Mindfulness

Mindfulness is a lot of things but it is not just breathing and meditating. 

Mindfulness is about being in the present and, for a little while, not paying attention to the past, future or thoughts and feelings which are unhelpful. It is about focusing on you and what you are doing right then and there. In all of the mindfulness activities you could try it is important to stay focused on the present, notice when you get distracted, accept that in happened and bring yourself back to the task without being too hard on yourself for getting distracted. 

Observe - Notice what is going in inside, body sensations, thoughts and feelings or notice what is happening around you. Try not to make any judgements or assumptions about any of it and just notice it without trying to change it or really do anything about it. This is super helpful in training you to notice what is going on with yourself so you can better understand how you are feeling and when things change. You could go for a walk and really pay attention to the little things going on around you, or lsiten to a song and really notice the lyrics or pick out different instruments or sounds. 

Describe - start to say what you are noticing, without judgement just very detached factual things that you notice are happening in and around you, notice any opinions that could be argued with and instead stick to solid things you could describe. You could watch some Youtube or TikTok clips and just describe what you see in them.

Participate - This is where you do a thing, any thing, but really do it. Fully commit to the activity, be in the present and notice everything about it. This is my favourite mindfulness and can be anything like playing a game and really being focused on enjoying the activity or eating a snack and noticing everything about the experience. The key thing here is to mindfully do something you have to notice what you are doing, mindlessly scrolling, having something on in the background or getting so involved in a game you forget where you are and what is happening is not mindful. 

Emotional regulation (ground and manage your emotions)

Emotional regulation is all about practicing things when you are calm, reaching your batteries so you have energy to deal with stuff and planning for when you expect difficult things to happen so you can prepare to manage it well.

• Make sure your plan regular things into your week that make you feel good
• Doing something that you can get better at help you feel a sense of being good at something 
• When you have something coming up that will trigger anxiety, anger or sadness plan for it. What is it that will make you feel that way, what can you do beforehand to prepare to deal with in, what do you need during it to get through it and how can you reward yourself afterwards for surviving it.

Thought challenge (strategies to tackle thoughts that are making you feel bad)

Put the thought on trial - act as the lawyer for and against your case, or get someone to help you. Write down all the reasons you should be worried, write down all the reasons you shouldn't. Then judge which side is more persuasive. If there is more evidence to say you shouldn't be worried you can now prove that to yourself. If there is more evidence that you should be worried then accept that you should be worried and then comes the hard part, do something about it. 

Game the though out - what is the worry, if it came true what would the best, worst and mostly likely outcome be? How will the worst outcome impact your life 1 week, 1 month, 1 year and 10 years from now? 

Rational or irrational - Ask yourself is the worry likely to come true. If it isn't we start to tell ourselves it isn't likely to happen so there is no value to worrying about it. If it is likely to happen we then ask ourselves the question can I do something about it? If you can make a plan, if you cannot we either need to seek help or accept that it is going to happen and plan for that.

Distress tolerance (helping you when a crisis hits)

Breathing - when we are in a crisis we are often breathing rapidly, this over oxygenates our blood, gets our heart beating fast and pumps adrenaline round our body. If you breath out for longer than you breath in you reduce the amount of oxygen in your body and it will respond by slowing everything else down. 

Dive response - If you can put your face in cold water or put ice or cold water on pressure points like you neck or wrists it actives something called your dive response. This makes your body think it is diving into cold water and wont have access to oxygen and will slow everything in your body down. 

Get the nervous energy out - if you have an urge to do something you know you will later regret we need to get that movement energy out of your body. Jog on the stop, star jumps, pushing against something that is heavy or will offer a lot of resistance will get that energy out fast

Tense and relax - tense and relax different parts of your body and focus on the sensation.