CNN Discovers Mindfulness

You know that eastern practices are becoming more mainstream when CNN starts reporting on them. Heck, I would expect Glenn Beck to begin railing against yoga and meditation now, as both exercises clearly discriminate against the mindless hordes.

All political humor aside, the mere fact that the concept of mindfulness is catching on in these odd and confusing times shows that perhaps the philosophy of quick fixes and pharmaceutical intervention is becoming antiquated as the populace discovers that much like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, they had the power all along.

I’ve written about mindfulness here, here, and here, and the longer I practice, the more beneficial it becomes. Certainly, attaining a mindful state isn’t something that happens quickly, or easily. Thoughts and feelings intrude incessantly at the beginning, and it can be difficult to push the head full of busy out of the way and refocus.

But the mere act of recognizing a lack of focus and the presence of intruding chatter and chaos is itself therapeutic, as it helps to frame the amount of noise with which we’re normally dealing and provides a sense of empowerment and calm when we begin to have success at reducing the bedlam to white noise.

The CNN article discusses various “mindfulness” techniques as solutions for stress-busting, but that’s become a sort of catch-all, a default description for anything that helps someone to slow down and feel better. Breathing exercises, stretching, yoga – all are part of plucking yourself out of the rat race and pushing the reboot button to reset your level of tension and anxiety.

Think of your muscles, mind, and body as a rubber band. Visualize that rubber band being stretched when you’re stressed and tense, and then watch it as it grows slack, returning to its natural state. Over time, this rubber band continues to stretch, growing tense, but often fails to fully return to its original loose form due to the underlying tension that never quite goes completely away.

Therefore, our rubber bands end up being partially stretched at all times, so when we do relax, we don’t do it in the manner that we did before – we only return part of the way to a non-stretched condition.

Practicing mindfulness and stress-reduction helps us take that rubber band and relax it the rest of the way, so that it’s both easier to notice the disparity between the stressed and non-stressed self, but also to fully grow limp from an emotional, physical, and spiritual perspective.

I’ve actually seen great benefit to proactive mindfulness – doing a bit of deep breathing and mind-clearing prior to entering meetings or situations that are typically stressful, so that I’m much more relaxed at the beginning and my stress thermometer is starting from a much lower reading.

Mindfulness – catch it!

Mindfulness training busts stress , via CNN

Breathing to Reduce Anxiety

When I thought about writing a post on the benefits of breathing to reduce anxiety, I started to smile to myself as I considered the alternative – stop breathing, and that will certainly eliminate any anxious feelings. So let me add some clarity here – I’m referring to effective breathing techniques to aid in anxiety reduction!

Years ago, when I was still in my late 20s and developed anxiety and panic issues, I was referred to a psychologist who recommended biofeedback as a tool to help me learn about physical cues and hopefully parlay that into a successful cycle of recognizing when I was stressed and tense, and then implement breathing and visualization exercises in order to achieve physical and emotional peace.

Ever the cynic, I was prepared to be disappointed by biofeedback in general and its ability to help me specifically, but I was pleasantly surprised. The visual and auditory alerts to my degree of tension and anxiety – the temperature of my extremities, skin response, breathing, etc. – truly did allow me to recognize my physical state and react accordingly. In fact, for many years after, I excelled at being able to self-identify when I was tense or anxious, and I could feel my body change as I reacted by doing what I had learned – deep breathing and relaxation exercises.

As I got older and began looking for strategies to assist me with my new (or not so new) anxiety challenges, I began to research Buddhism and some of the meditations and exercises involved with clearing the head – a quiet mind. Almost all of them involved structured breathing as a component, and some actually required that you focus on breathing as a way to keep extraneous thoughts from crowding out the things you were trying to accomplish.

Anxiety Cures has an interesting piece on breathing as a way to reduce anxiety, and while it doesn’t go into detail or suggest various techniques, it is a good starting point for those who have never explored the topic. Yoga is also listed as an example of a stress-reducing path that utilizes breathing as a key factor, but my background in yoga is limited to that which I embarrassingly perform as part of my Wii Fit regimen.

That said, I’ve found enormous benefit by incorporating effective breathing techniques as part of my overall anxiety reduction program, and I heartily recommend exploring the topic in more detail if you’re looking for another tool to add to your toolbox.

Breathe Correctly and Remove Your Anxiety