The Practice of Mindfulness

You might be jug­gling more than usu­al these days. From work to fam­i­ly to keep­ing up with the world’s events, your mind may be on overdrive.

If you’re strug­gling to move past your wor­ry­ing thoughts or find your­self over­whelmed, prac­tic­ing mind­ful­ness may help. Mind­ful­ness is described as being active­ly present in the moment, with­out apply­ing val­ue judgments.

Dr. Mar­i­anne McClain, neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist at Quin­cy Med­ical Group (QMG), explains, ​“Most of us can prob­a­bly acknowl­edge, espe­cial­ly in the cur­rent fast-paced cul­ture, that our minds are often any­where but here – whether we are reflect­ing on the past, plan­ning for the future, or engag­ing those great mul­ti­task­ing abil­i­ties to do one thing while think­ing about anoth­er – we sel­dom make time for the present.”

She fur­ther explains that when we engage in repet­i­tive behav­iors, auto-pilot can take over, lead­ing us to miss what is hap­pen­ing right now.

Mind­ful­ness, she says, is about turn­ing off the auto-pilot in our lives and being present for what is hap­pen­ing in the moment. This is the atten­tion com­po­nent of mind­ful­ness, or being active­ly present. The oth­er essen­tial com­po­nent of mind­ful­ness is our rela­tion­ship with an experience.

“Our minds have a ten­den­cy to form judg­ments, to elab­o­rate on our expe­ri­ences, and often to over-iden­ti­fy with them,” Dr. McClain shared. ​“Mind­ful­ness is about step­ping back to observe what is actu­al­ly hap­pen­ing with­out form­ing quick val­ue judg­ments or engag­ing in this sec­ondary elab­o­ra­tion (where one thought leads to a spi­ral of relat­ed thoughts that move away in dif­fer­ent direc­tions). It is also rec­og­niz­ing the tran­sient nature of our expe­ri­ence – instead of ​‘I think there­fore I am,’ it is a recog­ni­tion that these are thoughts and feel­ings that I am hav­ing in this moment.”

Dr. McClain said research done on mind­ful­ness demon­strates its pos­i­tive effects on both phys­i­cal and men­tal health, as well as qual­i­ty of life.

“Incor­po­rat­ing mind­ful­ness prac­tices may be ben­e­fi­cial for improv­ing your mood and over­all well-being, deep­en­ing the resilien­cy with which indi­vid­u­als respond to stress and even enhances attention/​cognition and over­all brain health,” Dr. McClain noted.

So, how do you get start­ed? Dr. McClain said there are sev­er­al ways to incor­po­rate mind­ful­ness as part of your life.

“Mind­ful­ness can be acti­vat­ed infor­mal­ly through­out our day by choos­ing to be present in the moment with open curios­i­ty, and can also be prac­ticed for­mal­ly through mind­ful­ness med­i­ta­tions,” she explained. ​“Core for­mal prac­tices include mind­ful breath­ing, where you focus on the breath, the body scan, where you sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly and inten­tion­al­ly move atten­tion through­out body attend­ing to the var­i­ous sen­sa­tions in the dif­fer­ent regions, and a wide range of addi­tion­al practices”

There are free guid­ed mind­ful­ness prac­tice record­ings avail­able online. Dr. McClain rec­om­mends www​.umsys​tem​.edu/​t​o​t​a​l​r​e​w​a​r​d​s​/​w​e​l​l​n​e​s​s​/​m​i​n​d​f​u​l​n​e​s​s​/​m​i​n​d​f​u​l​n​e​s​s​_​p​r​a​c​tices or

https://​www​.ucla​health​.org/​m​a​r​c​/​m​i​n​d​f​u​l​-​m​e​d​i​t​a​tions.

QMG’s Behav­ioral Health ser­vices can also offer you addi­tion­al sup­port. For more infor­ma­tion on these ser­vices, vis­it quin​cymed​group​.com or call 217−222−6550, ext. 3418.