#433 Very Brief Mindfulness Exercise - the Plank

     What makes this a mindfulness exercise, not simply a physical one? Is there such a thing as only a physical exercise, without effecting the mind and emotions?
     First of all, this popular, very effective core-strengthening exercise can be done with straight arms (strengthens the upper body more) resting on the palms of the hands OR (as illustrated) on the forearms (strengthens the abdomen more). Shoes are optional. The body is held straight (as illustrated). What's not obvious, is that all the leg muscles are active, the belly is allowed to move up towards the spine, the shoulder area is intentionally connected by muscles to the chest, sides of the body & back, the neck & jaws are allowed to relax.
     Start with a modest time that you can do fairly easily - perhaps 30 seconds. Repeat this daily for a week, taking Sunday off, then up it to 60 seconds per day, daily, etc. Use a timer to let you know when the session is over. Gradually keep increasing the time (by 30 seconds each week, up to 5 minutes or so) so as to maintain a steady mind-body training effect.

     The mindfulness part: 
     • Welcome all perceptual inputs from your body into awareness. Allow these to FILL awareness COMPLETELY.
     • Notice & gently let go of words, forceful effort, & any concept of time. Awareness does NOT have any ROOM for these (see above).

     You are practicing noticing and letting go of extraneous friction, noise (unnecessary suffering); WHILE stabilizing simple direct contact with what is real. This is profoundly healthy, beneficial, & takes a few minutes per day.
     This may be the easiest, most efficient Mindfulness practice - try it - notice all that may happen over the course of a few weeks. Remember, stay open - everything changes - see: http://www.johnlovas.com/2012/01/intention-shifts.html

http://nbfit.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/plank1.jpg

#396 Intentionally Improving our own Mental & Emotional Health

     "... just as we as a society are learning to take more responsibility for our physical health by engaging in regular physical exercise, we can also take more responsibility for our minds & brains by engaging in certain mental exercises (mindfulness meditation) that can induce plastic changes in the brain and that may have enduring beneficial consequences for social and emotional behavior. 

     ... qualities such as well-being ought to be viewed, at least in part, as a product of trainable skills ... interventions explicitly designed to promote well-being may have beneficial behavioral and biological effects."

       Davidson RJ, McEwen BS. Social influences on neuroplasticity: stress and interventions to promote well-being. Nature Neuroscience 2012; 15(5): 689-95.

     For a nice summary of the neuroscientific support for the effectiveness & benefits of Mindfulness training see: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2013/09/emotions-attention-introspection-are.html

instagram.com/toddler777#

"Well-being is actually a skill," said Dr. Richard J. Davidson, professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and the study's senior author. "It's something that can be enhanced with training. If we can take more responsibility for our well-being, we can help to minimize burnout or decrease its severity." - See more at: http://wisdomresearch.org/blogs/news/archive/2013/09/05/mindfulness-meditation-fights-burnout-new-study-of-teachers-suggests-video.aspx#sthash.DXmVJtve.dpuf

#330 Mindfulness Practices - Simple but Not Easy

     "taking time out to sit in silence and bring attention to something like the breath, there is an opportunity for a degree of relaxation, or ‘slowing down’. Secondly there is a perhaps more counter-intuitive opportunity to simply notice - as non-judgementally and non-analytically as possible - the experiential flow of thoughts, feelings and sensations. In other words, there is an attempt to cultivate awareness of one’s moment-by-moment experience ... a ‘post-modern’ meta skill.
     Straight away in this two-fold description, one may appreciate why it could be said that mindfulness is ‘simple, but not easy’. The process of sitting and bringing some light attention to the process of breathing (or in other mindfulness practices it may be for example the process of walking, or eating), is not technically complicated and may feel a welcome relaxation. Alternatively, being invited simply to notice one’s experience, can feel tremendously challenging. One can come up closer to previously less noticed streams of negative, painful, or fearful thought, or at the very least one can feel unsettled by noticing for perhaps the first time, how ‘all over the place’ our experience can be, veering in the space of a few moments, from wild fantasy, to profound sleepiness, for example. It is not something we may ever have done before, in such a direct way, and it can feel anything but relaxing at times. Thus, mindfulness could be said to be a more radical practice, of learning to be with both positive and painful experiential states, in the present, without loading this with strong expectations, of an outcome."

       Moss D, Waugh M, Barnes R. A tool for life? Mindfulness as self-help or safe uncertainty. Int J Qual Stud Health Well-being 2008; 3(3): 132-142.

 

Studio 21 Art Gallery, Halifax, NS   http://www.studio21.ca/