Mindfulness

Start Here!

The awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentaly to the unfolding of experience, moment to moment.
Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD

Welcome to MT@MC Online! Depending upon what brought you here, you might be curious to know what mindfulness is, or how to get the benefits of mindfulness for yourself. If you're taking online classes or your schedule doesn't allow you to come in person to MT@MC, you can learn and practice right here. MT is taught in 8-week cycles - each session covers a different topic and type of practice. Like most classes, each session builds on the one before, so we suggest you start by doing the first two sessions, at least, before sampling others, or simply do them in order.

One other thing - mindfulness training is a learn-by-doing kind of thing. You can read about it, talk about it, watch videos or listen to lectures about it and learn a lot of good and interesting stuff, but the benefits (and actual understanding) come only with practice. Like going to the gym, right? And, just the gym, some days feel 'better' than others. What matters is that you keep after it. Fall away? Begin again.

What is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness is just that—being able to focus on the present moment, whether that be a class assignment, a professor’s lecture, a conversation with a friend, or a beautiful sunset. Life is full of distractions that can draw the attention away from what is important in the here and now.

What is Mindfulness Training?

Mindfulness Training (MT) is a method of training your brain to increase your capacity to be calm, focused, and to be more aware of your present-moment experience. Methods include exercises that help you pay attention to thoughts, sensations, feelings, emotions, and impulses without judging them or trying to make something happen. Sometimes it’s easier to understand mindfulness when you consider its opposite: mindlessness: being inattentive, distracted, acting on impulse, being on “autopilot” without paying attention to what you are doing, and so on. Perhaps you can think of an example of this kind of mindlessness in your own life.

How does it work?

MT@MC runs in 8-week cycles. Each session features a different strategy that may be useful to you, and/or a specific situation. We suggest that you make your way through the training in the same way—one topic per week. As an online learner, you have the option of visiting the sessions more often and longer than you could if you were doing our in-person only version.

Training requires repeated practice over time. Just as you would need to practice lifting weights or running, or shooting hoops to become stronger, so does mindfulness require practice to become stronger at focusing. Think of it as mental push-ups.

It’s helpful to set a time every day, or at least most days, to practice the skills you have learned that week. And with online access, it’s even more important to plan on specific times, since you have more scheduling freedom. It’s easier to put it off if you don’t plan ahead. More practice=greater benefit.

Benefits of MT

The brain changes. Because of neuroplasticity the more we do something, the more the brain grows the ability to do that particular activity—this is called learning.
Learning how to be mindful also improves:

The ability to concentrate, sustain attention, and notice/refocus
The working memory
Emotional balance

and makes us less judgmental of ourselves and others. To find out more, click on this link to see a short video on neuroplasticity.

Check out these short YouTube videos to see how Mindfulness works in the brain:

Mindful Breathing

Brain with colorful background and individual meditating

Getting Started

The basic method is very simple. All you need is a "good seat", attention to your breath, and the willingness to return to your breath when the mind wonders.

A “Good Seat”
Sit tall in a chair with your low back supported and feet flat on the floor. It may mean putting a small pillow at the small of your back, or putting a small stool under your feet to help them reach the floor. Place your torso in a proud position with the shoulders comfortably back and down. It may help to circle the shoulders a few times to loosen up a bit.

Attention to your breath
To start bring your chin to a position level with the floor. If your shoulders are tense, consider reaching just the head backwards as far as it will go, and then letting it return to a position of comfort. This action will usually allow the head come to a neutral position.

Next, start breathing slowly, in and out through your nose with your mouth closed. Nostril breathing has its own health benefits: greater filtering, warming, and moisturizing of the inhaled air. Also, by breathing through the nose, it is much easier to slow the breath. Try inhaling to a slow count of 1-2-3 and exhaling even more slowly to a slower count of 1-2-3-4(- 5 or even -6).

The willingness to return to the breath when your mind wonders
Now, sit quietly and breathe. Notice the temperature of the air as it enters and as it exits, or the rise and fall of the chest and belly as you breathe. When you notice that your mind has drifted off to something else, gently bring your thoughts back to the breath.

You concentrate on “present moment awareness”: thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, sensory input, feelings, impulses, whatever comes.

Attitude or approach

Non-judging (observe without labeling as right/wrong, good/bad, desirable/undesirable
Non-striving (practicing without trying to make something happen

Simple observation and noticing:

"I notice that..."
Tagging experience ("thinking", "worrying", "restless")

Accepting distractions and mind-wandering as an inevitable part of the process

Refocus each time you notice wondering, over and over again.
Tag frustration, restlessness, and impatience when it arises.

Know that repetition improves your practice. Persistence shows a "dosage effect"--the more you do it the better the result.

What Mindfulness is Not
Relaxing

The aim is calm alertness.
Sometimes greater awareness of internal experience can spotlight all the "yack" and static that goes on inside your head. If this happens, not to worry. It's normal and will calm with time.
Mindfulness training has been shown to be beneficial whether you feel it or not.

About a particular religion or philosophy.
The term "Mindfulness Training" (MT) refers to non-secular practices based on ancient contemplative traditions and verified by modern neuroscience. It isn't Buddhism, Hinduism, yoga, or anything but working toward being a better human being--always a good thing!

Now you give it a try.

Silence your phone and try to reduce the possibility of any other distractions during your practice.
Find a tall, comfortable seated position on a chair or on a cushion on the floor against the wall or other surface. Be sure your back is supported.
Take a few slow breaths in and out.
Click on either of the following guided practices below to get started. If you are just learning how to practice, try the first (5-minute one), until you get the hang of it.
When you feel ready, try the second one, a little over 15 minutes.

5 minute Breathing Meditation - (MARC UCLA)

Head with sound waves text reads "breathing meditation"

15:22 minute Awareness of Breath (MARC UCLA)

Head with sound waves text reads "awareness of breath"

How was that?

It's very common at first to be very distracted. If this is the case for you, try using the short guided practice every day or at least most days the first week. You'll be surprised at how much easier this gets with repetition.

If you are doing MT as a class assignment, download this form to complete and return to your instructor:

mt_at_mc_credit_sheet_for_students (1)_0.docx

paper with meditation image, text reads "class assignment"

Minding the Body and Body Scan

Mindfulness of the Body

Practices:

STOP Technique
Body Scan

The body scan has proven to be an extremely powerful and healing form of meditation. It forms the core of the lying down practices that people train in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn, in Coming to Our Senses

Learning Objectives

Describe how to increase awareness of the body using the body scan technique
Demonstrate the STOP technique
Describe different physical sensations experienced when sitting in a "dignified posture" vs. slumping posture
Discuss the interaction between physical movement/posture/sensations and state of mind (mood, worry, attention) on physical tension/well-being--"the loop"

face with brain popping out text reads preoccupation vs mindfulness of the body

Preoccupation with the Body

Most of us are preoccupied with our bodies, and much of what preoccupies us is judgement about our bodies:

appearance and attractiveness
abilities
athleticism, strength
quality how we move, etc. etc.

This judging can cut us off from simply living in our bodies and tuning in to basic sensations in our bodies. We only notice the BIG dramatic stuff such as pain, sexual arousal, and extremes of tension and excitement.

Mindfulness of the Body

Mindfulness of the body opens up the simple experience of what is happening inside, without judgement or trying to "make" something happen. With practice, good things happen! We can:

"reconnect" the head to the body holding it up
promote relaxation and reduced tension overall
increase awareness of how your body feels . There are immense benefits to this awareness: it allows us to attend to tension before it becomes pain, and gives us the ability to hold ourselves in the way we want to feel
befriend our bodies

Body practice #1: the STOP technique

Letter board on desk with lamp that reads STOP

The purpose of the STOP technique is to allow you to, at any time, take about a minute to reconnect with the body and get out of the "autopilot" state. There are simple steps to take, easy to remember using the acronym STOP:

Stop whatever activity you are doing, whether pleasant or unpleasant
Take a breath, then another
Observe, in that friendly, interested fashion, without judgement "I notice that..."

your thoughts are coming and going, but they aren't facts, are they?
your emotions. Name them, notice where you feel them
your physical feelings - the position of your body, your posture, sensations inside and outside of your body - pleasant/neutral/unpleasant
no need to change anything (unless you need to), simple notice and name

Proceed with the activity you stopped, no proceeding intentionally.

Now, let's practice the STOP technique.

To learn the STOP technique as a guided practice, watch and practice along with the YouTube video below. Note: This video by Elisha Goldstein is about 5 minutes long--much longer than the STOP technique will usually take you to do. He explains it and then helps you through the guided practice.

Body practice #2: Body Scan

body outline with heart and colorful background

The body scan is the mindfulness exercise in which you move your awareness around inside your body for an extended time, checking in with each area of the body, section by section, attending to both strong and subtle sensations. This practice cultivates the capacity for sustained attention, and can be very relaxing. Some reactions people experience when they do the body scan:

falling asleep or zoning out
being aware of unfamiliar sensations, which can feel weird

It is important to know that these reactions are okay and nothing to be concerned about at all. A list of common sensations and reactions that people can experience is here. There's quite a range!

Now you give it a try...

Below are three guided meditation audio files of different lengths. The first lasts for 3 minutes; the second for 15 minutes. The body scan is usually done while lying down on the back. If you have back pain, consider lying down with the knees bent and/or supported by pillows or up on the seat of a chair. If you are unable to lie down, you could sit in a comfortable chair with your legs supported if possible. The goal is to have your body as comfortably supported as possible.

The first time you practice the body scan, consider doing the 3-minute one. It may take a time or two before you feel comfortable with it. Stick with the short practice for as long as you need or like. When you are ready, try the longer one. It's most helpful to try one of these guided practices on most or all days during the next week.

3-minute MARC UCLA Body Scan

15-minute The Body Scan-Williams and Penman

Want to learn more? Check out this TED Talk by social psychologist, Amy Cuddy.

Extra Good Bonus Stuff: Posture

Posture is not just walking around with a book balanced on your head! The body and brain actually form a feedback loop, each influencing the other. Most of us are aware that how we feel is reflected in our posture--when we're happy our steps are light, we smile, make eye contact, and so on. But did you know that how you carry yourself influences your thoughts and feelings without our conscious awareness of the process.

In traditional meditation (and MT), posture is one more tool to create our desired state of calm alertness (ideal when in class and studying). We describe this posture as sitting in a "dignified fashion":

back is comfortably straight
shoulders are back
arms and hands are relaxed
feet are supported by the floor

This position is good for sitting quietly for practice and is comfortable for an extended period of time. You can also use this 'preflight checklist' of how to sit.

More on the benefits of improving posture (no nagging, we promise!)

If you are doing MT as a class assignment, download this form to complete and return to your instructor:

mt_at_mc_credit_sheet_for_students (2).docx

head outline with audio waves, text reads 15-minute The Body Scan-Williams and Penman

Practice: Loving Kindness

“We all are so deeply interconnected; we have no option but to love all.”
― Amit Ray, Yoga and Vipassana: An Integrated Life Style

Learning Objectives:

After this session, participants will have the knowledge required to:

Describe typical characteristics of "auto-pilot" reactions, both their own and people's in general
Describe typical differences between self-centered thoughts/reactions and compassionate thoughts/reactions
Identify 2-3 benefits of compassionate POV to everyday situations at school

Background

Each day we encounter people doing things we don't like

and every day we do things that we don't like. These things could be big with major impact, very painful, or could threaten our well-being. More often, however, they aren't so big--they just feel like they are, and our minds react very strongly. These feelings can build up inside to elevate stress and result in an "auto-pilot" (unconscious, automatic) reaction of fight or flight.

Then there're our feelings about our feelings...

Our automatic judgments of ourselves, automatic self-criticism of our thoughts, feelings, and reactions complicates matters. We judge and criticize ourselves when we fail to act as we "should", which could be most of the time!

Auto-Pilot

When your auto-pilot is "turned on" it's easy to feel very threatened or annoyed by relatively minor stuff. When stressed and on autopilot, we over-react without being aware of how this is happening or even that it is happening. Our over-reaction feels justified.

Mindful awareness allows us to notice this auto-pilot misery and step back from it.

MT is aimed at increasing our capacity to be aware and make a more conscious choice about how we interpret what's occurring at any given moment and what we're going to think. But in order to choose, it's necessary to notice that your are, in fact, thinking, making judgments, and interpreting your experiences. That's the awareness part. When you know that there's more than one way to see things, you then have some freedom to choose.

To illustrate this point, click on the video link below to view "This is Water" by David Foster Wallace.

Video: "This is Water" by David Foster Wallace

Your thoughts about the video

Wallace brings up the notions of the "I-am-the-center-of-the-universe" default mode that leads to our reflex to think of others as getting in our way, opposing or threatening us. Can you think of a time when you experienced being in this frame of mind?
Can you imagine an instance in which you are able to choose how you think of a frustrating situation?
How could you become more aware of your auto-pilot reactions to the external world to allow you to choose your reaction?

Academic Impact

Have you ever seen students (yourself included) get caught up in being-in-the-center-of-the-universe? What happened? How did it impact on being successful as a student? Think about this mindset and how it might manifest itself in the following situations and settings

classroom
group projects
dealing with instructors
motivation to sustain effort in challenging situations

How could becoming more conscious of how you're reacting, then choosing to change your reaction, affect things for you at school?

What might change for you?
What would you do more or less of?
What makes this good idea so hard?

Practice: Loving-Kindness to Cultivate Compassion and Reduce Stress/Over-Reactivity

Loving-kindness practice (also known as "Metta meditation") involves intentionally creating thoughts, mental images, and sensations that bring up kind and compassionate feelings towards other people and yourself; seeing everyone, including yourself, as wanting the same things--to be happy, to feel safe, to be well. You wish yourself well, wish others well, wish the whole world well, regardless. It helps us deal with difficult feelings--pain, anger, hopelessness, and fear--from the biggest and most profound to the daily inconveniences where we get ourselves bent out of shape when we don't get what we want.

Practicing good will and compassion toward others helps us to:

disengage from automatically feeling that other people and/or the world in general is out to get us
reduce defaulting to seeing others as a threat to us
see the "big picture" and not take everything so personally

Self-compassion helps us be okay with being human.

Being human means:

making mistakes repeatedly
worrying about how others see us
being excessively self-conscious
being overly self-critical
being needy
etc...all that human, petty, frustrating crap

BTW, compassion and wishing others well isn't

about letting yourself or others get away with bad behavior, making excuses, letting other people mess with you, or giving in/being helpless. It's about easing the stress and pain that difficulties cause you. Your distress doesn't automatically impact the other person or make them accountable, but it always impacts you. When you're less upset, it's often easier to set limits, hold boundaries, and do the hard work of letting go and taking whatever action is necessary.

Reminder: Loving-Kindness is a training practice

You have to do it repeatedly for the training effect to occur--for it "to stick".
It doesn't matter if you feel it at the time or not.
It can sometimes bring up intense feelings, which (like all feelings) can be noticed and let go.
Setting up cues or reminders for yourself to practice can be helpful.

Let's give it a try.

The following are guided loving-kindness practices. They are 9- and 10-minutes long, respectively. Try each one, on the same or separate days to see if you prefer one or the other, or just to experience a different voice.

Loving Kindness Meditation-Diane Winston (MARC UCLA)

Befriending-Mark Williams and Danny Penman

How was that for you?

For the next week,

Do at least two Loving-kindness formal practices during the week, choosing from one of the above or finding your own practices.
Continue informal daily mindfulness training.
If you are doing this practice as a class assignment, download the assignment sheet here

mt_at_mc_credit_sheet_for_students (3).docx

Exiting Auto-Pilot

“Knowing what you are doing while you are doing it is the essence of mindfulness practice.”
-Jon Kabat-Zinn, Full Catastrophe Living, Revised Edition

Practice: Mindful Eating

Individual eating with five senses in the background

Session Objectives

After this session, students will be able to

Describe the difference in experience between eating "normally" and eating with intention and awareness
Identify examples of being on "autopilot"
Discuss the impact of autopilot on academic functioning
Describe the potential benefit of eating mindfully on academic functioning

Inattentive vs. Mindful Eating

Inattentive Eating

Autopilot is a necessary mental function. We can do all kinds of things without paying much attention to what it is that we are ding or what we are experiencing. We can walk and talk at the same time, or make important safety moves while driving without much thought. At the same time, staying in autopilot can be a problem if we miss out on our actual life experience because we are not paying attention to it. Think about the following examples:

not noticing it's a beautiful day because of a preoccupation with worry or trivial thoughts
dangerous, distracted driving (ever missed your exit or arrived at your destination without much memory of the drive?)
eating without attention to food or the experience of eating

Mindful Eating: Exiting Autopilot and Tuning In

Mindful eating, then, is eating with awareness and intention--the "first bite pleasure." Think about biting into a really juicy peach, compelling attention and is so good. Turn off autopilot and be curious and attentive to what happens. Mindful eating

reconnects us to the body, hunger, and fullness
reconnects us to the effect of various foods on our physical well-being, and especially to our mental state. Think of the Snickers commercial: "You're not yourself when you're hungry."

Using the example of eating, how could inattentiveness cause problems?

Failure to enjoy food can lead to less satisfaction
Eating more than needed, not enough, or foods that can make you feel uncomfortable afterward
Disconnection from the body's experience of hunger, taste, satisfaction, and satiety
Inclination to grab what's handy--often highly processed foods that work against sustained attention and energy
Contribution to feeling generally cut off from the body and dissatisfaction with the body

Application to academics

Think about times when difficulties due to hunger or overeating, eating junk food, body image, etc. have impacted academic functioning. Some examples of difficulties are

difficulty paying attention
low energy/feeling sleepy
irritability
overreaction
feeling "out of it"
being impatient with classmates

Now think about times when you attended to the richness of the moment or realized that you missed out on a present moment. Actually experiencing a moment can really be refreshing--a stark difference between present moment awareness and unproductive worry or trivial distraction ("mental junk food").

Let's give it a try

You will find two mindful eating practices in this section, one for raisins (or other dried fruit) and one for chocolate. If you eat both of these foods, you might want to try both practices; they are both included because some people can't eat (or don't like) one or the other. Once you "get the hang of it" a mindful eating practice is fairly easy to apply to foods you do eat and like.

Mindfulness and the Art of Eating Chocolate

This guided practice is a little over 4 minutes long. You will need a piece of wrapped chocolate before you start.
The Chocolate Meditation - Williams & Penman, from Finding Peace in a Frantic World

head outline with audio waves, text reads the chocolate meditation

Raisin Exercise

This guided practice is about 5 minutes long. You will need a raisin before you start.
Eating a Raisin Mindfully - Dzung Vo

How was that?

How was that different from your general eating experiences? More intense? Frustrating? Pleasurable?
Were you more aware of your emotions during the exercise?
Could this change your future experience of eating chocolate or raisins? Other foods? Why or why not?

In the next week

Eat at least one meal or snack mindfully. You could use these guided audios to help you if you like.
Aim for at least two formal guided meditations this week (your choice).
Practice informally as often as possible.

Class Credit

If you are doing this session for class credit, please download the form below to complete and turn in to your professor.

mt_at_mc_credit_sheet_for_students (4).docx

Practice: Using Imagery (Mountain and Lake Meditations)

Snowy mountains with lake and a mountain reflection in the lake

Through it all, the mountain just sits, experiencing change in each moment, constantly changing, yet always just being itself.
It remains still as the seasons flow into one another and as the weather changes moment by moment and day by day, calmness abiding all change…
- Jon Kabat-Zinn -

Learning Objectives:

After this session the student will be able to

Describe the effect of deliberately evoking positive emotional states via visualization, recalling vivid memories and other "imaginal" techniques
Describe their own experience with thoughts/images changing their subjective emotional state
Identify 2-3 situation to apply a grounding practice
Outline at least one benefit of "training" via practicing the use of imagery

Using Imagery to Access the Body/Mind Feedback Loop to Evoke Positive Emotion

Everyone knows that how you feel physically affects how you feel emotionally and influences what you think about a situation.

When you're sick, tired, hungry, etc., everything feels worse
If you're already experiencing anxiety and worry, they worsen when you aren't feeling your best

There's no perfect "off switch" (you can't talk yourself out of the way you feel), but you can influence your physical and emotional states through a "side door."

Did you know you can intentionally create positive physical, mental, and emotional states by deliberately inducing them in your imagination? The same areas of the brain activated during an actual life experience "turn on" when we induce positive emotion via imagery that evokes those poistive life experiences. If done repeatedly, these cortical areas grow more neural connections and get stronger. This strength, in turn, can lessen our vulnerability to worry, distress, agitation because we

develop a greater "reservoir" to "roll with" stress without getting as upset, sort-of like dissolving a teaspoon of salt in water. Think of how much saltier the water would be if you used a cup of water vs a gallon of water.
deepen the ability to re-balance when we do get overwhelmed.
become better-able to accept intense feelings without fighting them, so not freaking out about freaking out, or worrying about worrying.

Our non-rational minds respond well to images that evoke feelings, sense memory, and this strength is worth embracing. The non-rational mind loves metaphor.

Last, as in previous and future sessions, posture counts. Sitting in a proud way, or fully supported in a lying down position, can evoke the images about which you are imagining, and can deepen the practice.

Imagery & the Emotional Mind

Imagery can speak to our non-rational "emotional minds" using metaphor (e.g., you are a mountain, you are a lake), so employing imagery as a technique is an important mindfulness tool to have handy in the toolbox. For many, it can be more effective than logic to create and strengthen positive emotional states. In this session, we'll be using two different imagery practices borrowed from Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). These practices are aimed at cultivating equanimity (evenness of mind especially under stress) and acceptance (it's okay to have strong emotion). These practices are

Mountain meditation: stable and enduring as the seasons pass, with storms, fired, mudslides, visitors who like/dislike the mountain come and go. This practice is a metaphor for worry, pain, anger, judgment, all passing emotions and experience
Lake meditation: natural for the surface to be sometimes smooth (calm) and sometimes choppy (distress), always below the surface is the quiet depth of the lake, just like we have internal reserves of awareness.

I grew up with the smell of the lake and the feeling of the woods.
-Steven Tyler-

Let's give it a try

Mountain Meditation

Posture: This is a seated meditation in which posture is an important part of the experience. Your body will be seared like a mountain (at the beginning, the audio will describe how to sit), inviting a sense of stability. This is a 15-minute practice.

Mountain Meditation

Lake Meditation

Posture: This meditation is generally done lying down, but can be done in a seated position. If you wish to lie down, but often experience back soreness, some options are to place a pillow or rolled up blanket under your knees or thighs to relieve pressure on the back. Other lying variations:

back and head on the floor with calves and feet on a chair, thighs at a 90 degree angle to the floor and chair back
Lying on the floor with bottom against the wall and legs up the wall in a 90 degree angle.

This practice is about 20 minutes long.

Lake Meditation

How was that?

How were these experiences?
When could it be useful to do these practices at school? Home? Work? When with friends and family?
How might it help to have more acceptance of passing thoughts and emotions, including the unpleasant or undesirable ones?

In the next week

Try to do one or both of these practices a couple of times.
Do a formal breathing practice on the days when you don't do a mountain or lake meditation.
Do several informal breathing practices during the day.
If you are doing this practice for class credit/extra credit, print the sheet below to complete and turn in to your instructor.

Class Assignment

mt_at_mc_credit_sheet_for_students (6).docx

Practice: Walking Meditation

We are hardly ever "just walking."
-Jon Kabat-Zinn

Session Objectives

After this session, students will be able to

Describe the ways in which walking meditation differs from auto-pilot walking
List the potential benefits of using walking as a mindfulness practice
Discuss how to use any discomfort experienced during practice as an opportunity for greater awareness

Mindful Walking Basics

Walking meditation is mindfulness in action and an excellent way of developing our ability to take awareness into our ordinary lives. When we do walking meditation, we are using the physical, mental, and emotional experiences of walking as the basis for developing greater awareness.

Walking is a prime auto pilot activity – it doesn’t require intense focus/concentration to do, so it leaves time for the mind to wander/talk/do another activity. We are hardly ever “just walking.” (Kabat-Zinn, 1990). Usually, when we walk, our thoughts have gone on ahead to where we’re going, or are still someplace we’ve already left, or are pretty much anywhere except where we actually are right at this moment.

This is one of those times where we can get "spun" by our minds-- into worry, into comparing ourselves to those around us, into wanting the things we see (like when we walk past shop windows) whether we really want/need them.

Auto-pilot misses an opportunity for the goodness of the everyday moment.

the feel of your body moving, the feel of your breath, your heart, the swing of your arms, etc.
the world within us and the world around us have many opportunities for rich experience, and by simply observing, there’s a chance of experiencing appreciation for the wonder of things so ordinary that they normally escape our notice.

Walking Meditation Can Be Easier

for people who get restless sitting. (Another example of how there’s no one ‘right’ way to practice mindfulness – no lotus required.) It can also be easier to "sneak" into the day because we don't have to set time aside in the day for it. Just do informal practice while going from place to place (e.g., parking lot to classroom). You can also incorporate other MT practices while walking such as loving kindness as a focus while walking. It is very helpful to have an audio track for practice when you are doing it on your own.

How to Do It

Walking meditation is simply that--attending to and noticing what it feels like to simple take one step after another in this particular place, at this particular time.

There's a lot you can be aware of while doing walking meditation. When you first start doing this practice, you might want to keep the practice very simple, especially if you find that you get distracted easily.
The first time you try walking meditation, you give it at least 20 minutes and go to some quiet place like a park, where you are likely to be able to walk undisturbed.
You can start off just by being aware of your body as you walk. Perhaps you might spend most of your time being aware of just your feet. It's okay to do this, and to build up the practice slowly.
You might then expand your awareness beyond the feet, to include the calves. Ant then the knees, the thighs, the hips, and eventually the whole body.
Once you've gotten better at keeping your awareness grounded in your body, you can start becoming aware of other elements of your experience, like your feelings and emotions.
When you can do that and still stay mindful of the practice for most of the time, then you can add the elements of mindfulness of objects of consciousness and balancing the awareness of inner and outer.

It can be done very, very slowly or at a normal easy pace, indoors or out, barefoot or not, in a line or a circle.

Formal practice is walking without trying to get anywhere, just doing the action of walking.

Being present with each step, realizing that you are just where you are (which is why walking in circles and/or back and forth in lines allows your mind to quiet, know it is not striving to go anywhere).
Eventually, the mind may call it stupid/pointless/useless, or play games by balancing or have you looking or thinking about other things (Kabat-Zinn, 1990).

Informal walking meditation can be done when you do have somewhere to go--being aware of walking while you are on the way to your destination.

Obstacles and Opportunities

Obstacle
Feeling awkward attending to something usually automatic
Opportunity
Practice deliberately being kind and curious

Obstacle
Feeling self-conscious
Opportunity
Notice mind’s judgment and chatter, opportunity for ordinary courage

Obstacle
Feeling like you should be walking differently than you are
Opportunity
Notice judging thoughts and allow them to pass

Obstacle
Distraction (like always)
Opportunity
Use the skills you have developed so far to bring the mind back to the body

Let's Give It a Try

This 12-minute audio file from Headspace gives a nice prep for an outdoor walking practice. Consider downloading on your phone and taking it for a spin.

Walking Meditation - Headspace

Academic Applications

The walking practice is

an effective stress reliever and mind-clearer during the day and evening. Reminder: it is important to just do it, without trying or striving to make something happen.
easy to do at school between classes or on breaks to calm, center, ground, and refresh yourself. Added bonus: it doesn't look weird.
an alternative way to hone the skill of present moment awareness and attention control (needed for concentration and focus). It can be easier to get the body to do something specific that allows the mind to follow, than it is to go directly to the mind and expect it to comply.
sometimes easier for people prone to restlessness and who have a hard time sitting. Moving the body activates the cerebellum, part of the cortical "attention loop." Some ADHD experts suggest that this is the reason that some people need to "fidget to focus."

In the Next Week

Consider incorporating mindfulness into your weekly calendar. Accountability helps make a new behavior more consistent. Remember, it takes 6-8 weeks for a new behavior to become a habit.
Do at least two formal mindfulness practices each week.
Practice informally as often as possible. Even small daily chunks are better than nothing. Doing it consistently even a minute per day helps to make it routine.
Do at least one walk to class mindful.
If you are doing this session for class credit/extra credit, click on the link below to open the assignment sheet.

Class Assignment

mt_at_mc_credit_sheet_for_students (7).docx

Practice: Extended Seated Meditation

You should sit in meditation for 20 minutes a day, unless you're too busy; then, you should sit for an hour.
-Old Zen Saying

Learning Objectives

Describe the experience of noticing and refocusing during the practice.
Demonstrate willingness to persist, even if discomfort occurs.
Describe applications of concentration practice to your everyday academic activities

Extended Practice Key Points

Active Concentration and Focus

We're going to actively practice the mental acts of concentration and focus for a longer period of time during this session, using the below audio to guide us. As we have in the past, we'll use the breath as a point of focus. Let's try it briefly right now:

Take a deep breath and notice where you feel it, often at the tip of the nose, the upper lip, or the bridge of the nose. It may be helpful to close the eyes to help you pinpoint that spot. Now exhale to and notice the sensation of the air at the same point. Usually the air is cooler going in and warmer leaving your nose.
During the practice, concentrate on that point and continue to observe the breath.
It may be helpful to imagine sawing wood (if you've ever done that). You don't look at the whole saw, but focus on the small place where the saw's teeth are digging into the wood.
Don't try to control your breath--just breathe without effort, without making it deeper or longer. Just let the breath take care of itself.
Your breath should be silent and the rhythm will vary. You may even notice repeated patterns: in/out, long/short, smooth/ragged, deep/shallow.

6. Everyone has "monkey mind" so don't freak out about yours. Mind wandering and jumping around, "yack" will occur constantly. It just does. Just note it and label it...

"thinking"
"daydreaming"
"worrying"
"impatience"
"criticizing"
whatever...

...and then return to the breath. This process will need to be repeated over and over again.

7. You might feel crazy--you aren't! When you actually notice the background noise in your head it can feel really unpleasant, even frightening and out of control. However, it's no different from what goes on every moment, every day. Just note/label/refocus.

8. Noises and motion will happen outside. Note, label, and refocus.

Thinking and Sinking:
How to Deal With Both

Awake brain with scrambled thoughts and sleeping brain, text reads: thinking, sinking

Thinking is just that--the "yack." Just note and refocus. Sinking is when your alertness slides down into either dimness or even sleep. Notice and reconnect with your physical sensations.
Reminder: MT is NOT relaxation. It's aim is calm alertness, which is developed by practicing a strong, energetic attention to a single point.

Posture Tips

Adjust your seat height and angle so that your back is relatively straight, and also relaxed.
Check how your legs are arranged--a position with both legs evenly balanced is preferable, e.g., both feet flat on the floor, if sitting in a chair, or crossed evenly if seated on a cushion, vs sitting with one leg crossed over the other.
Just let the breath flow naturally in and out of the body, and let the belly move freely with the breathing.
Let your spine move with your breathing, so that you can be sure you're not holding yourself rigidly.
Make sure that your hands are supported so that there's no strain in your shoulders or between the shoulder-blades.
Relax your shoulders, letting them roll back to open your chest. Let your shoulders move with your breathing.
Take a few deep breaths into the upper chest to allow your chest to open. Relax on the outbreath, but see if you can keep a sense of space across the front of the chest as you do so.
Adjust the angle of your head so that the back of your neck is relaxed, long and open, and your chin is slightly tucked in. Your head should feel like it's balanced effortlessly atop your spine. Viewed from the side, the ear is directly above the shoulder, which is directly above the hip.
Relax your jaw, your tongue, your eyes, and your forehead.

Academic Applications

Increased focus and concentration, especially under stress or in demanding situations
Improved ability to do one thing at a time vs multitasking. Research debunks the idea that multitasking is more efficient than doing one thing at a time.
Greater comfort and ability to be with one's self
Mental discomforts can be not so scary: "Those monkies are in fine form today..."

Let's Give It a Try

Both of these practices are about 20 minutes long. The audio file comes from UCSD Health and was recorded by Steven Hickman. The YouTube practice comes from New Mindful Life http://newmindfullife.com/ The artist is a female.

head outline with audio waves, text reads 20 minute seated meditation by Steven Hickman

head outline with audio waves, text reads 20 minute seated meditation by new mindful life

In the next week:

Do at least 2 formal meditations per week. One should be the sitting meditation, with or without the audio.
Practice informally as often as possible, aiming for several times a day. Even one minute per day is beneficial. Doing it consistently even one minute per day helps to make it a routine. Once you practice for a minute, you may not want to stop!
Cultivate a "begin again" practice--you can begin again whenever you've fallen off, as many times as necessary. A little is much better than none at all.
If you are doing this session for class credit, please click on the document below to complete and turn in.

Class Assignment

mt_at_mc_credit_sheet_for_students (8).docx

Session 8: Using the Body to Lead the Mind

“In the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside of you.” ~ Deepak Chopra

Practice Mindful Movements

Objectives

Participants will be able to

describe the opportunity for "real-time" body awareness while practicing mindful movement.
describe in simple terms the mind-body feedback loop.
repeat mindful movements learned in this session at home, school, or work as appropriate.

Using the Body to Lead the Mind

Start with the body and the mind will follow. We are much more familiar and adept at controlling the actions of our bodies than the actions of our minds. Happily, moving with awareness and intention will almost always result in our minds becoming clearer and calm, more aware of the experience of the present moment. It's kind-of like sneaking up on your mind, but in a good way!

Body movement as a object of focus. In our previous sessions we have used the breath, body scans, visualization, and walking as objects of focus. In this session, we will explore yoga breath in combination with mindful body movements as both an object of focus and to redirect ourselves away from "monkey mind."

Body movement as a form of body scan. Doing mindful movement takes the skill of the body scan we learned in Session 2 to the next level, because it is done not only in the lying position, but in seated, standing, and moving orientations as well.

Body movement and posture as a way to lead the mind into a particular state. Can you think of some physical signs that show that a person is excited? Happy? Sad? Depressed? Anxious? Through some interesting research, scientists have discovered that moving the body can elicit those feelings through the same neural pathways. You really can fake it until you make it! This intrapersonal mind-body connection is a feedback loop that works interpersonally as well: a confident posture elicits a positive response from others. So does a smile :).

Yoga Breathing

We have been using the breath as a focus throughout our mindfulness training, specifying that we breath as we normally would, not trying to change the breath in any way. Sometimes the breaths are so far apart that the spaces in between are like an open door through which the mind can wander in and out. To give the practitioner a constant focus, yoga breathing (ujjayi breath), though more complicated, is used. Watch the short video below to find out how to do a simple version of ujjayi breathing. By the way, you can certainly do this sitting in a chair--no pretzel pose needed!

Why Yoga Works

There has been quite a lot of scientific study into the practice of yoga and its physiological effects in recent years. Scientist are learning what yogis have known instinctively for millennia: a yoga practice improves many conditions, including anxiety and depression, chronic pain, and other physical conditions. Yoga works, in part, through vagal tone. To read more about this go to Why Yoga Works.

Mindful Body Movement

Many practices develop mindful awareness and focus via moving the body – yoga and tai chi are two prime examples. One very simple practice that anyone can do pretty much anywhere is “Ten Mindful Movements”, from the revered meditation teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh. These Tai-Chi based exercises are fairly easy to do, not complicated and don’t take long. You breathe on purpose, you smile on purpose, you move on purpose – slowly, gently, not forcing anything - enjoying yourself as you go along and improving your vagal tone. Who knew? :)

Try a short session of gentle movement done with intentional enjoyment helps the body to loosen up, feelings of stress to ease up, and the mind to clear up. You may find it takes less effort to focus on movement rather than on the stream of thoughtssensationsemotions, etc., coursing through your head.

Let's Give It a Try

Resources

‘10 Mindful Movements’ handout
Excerpt from Thich Nhat Hanh’s 2008 book, “Mindful Movements: Ten Exercises for Well Being”

Resources & Handouts

Did you ever go to a birthday party when you were a kid and get a goodie bag at the end of the party to take home?

Think of the handouts below as sort of like those goodie bags. Instead of little toys and pencils, there are exercises, videos, recommended readings, websites, etc. You won't want or need every single thing, but it's always fun to poke around and see what you find. There's some good stuff, we promise.

Eventually, most all the handouts distributed in MT sessions will be available below. If you don't see something you need, contact us.

Mindfulness Training Resources Spring 2015
What is Mindfulness?
S.T.O.P. Technique
Mindful Eating
Posture Tips
Common Thoughts-Feelings-Sensations during Practice

5-Minute Practices for In-class Use especially for instructors

Mindfulness

Mindfulness Training at Moorpark College

Introduction to Mindfulness

Session 1: Mindful Breathing

Session 2: Minding the Body

Session 3: Dealing with Petty, Frustrating Crap

Session 4: Exiting Auto-Pilot

Inattentive vs. Mindful Eating

Inattentive Eating

Mindful Eating: Exiting Autopilot and Tuning In

Application to academics

Let's give it a try

Mindfulness and the Art of Eating Chocolate

Raisin Exercise

How was that?

In the next week

Class Credit

Session 5: Using Imagery

Session 6: Walking Meditation

Session 7: Going Further

Extended Practice Key Points

Session 8: Using the Body to Lead the Mind

Objectives

Using the Body to Lead the Mind

Yoga Breathing

Why Yoga Works

Mindful Body Movement

Let's Give It a Try

Resources and Handouts

Mindful Walking

Mindful Walking with Kathy Dewet

Movement "Snacks"

Muscular Breathing with Kathy Dewet

Hip Moves With a Chair with Kathy Dewet

Opposition Pose with Kathy Dewet

Mobilize Your Spine with Kathy Dewet

Sharing Movement

New Content!

Inspiration and Expansion

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