An increasing number of people are becoming interested in Mindfulness, in their quest to reduce stress and anxiety in daily life.

The following is taken from The Mental Health Foundation website - the original article can be found here 

Mindfulness is a mind-body based approach that helps people change the way they think and feel about their experiences, especially stressful experiences.

Mindfulness exercises or mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) are ways of paying attention to the present moment, using techniques like meditation, breathing and yoga. Mindfulness training helps us become more aware of our thoughts and feelings so that instead of being overwhelmed by them, we're better able to manage them.

It's been known for millennia that the way we think and the way we handle how we feel plays a big part in mental health. Taking a mindfulness course can give people more insight into their emotions, boost their attention and concentration and improve relationships.

MBCT is recommended by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) for the prevention of relapse in recurrent depression. It combines mindfulness techniques like meditation, breathing exercises and stretching with elements from cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) to help break the negative thought patterns that are characteristic of recurrent depression. Mindfulness is a potentially life-changing way to alter our feelings in positive ways, and an ever-expanding body of evidence shows that it really works.

Evidence

Mindfulness meditation has been shown to affect how the brain works and even its structure. People undertaking mindfulness training have shown increased activity in the area of the brain associated with positive emotion – the pre-frontal cortex – which is generally less active in people who are depressed.

More than 100 studies have shown changes in brain wave activity during meditation and researchers have found that areas of the brain linked to emotional regulation are larger in people who have meditated regularly for five years.

Research shows that Mindfulness can help with:

recurrent depression

anxiety disorders

addictive behaviour

stress

chronic pain

chronic fatigue syndrome

insomnia

plus more mental and physical problems.

There is growing evidence that Mindfulness in the workplace can improve productivity and decrease sickness absence, and increasingly employers are looking to benefit from its effect on workplace wellbeing. Find out more at Mindfulnet.

Almost three-quarters of GPs think mindfulness meditation would be helpful for people with mental health problems, and a third already refer patients to MBCT on a regular basis. (Source: ICM survey June 2009 of 250 GPs). With the increase in talking therapies being instigated across the UK this is something that you can raise and discuss with your GP.

Benefitting from mindfulness therapies

MBCT is usually a weekly course of classes taught over two months, but there are also online courses available that can be done in your own time, at home or even at work. These courses teach people how to manage their thoughts and feelings in a way that makes depression less likely to occur.

Such treatment has been shown to cut relapse rates in half for recurrent depression.

Find out more about mindfulness and its benefits on the Be Mindful website, where you can:

watch videos and listen to podcasts

find out about courses in your area

share your experience of mindfulness at the The Oxford Mindfulness Centre

give your support for increased access to mindfulness therapy on the NHS.

Mindfulness courses don’t require any religious or spiritual beliefs. Mindfulness is suitable for, and can help people with any religious beliefs or people with none at all.

Whether you want to learn new techniques for coping with stress in the workplace or at home, manage anxiety or depression or improve your concentration, energy levels and enjoyment of life, Mindfulness is a valuable tool. In fact, mindfulness meditation can have such a positive impact on our mental and physical well-being that many GPs say that all people could benefit from learning the techniques.

Three videos on Mindfulness:

Irritating tips and Christmas advice!

Searching for a good article about coping with stress and anxiety at Christmas, to share with clients, I was amazed with the amount of patronising rubbish I ended up reading, no doubt written by people with plenty of money and in very good health.  On the whole, I didn't find advice like this especially helpful or reassuring.

Here's a selection that actually made me more stressed and annoyed, than I was before I read them!

• Budget sensibly - Just because all your son's friends are getting an Xbox One, that doesn't mean he's entitled to one, particularly if you're a less well off family. Explain to your children that Christmas has become too commercialised, educate them about the dangers of violent games such as Grand Theft Auto and show them how to have good old fashioned family fun by getting out your old Monopoly board. (Actually, a recent survey found arguments erupted in a whopping 46% of families that played Monopoly over Christmas.  Scrabble accounted for family feuds in 23% of households that played the word game!  To date, there is no clinical evidence that playing GTA leads to violence or anti-social behaviour.)

• Make a pledge that this festive season you will not smoke, drink or eat any of those tempting but oh so naughty Christmas treats, which won't make you happy, they will merely increase your risk of cancer, heart disease and type two diabetes.  (Could have been written by Iain Duncan Smith, himself!!)

• Avoid the stress of sleeping in your childhood bedroom at your stepfather's house by booking into a nice nearby hotel for a couple of nights, therefore turning a dreaded family event into a Christmas treat.  (Hang on, I thought you said we should budget better!  If we skipped putting the family up in a 4 star hotel, we could afford little Jake's Xbox!!)

• Instead of vegging out in front of the television with a tin of Quality Street for two days, get yourself outside for a long brisk walk in the countryside. The exercise and fresh air will burn off those extra Christmas calories, improve your mood and wear you out - a much more healthy aid to sleep than those habit forming tablets!  (Not too sure how this would work for those with mobility problems or people living in the city - sadly we don't all live within walking distance of a country estate!)

• Remember, Christmas is just one day, don't get stressed out if every present isn't perfect, or the custard on your trifle doesn't set properly.  It's just one day!  There's always next year! (Words fail me!!!)

Some people are aware, even as children, they suffer from anxiety. Others, like me, become aware of it, in adulthood.

As a mental health professional, I'm trained to recognise anxiety, to understand the condition, and help people manage the symptoms associated with it.

I also suffer from anxiety myself, though thankfully it is not as debilitating as it once was, and doesn't stop me enjoying a fulfilling life, these days, at the age of fifty.  Although I haven't had an acute anxiety attack for many decades, my symptoms used to include terrifying experiences like sleep paralysis, where I would frequently wake up, and be unable to move or speak, with a fear that some impending doom was about to befall me, and I was powerless to do anything about it.  It was a miserable time to live through and has left me with a fear that this could return at any time, although statistically, that's highly unlikely.  But still, our deepest, most animalistic fears are embedded from childhood, babyhood perhaps, and logic and reasoning do little to take away anxiety about trauma reoccuring.

A greater understanding of anxiety, how common it is - for most of us suffer with some degree of anxiety from time to time - and where it comes from, and what is actually happening to the body during these frightening episodes, helped me to learn strategies for managing my emotions, when I became aware I was starting to feel anxious.  The more I managed the anxiety, the less afraid I became and the greater my confidence grew, to the degree where I even write about anxiety in blogs and novels, which I publish, fully aware that someone might dislike what I have written and attack me for it.  I guess I've reached a point where my level of self-acceptance is such that my respect for myself, is greater than the respect I might gain or lose from others.

There have been times when the anxiety disappeared almost completely, and this happened whenever I found myself settled, in a secure and permanent relationship.
For me, the early stages of a relationship are not simply exciting, they're also plagued with feelings of uncertainty, as I try to work out if I can really trust this person I'm investing my emotions in, after all, like any other parent, I have my children's happiness and security to consider and prioritise too. Boyfriends who couldn't empathise with my concerns, and had a more easy come, easy go attitude to love, never lasted long with me, and by the time I was forty, I got good at recognising the warning signs and keeping those guys at bay.  But even the secure, long term relationships had a habit of failing over time, and then of course, the feelings of anxiety returned.

Some people are aware, even as children, that they struggle with anxiety.  Others like me, manage to suppress things until they reach adolescence, or in my case, my twenties - it was the night I went into hospital to deliver a stillborn little girl, and suddenly all these feelings of loss and abandonment overwhelmed every cell of my being.  Three months later, I was still suffering, and had developed a fear of going outside the house.  I was encouraged by my GP to go along to counselling, and my education about anxiety, and the slow road to recovery, began there, with medication and literally hundreds of hours of therapy to talk about where my fears were coming from.

These days, I don't need medication, or therapy. I'm remarkably happy, given the dreadful times we're living in.  But it's important we keep talking about the full spectrum of stress and anxiety and depression, because so many of us would benefit from a deeper understanding and more compassion from society.