suffers from stress or anxiety. ” (Richard, December 2018)

By now there are thousands of studies and research papers showing how effective  Mindfulness practice is for your wellbeing. Organisations are increasingly concerned with the resilience and wellbeing of employees, in part because of a growing awareness  of sick leave and staff turnover associated with stress and mental health problems. Since 2009 the number of sick days lost to stress, depression and anxiety has increased by 24% and the number lost to serious mental illness has doubled. The leading cause of sickness absence in the UK is mental ill health, accounting for 70 million sick days – more than half of the total every year.

 A 2014 meta-analysis of 209 clinical research studies with a total of 12,145 participants concluded that mindfulness training showed “large and clinically significant effects in treating anxiety and depression.” Mindfulness-training programmes have also consistently been found to reduce self-reported measures of perceived stress, anger, rumination, and physiological symptoms, while improving positive outlook, empathy, sense of cohesion, self-compassion and overall quality of life. Mindfulness training is associated with reduced reactivity to emotional stimuli, as well as improvements in attention and cognitive capacities.

By relating to thoughts, emotions, body sensations and events in life more skilfully, people who practice Mindfulness may be less drawn into unhelpful habitual reactions and more able to make good choices about how to relate to their circumstances.

This is particularly important when we think about relationships.

Relationships are very important to us. How we feel about others affects us deeply. And how we manage our relationships has a massive impact on our sense of self and our wellbeing at work and in our personal lives. At work how you feel about your co-workers and managers can impact how effectively you and your team accomplishes tasks.In the rest of our lives having good relationships, being able to maintain them and  foster them is absolutely crucial for our wellbeing. Mindfulness training has been shown to make people who practice Mindfulness more likely to respond compassionately to someone in need, and enjoy more satisfying personal relationships.

Here is a case study:

34 mental health trust clinicians and staff attended mindfulness training delivered by a head for work. 93% of participants reported an improvement in relationships with colleagues. Independent research by UEA researcher Bronwen Rees highlighted the key benefits of the training as:

• creating space for more measured response so that situations do not get inflamed
• helping create greater empathy and ability to get on with others
• creating greater self-acceptance

Credit to: The Mindfulness Institute, October 2016.

In the light of all this, think about what Mindfulness could do for you! With so much evidence to back it up, it’s definitely worth a try!