LEARNING HOW TO DETACH

Detaching from your stress means you’re able to step away from that situation, event, memory, or worry — whatever form your stress takes at that particular time. Stepping away may sound easy, but often it’s not. Our thoughts and feelings are compelling. Like a spider’s web, they can entrap us in an ever-spiraling web of rumination, worry, and upset. The pull of your stress-producing thinking is incredibly strong, and once it has you in its grip, escaping is not easy. That’s why detaching yourself from your thoughts and feelings becomes so important.

Creating awareness

The first step is becoming aware of what you want to detach from. The goal is to be able to detach from a stressful situation before it has you in its grip. Learning to detach from non-stressful triggers is much easier and therefore a better place to start. Start by asking yourself this simple question: What am I paying attention to right now?

By posing this question, you create an awareness of exactly what is holding your attention. The following is a simple exercise that can help you develop greater awareness of how and to what you’re paying attention.

1.Every time you check the time on your watch, computer, or cell phone, use this as a cue to pause briefly, take a deep breath, hold it for a bit, and slowly exhale.

2.Now ask yourself: What am I thinking about right now? What am I feeling? What am I doing?

Crack a smile?

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Detaching from a stressor or stress reaction can be hard. One tool that can help you transition from an emotional state to a more mindful state is to smile. “Wait a minute,” you say, “when I’m waiting in traffic or worried about my finances, you want me to smile? Get real!” Yes, I recognize that this will be a phony smile — forced and artificial. Do it anyway. It can help you gain objectivity and psychological distance. It distracts you momentarily, and the changes in facial muscle tension can alter your mood. Smiling gives you important seconds to regroup, gain some objectivity, and become more aware. Try it!

This simple response can refocus your attention. With practice, you won’t need a cue to be able to create this awareness on your own.

Creating distance

Here is another exercise that will help you get some psychological and emotional distance from a potential stressor.

1.    Suppose you feel an itch on your arm.

          Your natural response is to scratch it. Suppose, however, that rather than immediately reacting to the itch by scratching, you simply become aware of the sensation of itching and choose not to do anything about it.

2.    Imagine that you’re able to step away from the sensation.

          The scientist in you takes over, and you become a neutral observer. In a mindful way, you’re able to describe what the sensation of itching feels like (perhaps irritating, frustrating, or annoying).

3.    If you can mentally step back a little further, you can suspend any judgment about the itch (“This is driving me crazy! I hate this!”).

      You can also withhold your assessment of your ability to cope with the itch (“I can’t stand it! I just have to scratch!”).

4.    You can view the itch with a certain curiosity.

          Now you have distance. You’re not a prisoner of the itch. 

A major aim of mindfulness is to become aware of your thoughts, feelings, and sensations without reacting to them. This sentence, on first reading, may seem a bit puzzling. We’re so accustomed to responding to our thoughts and feelings that it’s second nature to do so. But as you recognized while doing the itch exercise, you do have a choice.

Copyright © Allen Elkin Phd – Originally appeared in Stress Management for Dummies 2nd edition by Allen Elkin

REVISITING YOUR DAILY ROUTINES

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Your daily life provides many built-in, informal opportunities to practice this shifting of attention, of becoming more aware of what is happening right now. Consider the simple act of eating.

Eat something!

In the past I’ve generally been a mindless eater. I ate too quickly, mostly unaware of how and what I was eating. Often I watched television or read a newspaper while I ate. Many of us are like that. Yes, we’re somewhat aware of the taste and the short-lasting effect of feeling good, but the experience is remarkably quick. Eating has become automatic.

This exercise is a simple way to demonstrate what it means to become more mindful in daily life. This takes only about five minutes. It involves eating a piece of food mindfully. Usually the food of choice has been a raisin. But you may not have a raisin in your cupboard. It doesn’t matter. Simply find food — a bowl of cereal, a grape, an apple, an orange segment, anything. Here’s what to do:

1.Find a place where you won’t be disturbed or distracted for a short while.

2.Let’s say you’ve decided to work with an orange segment. Hold the segment in your fingers. Pretend this is the first time you’ve ever seen a piece of orange.

3.Focus on the segment and pay attention to what it looks like — its texture, its shape, the lines, the colors, and the way the light reflects on its surface. Does it feel hard or soft? Rough or smooth?

4.Smell the section. Sweet? Citrusy?

5.Very slowly put the orange segment in your mouth.

Don’t chew or swallow just yet. Notice what it feels like in your mouth. Is your mouth watering?

6.Bite down, noticing what the sensation feels like.

Soft? Hard? How does it move around your mouth? Notice the taste you experience.

7.Begin to chew, noticing how the consistency changes as you chew.

Chew for a short while and then swallow, noticing the sensations in your throat and what it feels like as the bits of orange move from your mouth, down your throat, and into your stomach.

8.Step back and take a moment to reflect on the process.

Go beyond fruit

Here are some other built-in opportunities to introduce more mindfulness into your life. In each case, decide to pay attention to this routine behavior in a curious, exploratory way, as if this is the first time you’re doing this. Bring as many of your five senses to bear as possible. Ask yourself, “What do I see, hear, feel, smell, and taste?”

                                       Brushing your teeth

                                      Taking a bath or shower

                                      Getting dressed

                                      Washing dishes

                                      Eating a meal

                                      Cleaning the house

                                      Sitting on a train

                                      Driving your car

                                      Working out in a gym

                                      Walking down the street

Or any other automatic behavior you can think of.

Copyright © Allen Elkin Phd – Originally appeared in Stress Management for Dummies 2nd edition by Allen Elkin

DEVELOPING THE SKILLS OF MINDFULLNESS

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As with mastering any worthwhile skill, you sometimes have to practice. The word “practice” can have multiple meanings. In one way, it means putting to use or applying, as in “He practices what he preaches.” Another meaning suggests repeating a skill or behavior until you get good at it, as in “He practices the piano.” Mindfulness can be practiced in both ways. In the following sections, I encourage you to work with more structured exercises geared to help you practice and eventually master the skills of mindfulness. It does take some effort, but the results will be well worth it.

Staying in the present

I’m sure you’ve heard slogans like “Stay in the present!” or “Be here now!” And for good reason. The reality is that all you really have is the present. Running on auto-pilot robs you of your present experience. You fail to appreciate the meaningful details that make up the fabric of your life. Your automatic behaviors can hijack the present, leaving you unaware of what’s happening right now. You miss life! Your thoughts and emotions can also become automatic. Too much of our mental and emotional life is spent reflexively, looking backward, rehashing the past, lamenting, and regretting things we said or did (or failed to say or do). And if we aren’t looking backward, we’re worrying about or planning for what the future will bring. In contrast, mindfulness invites you to live your life as it unfolds, in the present.

Breathing more mindfully

This simple breathing exercise can help you stay focused on the present.

1.Find a place where you will be relatively undisturbed for a few minutes.

 Set a timer for a length of time that realistically fits your schedule. A few minutes should work fine.

2.Sit comfortably in a chair or on a cushion.

3. Begin paying attention to your breathing.                                      

Notice where you feel your breath. Is it higher in your chest or lower in your belly? Do you inhale and exhale through your nose or mouth?

4.Focusing on your breathing, begin counting upward from one to ten and then backward from ten to one.

If your attention wanders, you lose count, you over-count, or you find your thoughts taking you to another place, gently bring your attention back to the breathing and counting. Simply start again at one.

So, how did you do? Were you able to detach and get some separation from your thoughts and feelings? It’s not easy. Our minds are busy generating thoughts — all kind of thoughts all the time. Our thoughts and feelings grab us and pull us in. Too often our minds get locked into our worries, opinions, judgments, and concerns. We need some psychological distance.

____________________________

                                      Picturing a day at the beach

Not long ago I came across an issue of New Yorker magazine with a cover illustration depicting a family — a mom, dad, and two kids, posing for a picture on the beach while on their vacation in Hawaii. The resulting photograph showed all four of them glued to their digital devices. No one looked up. They were oblivious, completely unaware of being photographed or of anything else around them — the bright blue sky, the swaying palm trees, the turquoise ocean. For me, this captured the essence of what it means not to be living in the present.

________________________

Don’t worry if you had to restart several times. Don’t judge your performance. Cut yourself some slack. The goal is not to do this exercise perfectly but rather to become aware of how you can control your attention and focus, stay in the present, and recognize how easily your thoughts can pull you off track.

Exercises like this one can help you be more in the present. They can free you from the pull of everyday concerns and worries. The goal isn’t primarily to relax you or quiet your mind, though this is often a benefit. The goal of this and similar exercises is to train you to become aware of what you’re attending to and to become better able to shift that attention — and eventually to be more aware in the present moment.

Copyright © Allen Elkin Phd – Originally appeared in Stress Management for Dummies 2nd edition by Allen Elkin

UNDERSTANDING HOW MINDFULNESS CAN HELP REDUCE YOUR STRESS

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Our world can be a source of contentment, happiness, and even, at times, joy. Alas, this same world can be uncertain, unpredictable, and distressing. Our world seems to be in turmoil: political upheaval, terrorism, climate change, the economy, personal relationships, our finances, our health . . . I could go on. Your life has no shortage of stressors. You need a tool that helps you slow down your thoughts, feelings, and reactions to this stressful world. In other words, you need a pause button. That’s where mindfulness comes in. The following are some ways that mindfulness can help you manage your stress.

Creating calm and relaxation: Relaxing your body and quieting your mind aren’t the primary goals of mindfulness, but they can be a welcome and valuable by-product. Mindful meditation can help you escape your stressful thoughts and feelings by learning to attend to a breath, an image, or a relaxing thought. In this article, I discuss how mindful meditation can help you calm your mind. By focusing on your breathing, a sensation, or an object, you can create your own quieter place, undisturbed by the fears, worries, and distractions that punctuate your day.

Living in the present: Mindfulness can give you an appreciation of the richness that life has to offer by teaching you to notice the fullness of your experience. It shows you how to live more fully in the present. Too often, you have one foot in the past and the other in the future, and as a result you miss out on the present. You lose any appreciation of what’s happening to you right now. You get lost in rumination, worry, and fear. Your thoughts, feelings, and actions become automatic, reactive, and distressing, and your life becomes less authentic and less meaningful. But mindfulness can pull you out of auto-pilot and give you greater awareness of and appreciation for the life you want to live.

Coping with stressors: Mindfulness can function in more direct ways, giving you an important tool to cope with specific stressors and stress reactions. Becoming mindful can help you detach from your stressful world and observe it without judgment, criticism, or resistance. You can learn to step back and view your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors as by-products of an overactive and, at times, distorting mind. This gives you coping options: You can become aware of these thoughts, feelings, and behaviors without fighting them or feeding them, and, if you choose, you can more calmly and effectively explore avenues of change.

It really works

Research shows that mindfulness can result in a significant reduction in stress levels. Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, at the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society, in Worcester, Massachusetts, followed a group of more than 6,000 patients presenting a variety of stress-related conditions and disorders. He found that when patients followed an eight-week program of mindfulness training, their stress-related symptoms decreased and their conditions improved. Kabat-Zinn also found that following the mindfulness program helped people reduce their anxiety levels and lessen the severity of depressive episodes. More importantly, these changes were maintained on follow-up visits.         

The more specific uses and benefits of mindfulness are described more fully later. For now, here’s a simple exercise that will take only a moment or two and will give you a sense of what mindfulness is like. Read the following instructions and then close the book and do the exercise:

1. Stop whatever else you’re doing, take a deep breath, and try to become more relaxed.

2. Now, take this book (or tablet) in both of your hands.

Try to become aware of the book (or tablet) as if it’s the first time you’ve ever seen a book/tablet. Become curious, wanting to know more about this thing called a book/tablet. Holding it in your hands, gently focus all of your attention on the book/tablet.

3. Focus on the weight of the book/tablet in your hands.

Does it feel light or heavy?

4. Notice the texture of the paper/screen by rubbing your fingers over a page.

Does it feel totally smooth, or can you feel some roughness?

5. Without reading the text, pay attention to the print — the types of fonts used, the size of the print, and the word patterns.

6. Look at the cover of the book/tablet and notice the different colors and designs.

Notice the way light is reflected on the cover. Now feel the cover of the book. Running your fingers over the cover, notice its glossy smoothness. 

This exercise seems so simple that you may miss what’s happening. What you discover is that you’re attending to something in a way you normally wouldn’t. Hopefully you were able to slow yourself down and take your time as you became an observer, noticing, without any judgments, a very small piece of your experience. There was no analysis, no over-thinking, just observation. Your awareness was focused; you were in the moment. This ability allows you to detach from your world of automatic thinking, feeling, and behaving. This detachment puts you in an accepting, non-judgmental frame of mind, where you choose to simply be. You can use this frame of mind as a base for exploring better ways of coping with your stress.

Copyright © Allen Elkin Phd – Originally appeared in Stress Management for Dummies 2^nd edition by Allen Elkin

RECOGNIZING MINDLESSNESS

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The polar opposite of mindfulness, mindlessness is a state of mind where you are largely unaware of what you’re thinking, feeling, and doing. It’s like being on a plane running on auto-pilot mode. The plane flies automatically, and for the most part the system works well, until the plane runs into trouble. The problem is the “running into trouble” part. When people run on auto-pilot, they create lots of opportunities for that trouble to take the form of excessive stress.

Auto-pilot: The good, the bad, and the really bad

Many times in your day, you’ll find that you too are running on auto-pilot. Recall those times when you were driving on the highway and realized that you hadn’t been paying the slightest bit of attention to the road or your driving but had instead been daydreaming about something else. Or all those mornings when you got dressed, washed up, and left your bedroom, paying almost no attention to what you were doing. (One day I showed up at my office wearing unmatched shoes.) You and I were running on auto-pilot. When you’re in auto-pilot mode, you’re at the mercy of unfocused attention, often subconscious, which takes your thoughts, feelings, and actions where they want to go, but not necessarily where you want them to go. You’re not mindful; you’re mindless.

The good

Not all auto-pilot behavior is bad. Imagine your day if you couldn’t remember how to do even the most routine tasks. Suppose you needed an instruction manual to guide you through your day. Getting dressed in the morning, preparing breakfast, figuring out how to get to work, driving your car — every routine would demand your full awareness and attention. “Put your socks on before your shoes.” “Push down on the gas pedal on your right and use the brake to the left if you have to stop.” It would be exhausting! Mindlessness, it appears, has its place in our lives. That’s the good part.

The bad

But here’s the bad part about running on auto-pilot. You can wind up spending most of your life on auto-pilot, missing out on wonderful aspects of life that make it so much more meaningful. I’m reminded of those many car trips with our kids and our constant unheeded nagging, such as “Wow, look at the color of those leaves!” or “Just look at that sunset!” Too much auto-pilot can restrict your experiences and your appreciation of the world around you. Your life can feel boring and routine. You get short-changed.

The really bad

Here’s the really bad part. When you’re on auto-pilot, your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors can become distorted and stress-producing. In auto-pilot mode, much of your inner experience can take the form of ruminating, over-thinking, exaggerating, fearfully anticipating, feeling anxious and upset, overreacting, and avoiding — to mention but a few of the stress-producing traps you can fall into. Stress thrives in a mindless environment.

Mindless multi-tasking

Multi-tasking may seem like an efficient way to get a lot accomplished. After all, you can write that history paper, text a friend, listen to music, and check out your favorite social-media site all at the same time. So, you may ask, what’s the problem? There are downsides. The person who drives on the highway and simultaneously figures out how to end his current relationship may be using his time incredibly efficiently, but he may not be attending to what is happening on the road. His attention is stretched far too thin, and when this happens he is running on auto-pilot. Multi-tasking increases your stress levels. You have too many balls in the air, with insufficient attention paid to any one ball.

The negative consequences abound. Your performance may suffer, and you may retain information poorly. People close to you may feel hurt and neglected, and you may feel overwhelmed. What might first seem like the perfect antidote to inefficiency may, in the final analysis, contribute to more inefficiency.

The dangers of mindless thinking

Our minds are a thought factory. Always busy, always active. Not only do we think all the time, we have feelings, and we act and react all the time. And though we have all these internal experiences, we often aren’t consciously aware of them. They’re just there. We can get locked into our automatic thoughts.

The relationship between our thoughts, feelings, and actions is a close one. To put it most simply, we feel the way we think. Feelings of stress are no exception. If we think in distorted, unrealistic ways, we wind up feeling much more stressed than we have to. Whenever we are in auto-pilot mode — unaware of what we are thinking, feeling, or doing — we are at the mercy of those automatic experiences. And often, that’s not good. The following sections explain why.

Your thoughts are not facts

Generally, it’s a good idea to listen to yourself. One of the advantages of being higher on the evolutionary scale is having the ability to think. Our thoughts allow us to make plans, solve problems, make decisions, and figure out how much to tip the waiter. Sometimes, though, it’s not a good idea to listen to yourself. Your thoughts can create unnecessary worry, anguish, upset, anger, resentment, guilt, and depression, to mention but a few distressing emotions.

Sometimes you give your thoughts and feelings too much power. A thought comes to mind, and you feel compelled to listen to that thought and automatically assume the thought is a valid one. You believe that your thoughts tell you the truth. Well, sometimes yes and sometimes no. Some examples:

“I’m a loser!”

“I can’t stand being in traffic!”

“I’ll never meet anybody!”

“Nobody likes me!”

“People should treat me fairly!”

“People are just out for themselves!”

While there may be a grain of truth in some of these statements, they are, for the most part, distortions or biased perceptions.

Your feelings aren’t facts, either

Many times when you feel a certain way, you believe “If I’m feeling this way (such as angry, upset, or anxious), I should listen to these emotions, believe what these feelings are telling me, and act on them.” So when Lucy’s friend shows up late for lunch, Lucy is angry and lets her friend know that she is angry — in no uncertain terms and in a very loud voice. The friend has an understandable reason for being late, but Lucy still feels quite angry. Her feelings of anger tell her that her feelings are the right feelings to have. She assumes that her feelings accurately reflect the appropriateness of her emotional response. She tunes into her feelings, believes them, and acts upon them.

Feelings come and go. So do the bodily sensations that can come with feelings. We can be in a bad mood, be angry, feel down, and still realize that at some point these feelings will pass. In some ways, it’s easier to accept our emotions as transient but not always trustworthy. We may not be able to escape the grip of the emotion, but often the wiser observer within us says, “Don’t trust this feeling!” If we let our thoughts and feelings take over, they can define us. They can lock us into a worldview that is narrow and restricted. Bodily sensations can have the same effect. Tightness in the chest, rapid breathing, heart palpitations, lumps in the throat, and other bodily sensations can be mistaken as valid reflections of the importance and validity of the situations and events we encounter.

Your “fused” thinking

Whenever you believe that your thoughts and feelings are “the truth,” you give them an enormous amount of power. You can get stuck in your world of thoughts and feelings and have trouble getting out. You can become fused with your thoughts and feelings. You have no psychological distance. You are too close to your inner experiences, and you let them run the show. Because you’re on auto-pilot, you’re not aware of what you’re thinking or feeling. You truly believe that all of your thinking and feeling is sensible and should be listened to. The following example gives you a taste of what fused thinking feels like.

Imagine you’re in a theater watching a movie. The movie starts out pretty well, with lots of action, good acting, and an interesting plot. You’re glued to the screen. The guy next to you could be carving a pumpkin, but you wouldn’t notice. You and the movie are fused. After about an hour, you realize that the story has run out of gas. The love affair between the two main characters just doesn’t work for you. And ten shots with a six-shooter? Give me a break! You mentally step back, and rather than being fused with the movie, you’re now thinking about the movie. You’ve shifted your attention. You’re aware of the movie as something “out there.” You’ve detached, and you’re a step closer to becoming more mindful.

Copyright © Allen Elkin Phd – Originally appeared in Stress Management for Dummies 2^nd edition by Allen Elkin

UNDERSTANDING MINDFULLNESS

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The origins of mindfulness can be traced back to Hindu and Buddhist writings. The word itself is a translation of the ancient East Indian word sati, meaning “awareness,” and Buddha considered it to be an important factor on the path to enlightenment. The concept of awareness remains an important part of our understanding of how a mindful approach to life can help us manage our stress.

Defining mindfulness

Mindfulness isn’t the easiest concept to grasp or define. In part this reflects its long connection with Buddhism and other early spiritual traditions, as well as its association with the practice of meditation. Mindfulness can mean different things to different people.

Simply put, mindfulness is about being fully aware in the present moment. Being mindful means attending to your immediate experience; detaching from your thoughts and feelings; viewing them with a sense of openness, curiosity, and compassion; and accepting them without judgment.

The following components are necessary to become more mindful:

Maintaining awareness: This means you’re able to step out of your usual routines, worries, and fears and be conscious of what’s happening in your life. You become an impartial observer both to your inner world — your thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations — and to what’s happening in the outside world.

 Paying attention: Attention involves focused awareness. To be mindful, it’s important that you pay attention. Mastering mindfulness means training yourself to sustain your focus on whatever becomes the object of your attention.

 Remembering: You have to remember to be mindful — to control your awareness and attention. In fact, the word “remember” comes from the Latin re meaning “again” and memorari meaning “be mindful of.”

Being in the moment: Being in the present is an important concept in practicing mindfulness. You need to be aware of specific aspects of your world just as it is right now.

Being non-judgmental: Our minds are hard-wired to make judgments. We make judgments all the time, both consciously and unconsciously. It certainly worked for humans in their cave days, when not making a judgment could result in becoming the entrée for a hungry stalker. But letting go of judgments frees you from your history, your expectations, and your distorted thinking. Rather than looking at your world with judgmental constructs, such as good-bad, right-wrong, like-dislike, and so on, you can begin looking at your world more openly and with more acceptance.

Being non-reactive: Reacting implies an immediacy of response that most often reflects pre-existing judgments, historical patterns, and emotional biases. Reactions are usually automatic. Responding, however, is a more deliberate and controlled action. It gives you more options.

Practicing compassion: When you practice compassion, not only are your mental processes changed but you also become more caring. Freed from negative judgments and biases, you can let go of your critical self, and you become kinder, gentler, and warmer.

Much of your stress comes from a lack of awareness. Your mind is constantly processing thoughts, feelings, sensations, and behaviors that have happened in the past or may happen in the future. You can easily get overwhelmed by all the activity and become a prisoner of your worries, fears, angers, and upsets. While much of this processing is conscious, much of your thinking and feeling is automatic. If you can step back and gain more awareness of what your mind is doing, you can cope with your stress more effectively. Mindfulness is a valuable way of doing just that.

Dispelling myths about mindfulness

Mindfulness is hard to learn: Actually, cultivating mindfulness is like acquiring many of the other abilities you have learned, such as driving, operating your computer, learning a second language, or playing an instrument. It takes some time, effort, and practice. In the same way, time, effort, and practice are needed to make mindfulness an effective tool in your stress-management arsenal.

It’s just a New Age fad: In fact, an impressive and growing body of research supports mindfulness as an important approach to stress management.

Mindfulness is just about relaxation: Mindfulness can result in a relaxed state, but that isn’t its main goal.

Mindfulness is the same as meditation: While you can meditate mindfully, a major objective of mindfulness is being in the world and coping with others less stressfully.

Mindfulness is just distraction: Not really. True, you may be distracted by some of the mindfulness training exercises, but that definitely isn’t the goal. In fact, mindfulness gives you the ability to step back from your stressor but attend to it and experience your stress in a different way.

Mindfulness is just positive thinking: Mindfulness is more about giving up any kind of evaluative thinking, positive or negative.

It’s like a religion or cult: Nope. Mindfulness can be practiced without any connection to a religious group or sect, or any body of beliefs.

Figuring out whether mindfulness is right for you

You may be thinking, “I don’t know. This mindfulness stuff is a little too New Age for me. I’m not a sit-in-a-corner, cross-my-legs-and-stare-at-my-navel kinda person. I’m sure it works wonders for many people, but it’s not my style. I get bored pretty quickly. Maybe I’m less spiritual or not evolved enough, but it all sounds a little cultish to me. I’m not sure I have the patience to do the exercises you’re going to want me to do. What if I just skip all this?”

If you’re thinking that, you’re not alone. Many years ago, when I began exploring ways of reducing stress, I too was wary of the more meditative approaches that seemed to be anchored in early religious or philosophical teachings. They seemed a bit alien and mystical. But, as I eventually learned, a better way to look at mindfulness is to view it as a tool that can help you focus your attention and awareness — and eventually free you from being an unwilling victim of your negative and automatic thinking. Mindfulness gives you options. It isn’t just meditation. It’s a highly practical stress-reducing tool that can be integrated into other parts of a more complete stress-management program.

Yes, I will ask you to try some simple meditative exercises. I’ll ask you to sit in a chair and focus on your breathing, and I’ll ask you to eat something mindfully. These and other such exercises are valuable ways of training yourself to turn off the worries and concerns filling your mind. But mindfulness is much more than this. So, no, you don’t need to light up some incense, join a cult, or become more religious. You just need to put aside your misconceptions and give this approach a real try.

Copyright © Allen Elkin Phd – Originally appeared in Stress Management for Dummies 2^nd edition by Allen Elkin

WANT SOME FEEDBACK? GO TO THE HIGH-TECH ROUTE

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Biofeedback is a fancy term that means letting you know (the feedback part) what your body is up to (the bio part). Of course, biofeedback is nothing new. Getting the results of a blood test, having your blood pressure taken, or getting an EKG at your doctor’s office are all examples of medical biofeedback. However, these days, the term biofeedback is usually used for the electronic devices that measure your stress level or, more technically, your levels of physiological arousal.

Hard-wired to your own body

In the clinic or doctor’s office, biofeedback is a wonderful tool that can tell you a lot about your stress and, more importantly, help you learn ways of reducing that stress. Depending on the biofeedback device used, it may measure your heart rate, body temperature, blood pressure, skin conductivity (sweating), levels of stomach acid, muscle tension, and even brain activity . Each of these can be controlled to some extent, and working with biofeedback can be useful in controlling each of these functions.

Biofeedback is no substitute for learning the tools and techniques presented in these chapters. It can, however, help you use them more effectively. You may want to consult a certified biofeedback therapist who can work with you, showing you how biofeedback can help you relax and reduce your levels of mental and physical stress.

Many companies now make inexpensive home biofeedback trainers that you can purchase and use by themselves or hooked up to your computer. Again, a certified biofeedback therapist can tell you whom to contact.

Biofeedback (without the wires)

But what if you can’t afford the time or money to use biofeedback equipment? Not to worry. You can come up with your own biofeedback tools. For example:

A watch with a second hand. By taking your own pulse (on your neck or even your index finger), you get a measure of your heart rate, which varies according to your level of relaxation.

Also, by counting the number of breaths you make in a fixed period of time, you have a measure of your rate of respiration. This should decrease as you become more relaxed.

 A thermometer. Holding the bulb of a thermometer between your fingers can give you a measure of your skin temperature. Relaxing your body should raise your skin temperature.

A stethoscope. By counting heartbeats, you have a measure of your stress level. Lowering your stress should result in a lowered heart rate.

A pressure cuff. These days, a home blood-pressure monitoring device isn’t all that expensive. Lowering your stress and tension levels should result in lower blood-pressure readings.

 A mirror. The way you look can be a pretty good indicator of just how stressed you are. Furrowed brows, a clenched jaw, bags under your eyes — all can be signs of stress. Take a look!

Copyright © Allen Elkin Phd – Originally appeared in Stress Management for Dummies 2^nd edition by Allen Elkin

HYPNOTIZE YOURSELF!

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When you think of hypnosis, two images probably come to mind. The first is from a B-grade movie where you see a Svengali-like doctor — usually deranged — dangling a pocket watch in the face of some innocent victim. The second is of a hypnotist on a stage with a dozen or so audience volunteers who are either dancing with brooms or clucking like chickens. Fortunately, neither image is accurate.
Actually, hypnosis is less mysterious and far more mundane than you may think. Hypnosis is totally safe, but, more importantly, it can be an effective way of helping you relax and cope with stress.

No, you won’t be turned into a clucking chicken

          Probably no other psychological technique for stress reduction is as misunderstood as hypnosis. Some things you need to know:

1.    You aren’t asleep.

2.    You aren’t unconscious.

3.    You won’t lose control or be under someone’s spell.

4.    You won’t do anything that you don’t want to do.

Hypnosis is simply a deeply focused state that makes you more acutely aware of suggestions and allows you to be more receptive to those suggestions.

Some people are more susceptible to hypnotic suggestion. For hypnosis to be as effective for you as possible, try to adopt a receptive, non-critical attitude. Don’t fight the process. Just go with it. If you remain totally skeptical and resistant, not much is going to happen. Have an open mind.

Surprise! You’ve already been hypnotized

You may not realize it, but chances are you’ve been in a hypnotic trance many times before. We slip in and out of hypnotic states all the time. Remember those times when you were driving on the highway and it scarily dawned on you that you hadn’t been paying attention to the road or your driving for the last five minutes? Or remember those times when you left the movie theater and realized that your attention was so glued to the screen that you had no idea who was sitting next to you or what was going on around you? Or when you were daydreaming, or just lost in thought? In each case, you were in a hypnotic trance.

The power of a trance

When you’re in a trance, you’re in a different mental state. You’re still awake and in control, but your attention becomes narrow and incredibly focused. In this state, you’re more receptive to any suggestions you may give yourself, or that a hypnotherapist may offer. You basically give yourself a shortcut to your subconscious. These suggestions can take many forms: cigarettes taste lousy, I’m growing taller day by day, I’m getting smarter, whatever. (Clearly some suggestions are more realistic than others.)

Some trances are deeper than others. In a light trance, you feel more relaxed and are able to respond to simple suggestions. In a heavier trance, you can choose not to respond to pain and even to forget what occurred during hypnosis. In what follows, my aim is to induce a light trance, which is all you need to achieve a peaceful state of deep relaxation.

Inducing a light trance

You can induce a hypnotic trance in many ways (even the dangling watch can work). Here is one of the simpler induction techniques I’ve found to be useful in reducing tension and stress.

1.    Find a comfortable position in a quiet, dimly lit room where you won’t be interrupted.        
Relax as much as possible. If you want, take off your shoes and loosen any tight clothing.

2.    Focus on an object across the room.

The object can be anything — a smudge on the wall, the corner of a picture, it really doesn’t matter. Just choose an object that is above your normal line of sight so that you have to strain your eyeballs a bit looking up to see your spot.

3.    As you look at your spot, silently say to yourself,

“My eyelids are becoming heavier and heavier.”                       

“My eyelids feel as if heavy weights are pulling them down.”

  “Soon they will be so heavy they will close.”

   Repeat these sentences to yourself about every 30 seconds.

4.    Focus on your eyelids.

Soon you’ll notice that, indeed, your eyelids are beginning to feel heavier. Feel this heaviness deepen with time. Don’t fight these sensations, just let them happen. Let your eyes close when you feel they want to close themselves.

5. As your eyes begin to close, say to yourself, “Relax and let go.”

6. When your eyes close, take in a deep breath through your nostrils and hold that breath for about ten seconds.

7. Slowly exhale through your slightly parted lips, making a “swooshing” sound.

At the same time, let your jaw drop and feel a wave of warmth and heaviness spread from the top of your head, down your body, all the way to your toes. Continue to breathe slowly and smoothly. As you exhale, silently say the word “calm,” or some other relaxing word, to yourself. As you breathe, let the feelings of relaxation deepen for another few moments.

Going a little deeper

After you induce a light trance, you’re ready to move into a deeper state of hypnosis.

1.    Take a deep breath and hold it for about ten seconds.

Exhale slowly through your lips while saying the word “deeper” to yourself. Continue this process for several breaths more, saying the word “deeper” to yourself with every exhalation.

2.    Imagine that you’re stepping onto a descending escalator, a long, slow escalator that will take you into a state of deeper relaxation.

          As you begin your descent, silently say to yourself, “I am sinking slowly into a deeper state of relaxation.”

3.    As you descend, count backward on each exhalation, from ten to one.    When you reach the bottom of the escalator, imagine that you’re stepping off this escalator and onto a second descending escalator. As you imagine your descent, deepen your trance with each breath, again counting backward from ten to one.

4.    Continue to deepen your trance until you feel you have reached a comfortable level of relaxation.

You may need only one escalator ride, or you may need several. With practice, a deeper trance will come more easily and more quickly.

Get me out of this trance

Alright, you’re now in a trance. You’re feeling quite relaxed, and your mind is totally at peace. You can choose to remain in this relaxed state and simply enjoy the benefits of relaxation and calm. You can also give yourself a suggestion that can extend this relaxation beyond the trance state. Here’s what to do:

Simply count slowly backward from five to one. Say to yourself beforehand,

“When I reach one, my eyes will open, and I will feel totally awake and refreshed.”

As you count, notice your eyes beginning to flutter and partially open as you approach one.

These suggestions should help you overcome one or more of the possible roadblocks that may arise as you practice self-hypnosis:

Give yourself enough time to reach a trance state: This process may take 15, 20, or even 25 minutes.

Don’t ask yourself, “Am I hypnotized yet?”: This performance pressure only sets the process back. Don’t force it or demand it; let it happen.

As you move into a trance, use the breathing and muscle-relaxation skills in this post. These techniques speed the hypnosis process and help you attain a greater level of relaxation.

Copyright © Allen Elkin Phd – Originally appeared in Stress Management for Dummies 2^nd edition by Allen Elkin

DO NOTHING: MEDITATION IS GOOD FOR YOU!

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Of all the ways to relax, probably the one that evokes the most suspicion is meditation. When you think of meditation, chances are you conjure up images of bearded gents in saffron robes sitting in the lotus position. You feel that this wouldn’t go over well at the office. It’s not surprising that you may be a wee bit leery about jumping in and joining the movement. Yet, it’s likely that you have already meditated. You may not have been aware that you were doing so, but at those times when your mind becomes calm, uncluttered, and focused, and you’re not processing your day or thinking about a million things — you’re doing something that closely resembles meditating.

          The sections that follow present meditation as an important stress-reducing tool that fits nicely in your stress toolbox.

                                      East comes West

          People in the East — especially those who subscribe to certain religious or philosophical beliefs — have been practicing meditation for literally thousands of years. These practitioners use meditation as a means to search for and find inner peace, enlightenment, and harmony with the universe.

          Meditation has not received such ready acceptance in the western world, however. Westerners have tended to view meditation as foreign and remote, and sometimes as religious zealotry. In the ’60s, when the Maharishi — a then-popular guru — came along, westerners began to associate meditation with a somewhat wild fringe group of society.

          Researchers have been aware of the positive effects of meditation for some time now. Herbert Benson, M.D., of the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind-Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, was one of the first to adapt and introduce meditation to broader western audiences. Since then, the principles and practice of meditation have enjoyed widespread acceptance and enthusiasm in the West.

“What can meditation do for me, anyway?”

          The benefits of meditation are wide and varied. You’ll notice many of those benefits immediately, but others are less obvious, affecting you in more subtle ways. Most importantly, meditation can help you relax your mind and body and turn off your inner thoughts. Meditating can help you feel less stressed; your body will be less tense, and your mind will be calmer. With some practice, after meditating you should feel rested, renewed, and recharged. Meditation allows you to develop greater control over your thoughts, worries, and anxieties. It’s a skill that, once mastered, can serve you well throughout your life.

But it’s harder than it looks

          Meditating for a short period of time (like a minute) is pretty do-able. The challenge is being able to meditate for longer periods of time. Westerners in particular have some built-in resistance to meditating. You may share some of the following traits:

Westerners like to be busy: You probably like to be active and do things, rather than be passive and let things happen to you. Lengthy periods of immobility tend to elicit feelings of boredom and restlessness.

Westerners need scorecards: You may feel a need to evaluate yourself on how well you’re doing. If, after a brief period of practice, you find that you’re doing well, you may rate yourself — and your performance — accordingly. One of the keys to meditation is not rating yourself — good or bad.

          None of this should discourage you or deter you from practicing your meditative skills. No, you won’t become an accomplished meditator in 12 minutes. However, you may be surprised at how quickly you begin to see positive results. I repeat: Stick with it. The results are well worth it.

Preparing to meditate

          This section presents a step-by-step guide to preparing for meditation. Remember that there are many ways of meditating. These suggestions help you prepare for different types of meditation, especially the exercises featured in this chapter.

     1.    Find a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed for a while.

     No telephone, no beeper, no TV — nothing.

2. Find a comfortable sitting position.                                                      Contorting yourself into some yogi-like, snake-charmer squat (albeit impressive) may not be the best way to start meditating. Remember that you’re going to remain in one position for fifteen to twenty minutes.          

3. Focus on a sound, word, sensation, image, object, or thought.

4. Maintain your focus and adopt a passive, accepting attitude.

          When you’re focusing in meditation, intrusive thoughts or images may enter your mind and distract you. When those thoughts occur, notice them, accept the fact that they’re there, and then let them go: No getting upset, no annoyance, no self-rebuke.

          Try not to get hung up on the timing. Meditate for about fifteen or twenty minutes. If you want to meditate longer, fine. If you find you’re becoming uncomfortable, you can stop and try it again another time. Remember, this is a non-pressured, non-ego-involved exercise.

          After you have everything in place, you’re ready to begin meditating. Although you have many forms of meditation to choose from, the most common ones are breath-counting meditation and meditation with a mantra. The following sections deal with each type.

                                      Meditative breathing

          Breath-counting meditation is one of the most basic and commonly used forms of meditation. Here’s what to do:

1.    Sit comfortably.

     You can position yourself on the floor or in a chair. Keep your back straight and your head up. Dress comfortably, as well — no tight shoes, belt, necktie, underpants, bra, or anything else that constricts you.

2.    Close your eyes and scan for tension.

3.    Begin to breathe in a relaxed way.

      Relax by taking some abdominal breaths (breathing using your diaphragm). Breathe slowly and deeply through your nose.

          To help you breathe in a relaxing manner, imagine a small balloon just under your belly button. As you inhale through your nostrils, imagine that balloon gently inflating; as you exhale through your nostrils, imagine the balloon slowly deflating.

4.    Focus on your breathing.

          Your breathing now becomes the object of your focus. When you inhale, count this breath as “one.”

          The next time you inhale is two, and so forth until you reach ten. Then you start again at one. Count silently to yourself, and if you lose count, simply start back at one. If you lose count, don’t worry — the number is merely something to focus on. There’s no right or wrong number here.

5.    If you find a distracting thought or image intruding, let it go and return to your count.

          Continue this exercise for about 20 minutes, and — if you can — do this exercise twice a day.

Meditating with a mantra

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          Probably the best known and most popular form of meditation is meditation using a mantra. A mantra is a sound or word that you repeat; it can help you focus your mind and avoid distractions. After you select your mantra, you’re ready to put it to use:

1.    Sit quietly, either in a chair or on the floor as you did for the breathing meditation detailed in the preceding section.

Eliminate any distractions. Close your eyes and relax as much as you can.

2.    Start with some deep breathing and try to clear your mind of the day’s hassle and worry.

          Remember not to breathe with your chest alone. Breathe until you notice that you feel much more relaxed. (About a dozen breaths should do it).

3. Do a body scan to see where any residual tension may be hiding.

4. Focus on your breathing and begin to repeat your mantra to yourself, either repeating it silently or chanting it softly.

          As you say your mantra, see the word in your head. Repeat your mantra over and over. Find a timing and rhythm that is comfortable for you. As before, if you find your concentration slipping, simply become aware of that fact and gently guide your mind back to your mantra.

          Do this exercise for about 20 minutes or so and try to squeeze in as many meditative sessions as you can in your week.

Finding time for mini-meditations

          Someone once asked a meditation teacher, “How long should I meditate?” “For about 20 minutes,” the wise man answered, quickly adding, “but five minutes of meditation you do is better than 20 minutes of meditation you plan on doing, but don’t.”

          I recognize that you may not have 20 minutes twice a day to peacefully meditate in some quiet corner. And even if you have the time, you may find that your boss — who is not nearly as enlightened as you are — frowns on your meditative sessions. Fortunately, you can practice “abbreviated” forms of meditation — they can be as long or as short as the time you have available. You can “mini-meditate” when you find a few extra minutes, for example, during the following listed opportunities. (I don’t advise meditating in your car, unless you’re the passenger.)

1.    Sitting in traffic (if you’re the passenger)

2.    Waiting for your doctor or dentist to see you

3.    Standing (for what seems like forever) in line

4.    Sitting in a boring meeting (where you don’t have to present anything, and won’t be asked questions)

5.    Riding the bus, subway, or taxicab

Copyright © Allen Elkin Phd – Originally appeared in Stress Management for Dummies 2^nd edition by Allen Elkin