Rabu, 28 Desember 2011

Mindfulness Exercises - Everyday Mindfulness Exercises For Stress Relief



From Elizabeth Scott, M.S.,
Your Guide to Stress Management.
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About.com Health's Disease and Condition content is reviewed by Steven Gans, MD

Pick Your Favorite Mindfulness Exercises

The practice of mindfulness can bring many benefits to your emotional and physical health, as well as to the relationships in your life. Mindfulness is an amazing tool for stress management and overall wellness because it can be used at virtually any time and can quickly bring lasting results. The following mindfulness exercises are simple and convenient, and can lead you to a deeper experience of mindfulness in your daily life.

Mindfulness Exercise #1: Meditation

Meditation brings many benefits in its own right, and has been one of the most popular and traditional ways to achieve mindfulness for centuries, so it tops the list of mindfulness exercises. Meditation becomes easier with practice, but it need not be difficult for beginners.
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Simply find a comfortable place, free of distractions, and quiet your mind. (See this article for more meditation techniques, or this one for a basic meditation for beginners.)

Mindfulness Exercise #2: Deep Breathing

That’s right: mindfulness can be as simple as breathing! Seriously, though, one of the most simple ways to experience mindfulness, which can be done as you go about your daily activities (convenient for those who feel they don’t have time to meditate), is to focus on your breathing. Breathe from your belly rather than from your chest, and try to breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. Focusing on the sound and rhythm of your breath, especially when you’re upset, can have a calming effect and help you stay grounded in the present moment. (See this article for more on breathing exercises.)

Mindfulness Exercise #3: Listening to Music

Listening to music has many benefits — so many, in fact, that music is being used therapeutically in a new branch of complimentary medicine known as music therapy. That’s part of why listening to music makes a great mindfulness exercise. You can play soothing new-age music, classical music, or another type of slow-tempo music to feel calming effects, and make it an exercise in mindfulness by really focusing on the sound and vibration of each note, the feelings that the music brings up within you, and other sensations that are happening "right now" as you listen. If other thoughts creep into your head, congratulate yourself for noticing, and gently bring your attention back to the current moment and the music you are hearing.

Mindfulness Exercise #4: Cleaning House

The term "cleaning house" has a literal meaning (cleaning up your actual house) as well as a figurative one (getting rid of "emotional baggage," letting go of things that non longer serve you), and both can be great stress relievers! Because clutter has several hidden costs and can be a subtle but significant stressor, cleaning house and de-cluttering as a mindfulness exercise can bring lasting benefits. To bring mindfulness to cleaning, you first need to view it as a positive event, an exercise in self-understanding and stress relief, rather than simply as a chore. Then, as you clean, focus on what you are doing as you are doing it — and nothing else. Feel the warm, soapy water on your hands as you wash dishes; experience the vibrations of the vacuum cleaner as you cover the area of the floor; enjoy the warmth of the laundry as you fold it; feel the freedom of letting go of unneeded objects as you put them in the donations bag. It may sound a little silly as you read it here, but if you approach cleaning as an exercise in mindfulness, it can become one. (I also recommend adding music to the equation.)

Mindfulness Exercise #5: Observing Your Thoughts

Many stressed and busy people find it difficult to stop focusing on the rapid stream of thoughts running through their mind, and the idea of sitting in meditation and holding off the onslaught of thought can actually cause more stress! If this sounds like you, the mindfulness exercise of observing your thoughts might be for you. Rather than working against the voice in your head, you sit back and "observe" your thoughts, rather than becoming involved in them. As you observe them, you might find your mind quieting, and the thoughts becoming less stressful. (If not, you may benefit from journaling as a way of processing all those thoughts so you can decrease their intensity and try again.)

Mindfulness Exercise #6: Create Your Own!

You are probably now getting the idea that virtually any activity can be a mindfulness exercise, and in a way, you’re right. It helps to practice meditation or another exercise that really focuses on mindfulness, but you can bring mindfulness to anything you do, and find yourself less stressed and more grounded in the process.
Updated: January 18, 2008

Benefits and Different Types of Meditation Techniques

From Elizabeth Scott, M.S.,
Your Guide to Stress Management.
FREE Newsletter. Sign Up Now!
About.com Health's Disease and Condition content is reviewed by Steven Gans, MD

Techniques for Relaxation

Benefits of Meditation
Meditation is widely recommended as a healthy way to manage stress, and for good reason. It provides many health-enhancing benefits, like reducing symptoms of stress and anxiety, relieving physical complaints like headaches, and even enhancing immunity to illness. (Read this article for more information on the health benefits of meditation.)
Basics of Meditation:
Meditation can be practiced in many different ways. While there are numerous different meditation techniques, a common thread runs through virtually all meditative techniques:

  • Quiet Mind: With meditation, your thinking mind becomes quiet. You stop focusing on the stressors of your day or your life’s problems, as well as solving these problems.
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You just let that voice in your head be quiet, which is easier said than done. For example, start thinking about nothing now. (It’s OK; I’ll wait.) If you’re not practiced at quieting your mind, it probably didn’t take long before thoughts crept in.
  • Being In The Now: Rather than focusing on the past or the future, virtually all meditative pracgtices involve focusing on right now. This involves experiencing each moment and letting it go, experiencing the next. This, too, takes practice, as many of us live most of our lives thinking toward the future or relishing and rehashing the past.
  • Altered State of Consciousness: With the quiet mind and focus on the present, comes an altered level of consciousness that isn’t a sleeping state but isn’t quite your average wakeful state, either. Meditation increases brain activity in an area of the brain associated with happiness and positive thoughts and emotions, and some evidence shows that regular practice brings prolonged positive changes in these areas.
Types of Meditative Techniques:
There are many different ways to meditate. Here I’ll mention some basic categories of meditation techniques so you can understand some of the main options and how they differ from one another. This is not an exhaustive list, but it can give you some ideas.
  • Basic Meditation Techniques: This involves sitting in a comfortable position and just trying to quiet your mind by thinking of nothing. It’s not always easy to do this if you don’t have practice with it. But a good way to begin is to think of yourself as an ‘observer of your thoughts,’ just noticing what the narrative voice in your head says, but not engaging it. As thoughts materialize in your mind, just let them go. That’s the basic idea.
  • Focused Meditation Techniques: With this technique, you focus on something intently, but don’t engage your thoughts about it. You can focus on something visual, like a statue; something auditory, like a metronome or tape of ocean waves; something constant, like your own breathing; or a simple concept, like ‘unconditional compassion’. Some people find it easier to do this than to focus on nothing, but the idea is the same -- staying in the present moment and circumventing the constant stream of commentary from your conscious mind, and allowing yourself to slip into an altered state of consciousness.
  • Activity-Oriented Meditation Techniques: With this type of meditation, you engage in a repetitive activity, or one where you can get ‘in the zone’ and experience ‘flow.’ Again, this quiets the mind, and allows your brain to shift. Activities like gardening, creating artwork, or practicing yoga can all be effective forms of meditation.
  • Mindfulness Techniques: Mindfulness can be a form of meditation that, like activity-oriented meditation, doesn’t really look like meditation. It simply involved staying in the present moment rather than thinking about the future or the past. (Again, this is more difficult than it seems!) Focusing on sensations you feel in your body is one way to stay ‘in the now;’ focusing on emotions and where you feel them in your body (not examining why you feel them, but just experiencing them as sensations) is another.
  • Spiritual Meditating: Meditation can also be a spiritual practice. Many people experience meditation as a form of prayer -- the form where God 'speaks,' rather than just listening. That’s right, many people experience ‘guidance’ or inner wisdom once the mind is quiet, and meditate for this purpose. You can meditate on a singular question until an answer comes (though some would say this is engaging your thinking mind too much), or meditate to clear their mind and accept whatever comes that day.
Whichever meditative techniques you use, the potential benefits are clear and numerous, making it one of the more commonly recommended stress management practices.


Sources:
Astin JA, Shapiro SL, Eisenberg DM, Forys KL. Mind-Body Medicine: State of the Science, Implications for Practice. The Journal of the American Board of Family Practice March / April 2003.
Davidson, Richard, et. al. Alterations in Brain and Immune Function Produced by Mindfulness Meditation. Psychosomatic Medicine, 2003.
Kabat-Zinn J, Massion AO, Kristeller J, Peterson LG, Fletcher KE, Pbert L, Lenderking WR, Santorelli SF. Effectiveness of a MeditationBbased Stress Reduction Program in the Treatment of Anxiety Disorders. American Journal of Psychiatry, June 1992.
Venkatesh S, Raju TR, Shivani Y, Tompkins G, Meti BL. A Study of Structure of Phenomenology of Consciousness in Meditative and Non-Meditative States. Indian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology, April 1997.
Updated: January 16, 2008

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