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Jul 31

Mindful Time Management (Because You Will Never Have Enough Time…)

The secret to time management is accepting that you’ll never have enough of it. After all, if you had any spare time, then you would have already allocated it to something else by now… The brutal truth is, there’s always too much to do and you’ll never be able to achieve everything you want. Once you’ve accepted this, then you can begin optimising your life.

There are countless time management techniques available but I’ve found that the humble ‘To-Do’ list remains the most effective of all. It works best when drawn up on paper with a fountain pen or a pencil. This forces you to slow down a notch and to think about what you want to achieve. I’ve worked in many high speed, high stress, environments such as newspaper offices and live broadcast TV news, and I’ve found that this old-fashioned approach still works wonders.

Never write down more than six to eight points on your To-Do list. Then, choose two (or a maximum of three) items and write ‘PRIORITY’ next to it. If you do only those Priority items, then you will have successfully managed your time. The other points are simply ‘nice to have done’. In this way, the non-essential items will eventually fall off the bottom of your list. In my case, the only real priority is to write for a few hours each day – the other things can generally wait or be safely ignored. It’s always a good idea to have a ‘self-admin’ task. This item is usually one of those little things that simply needs to be done, such as, paying a household bill.

It’s best to draw up your To-Do list at the end of the day, ready for the next day, so that you don’t have to spend the next morning worrying about what should go on the list (drawing up such a list could easily consume a whole day. Trust me, I’ve done it).

And when you complete each task, remember to pause for a moment and focus on the satisfaction that you feel as you cross it off the list. Pay special attention to the sensations the pen or pencil makes as it glides across the page. Many people use such tools as Trello to manage their time. Trello and its ilk are wonderful tools but there’s something inherently mindful about using a To-Do list with a pencil (or fountain pen) and a piece of paper. I use Trello to sketch out the structure of the books I’m working on, so I’m all in favour of such tools – I just don’t find them effective for time management.

Alternatively, you could try Oliver Burkeman’s advice and produce a ‘Done List’. Burkeman’s advice is usually invaluable and I especially like his techniques for warding off those vague feelings ‘of falling behind’. His technique undoubtedly works for many people but I prefer to mindfully embrace my insecurities and then, more often than not, they simply evaporate as I focus on the sensations they trigger in my body. In my case, vague feelings of anxiety and insecurity tend to localise in my lower stomach. Simply paying attention to them seems to dissolve them.

It’s also best to avoid being side-tracked by ‘Time Stealers’ such as emails, apps, phones and social media. Time Stealers trigger endless streams of thoughts. Before you know it, half the morning’s gone. It’s incredibly difficult to avoid being drawn into their orbit as they were all designed from the ground up to grab attention. They are genuinely addictive…. So, you can’t rely on will-power. The only solution is to put them out of temptation’s way by quitting apps and browsers, or switching off devices – or keeping such things as phones and tablets out of sight, under a book perhaps, on the other side of your desk (or preferably in a different room). Try to only check up on them two or three times a day, preferably at pre-set times. In my case, I simply close everything down apart from the word processor on my Mac (and generally work in Microsoft Word’s ‘Focus’ mode.) From time to time, I will also remind myself of the old adage that ‘writers would rather pick out the hairs from the bottom of the shower than actually write’.

Another tip is to become fully aware of the gaps in your day. It’s easy to mindlessly rush from one thing to the next, and then the next… and not notice the gaps in between. The mind often fills these spaces with stress and anxiety. And before you know it, you’ve been side-tracked once again. Instead, use such gaps to cultivate mindful awareness. Pay full conscious attention to the beauty (or ugliness) of the world around you. Or try savouring a cup of coffee and a piece of cake. Focus on every single taste, aroma, and sensation. Mindfulness can be enjoyable as well as productive.

Making these ideas work in practice:

– Use ‘Mindfulness Bells’. These are gentle reminders to take a pause and to act as a gentle nudge to bring you back to full awareness. Mindfulness Bells are those things that you do regularly, often unconsciously, and can include such things as standing in a queue (or line), drinking a cup of tea or coffee, putting on make-up or chopping vegetables. Mindfulness Bells can be anything at all. As you do such things, do them mindfully by paying full conscious attention to all of the sights, sounds, smells, and sensations that accompany them.

– Meditate regularly. Mindfulness meditation liberates you from the pressures of time. This is partly because it helps you deal with tasks more skilfully and creatively. It makes you happier, less stressed and anxious too. Even ten minutes a day can transform your life. 

– Make a start. Research has shown that when people are stressed then the motivation to do something arrives after they’ve actually begun a task. So, make a start, even if you don’t feel like it (especially if you don’t feel like it) and then you’ll discover the impetus to carry on.

– Whenever you feel that your day is running away with you, the Three Minute Breathing Space will help you regain control. Listen to it here:

Free meditations from our 2-million selling ‘Mindfulness: Finding Peace in a Frantic World’

What can mindfulness do for you?

What is Vedana Meditation?

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Jul 24

Can Mindfulness Enhance Creativity and Decision Making?

Thousands of peer-reviewed scientific papers prove that mindfulness improves mental and physical wellbeing. In recent years, it has also become apparent that it can also improve creativity and decision making. Here are some of the main findings:

  • Mindfulness improves creativity.1
  • Mindfulness improves attention span, working memory and 
reaction speed. It also enhances mental stamina and resilience.2
  • Mindfulness enhances decision making.3
  • Meditation enhances brainfunction. It increases grey matter in areas associated with self-awareness, empathy, self-control and attention.4 It soothes the parts of the brain that produce stress hormones5 and builds those areas that lift mood and promote learning.6 It even reduces some of the thinning of certain areas of the brain that ‘naturally’ occurs with age.7
  • Mindfulness is a potent antidote to anxiety, stress, depression, exhaustion and irritability. In short, regular meditators are happier and more contented, while being far less likely to suffer from psychological distress.8
  • Mindfulness is at least as good as drugs or counselling for the treatment of clinical-level depression. One structured programme known as Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) is now one of the preferred treatments recommended by the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.9
  • Meditation improves the immune system. Regular meditators are admitted to hospital less often for cancer, heart disease and numerous infectious diseases.10
  • Meditation improves heart and circulatory health by reducing blood pressure and lowering the risk of hypertension. It also reduces the risks of developing and dying from cardiovascular disease and lowers its severity should it arise.11
  • Mindfulness is very beneficial for chronic pain. Studies show that pain ‘unpleasantness’ can be reduced by 57 per cent. Experienced meditators can reduce it by 93 per cent.12

And perhaps surprising of all, the benefits of meditation begin to take root in the brain after just a few minutes of practice.

Free meditations from Mindfulness for Creativity

What can mindfulness do for you?

What is Vedana Meditation?

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References

1  Colzato, L. S., Ozturk, A. and Hommel, B. (2012), ‘Meditate to create: the impact of focused-attention and open-monitoring train- ing on convergent and divergent thinking’, Frontiers in Psychology, 3:116, doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00116; Greenberg, J., Reiner, K. and Meiran, N. (2012), ‘“Mind the trap”: mindfulness practice reduces cognitive rigidity’, PLoS One, 7(5): e36206, doi: 10.1371/ journal.pone.0036206; Capurso, V., Fabbro, F. and Crescentini, C. (2014), ‘Mindful creativity: the influence of mindfulness meditation on creative thinking’, Frontiers in Psychology, 4:1020, doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.01020.

2  Jha, A., Krompinger, J. and Baime, M. J. (2007), ‘Mindfulness training modifies subsystems of attention’, Cognitive Affective and Behavioral Neuroscience, 7, pp. 109–19; Tang, Y. Y., Ma, Y., Wang, J., Fan, Y., Feng, S. and Lu, Q. (2007), ‘Short-term medi- tation training improves attention and self- regulation’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 104(43), pp. 17152–6; Zeidan, F., Johnson, S. K., Diamond, B. J., David, Z. and Goolkasian, P. (2010), ‘Mindfulness meditation improves cognition: evidence of brief mental training’, Consciousness and Cognition, 19(2), pp. 597–605; McCracken, L. M. and Yang, S. Y. (2008), ‘A contextual cognitive–behavioral analysis of rehabilitation workers’ health and well-being: influences of acceptance, mindfulness and values-based action’, Rehabilitation Psychology, 53, pp. 479–85; Ortner, C. N. M., Kilner, S. J. and Zelazo, P. D. (2007), ‘Mindfulness meditation and reduced emotional interference on a cognitive task’, Motivation and Emotion, 31, pp. 271–83; Brefczynski-Lewis, J. A., Lutz, A., Schaefer, H. S., Levinson, D. B. and Davidson, R. J. (2007), ‘Neural correlates of attentional expertise in long-term meditation practitioners’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 104(27), pp. 11483–8

3  Hafenbrack, A. C., Kinias, Z. and Barsade, S. G. (2014), ‘Debiasing the mind through meditation: mindfulness and the sunk-cost bias’, Psychological Science, 25(2), p. 369; Hooria, J. (2014), ‘Can mindfulness improve decision making?’, Greater Good Science Center (University of California, Berkeley), at http://bit.ly/QMVF28.

4  Hölzel, B. K., Ott, U., Gard, T., Hempel, H., Weygandt, M., Morgen, K. and Vaitl, D. (2008), ‘Investigation of mindfulness med- itation practitioners with voxel-based morphometry’, Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 3, pp. 55–61; Lazar, S., Kerr, C., Wasserman, R., Gray, J., Greve, D., Treadway, M., McGarvey, M., Quinn, B., Dusek, J., Benson, H., Rauch, S., Moore, C. and Fischl, B. (2005), ‘Meditation experience is associated with increased cortical thickness’, NeuroReport, 16, pp. 1893–7; Luders, E., Toga, A. W., Lepore, N. and Gaser, C. (2009), ‘The underlying anatomical correlates of long-term meditation: larger hippocampal and frontal volumes of gray matter’, Neuroimage, 45, pp. 672–8.

5  Tang, Y., Ma, Y., Wang, J., Fan, Y., Feng, S., Lu, Q., Yu, Q., Sui, D., Rothbart, M., Fan, M. and Posner, M. (2007), ‘Short-term meditation training improves attention and self-regulation’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 104, pp. 17152–6.

6  Davidson, R. J. (2004), ‘Well-being and affective style: neural sub- strates and biobehavioural correlates’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 359, pp. 1395–411.

7  Lazar, S., Kerr, C., Wasserman, R., Gray, J., Greve, D., Treadway, M., McGarvey, M., Quinn, B., Dusek, J., Benson, J., Rauch, S., Moore, C. and Fischl, B. (2005), ‘Meditation experience is asso- ciated with increased cortical thickness’, NeuroReport, 16, pp. 1893–7.

8  Ivanowski, B. and Malhi, G. S. (2007), ‘The psychological and neurophysiological concomitants of mindfulness forms of medita- tion’, Acta Neuropsychiatrica, 19, pp. 76–91; Shapiro, S. L., Oman, D., Thoresen, C. E., Plante, T. G. and Flinders, T. (2008), ‘Cultivating mindfulness: effects on well-being’, Journal of Clinical Psychology, 64(7), pp. 840–62; Shapiro, S. L., Schwartz, G. E. and Bonner, G. (1998), ‘Effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction on medical and pre-medical students’, Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 21, pp. 581–99.

9  See ‘Depression in adults: The treatment and management of depression in adults’, NICE clinical guideline 90, issued October 2009; Ma, J. and Teasdale, J. D. (2004), ‘Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for depression: replication and exploration of differential relapse prevention effects’, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 72, pp. 31–40; Segal, Z. V., Williams, J. M. G. and Teasdale, J. D. (2002), Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression: A New Approach to Preventing Relapse (New York: Guilford Press); Kenny, M. A. and Williams, J. M. G. (2007), ‘Treatment-resistant depressed patients show a good response to Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy’, Behaviour Research and Therapy, 45, pp. 617–25; Eisendraeth, S. J., Delucchi, K., Bitner, R., Fenimore, P., Smit, M. and McLane, M. (2008), ‘Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for treatment-resistant depression: a pilot study’, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 77, pp. 319–20; Kingston, T., Dooley, B., Bates, A., Lawlor, E. and Malone, K. (2007), ‘Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for residual depressive symptoms’, Psychology and Psychotherapy, 80(2), pp. 193–203.

10  Davidson, R. J., Kabat-Zinn, J., Schumacher, J., Rosenkranz, M., Muller, D., Santorelli, S. F., Urbanowski, F., Harrington, A., Bonus, K. and Sheridan, J. F. (2003), ‘Alterations in brain and immune function produced by mindfulness meditation’, Psychosomatic Medicine, 65, pp. 564–70; Tang, Y., Ma, Y., Wang, J., Fan, Y., Feng, S., Lu, Q., Yu, Q., Sui, D., Rothbart, M., Fan, M. and Posner, M. (2007), ‘Short-term meditation training improves atten- tion and self-regulation’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 104, pp. 17152–6. 
11  Walsh, R. and Shapiro, S. L. (2006), ‘The meeting of meditative disciplines and Western psychology: a mutually enriching dia- logue’, American Psychologist, 61, pp. 227–39.

12  Zeidan, F., Martucci, K. T., Kraft, R. A., Gordon, N. S., McHaffie, J. G. and Coghill, R. C. (2011), ‘Brain mechanisms supporting the modulation of pain by mindfulness meditation’, Journal of Neuroscience, 31(14), pp. 5540–8.

13  Neal, D. T., Wood, W. and Quinn, J. M. (2006), ‘Habits: a repeat performance’, Current Directions in Psychological Science, 15(4), pp. 198–202; Verplanken, B. and Wood, W. (2006), ‘Interventions to break and create consumer habits’, Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, 25(1), pp. 90–103.

14  Fredrickson, B. L., Cohn, M. A., Coffey, K. A., Pek, J. and Finkel, S. M. (2008), ‘Open hearts build lives: positive emotions, induced through loving-kindness meditation, build consequential personal resources’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95, pp. 1045–62; see Barbara Fredrickson’s website at http://www.unc. edu/peplab/home.html.

Jul 17

How to rediscover calm in our chaotic world with the Breathing Anchor Mindfulness meditation

Josy took another gulp of her mojito. It was her third within half an hour. She started moving in time with the music and looked out across the crowded living room of her friend’s flat. It was stuffed full of people singing, dancing and waving their brightly coloured drinks in the air. Saturday night was turning into a bit of a riot, which was just the way Josy liked it.

The tall stranger once again wandered over and attempted to strike up a conversation. She’d evaded his advances earlier, but this time she responded with a smile. He leaned a little closer, trying to make himself heard above the sounds of the party. She could just about hear his words, but then a different voice cut through the noise of the room: ‘Josy was telling me about that mad hitchhike back from Italy . . …’ As soon as her name was mentioned, Josy’s mind focused on the conversation on the other side of the room. She heard every word, with crystal clarity, as if the room had fallen into silence.

We’ve all experienced this so-called ‘cocktail- party effect’, where we are in a noisy place and suddenly find ourselves snap­ping to attention when someone mentions our name. Sometimes it can be even more powerful than this, such as when you hear the few words before your name is even mentioned. In such moments, it can feel as if time has flowed backwards a few seconds and allowed you to catch up with the world. And in a sense, this is what happens.

The cocktail-party effect arises out of the mind’s astonishing ability to gather disparate information from its senses, fuse it all together and analyse its significance. This data is then used to update our different ‘models of reality’, with the one that best fits crystallising to become our actual experience. This happens because of the extremely odd and counter-intuitive way that our mind makes sense out of the world. In essence, what we regard as the present moment is actually a stunningly realistic illusion created by the mind. An illusion so compelling that we mistake it for reality. It is called a simulation and the process it relies upon is known as ‘predictive process­ing’.1 (For more detail about this emerging area of neuroscience and psychology see this article).

Predictive processing works by constantly ‘guessing’ what information the senses are about to send to the brain. We do not truly see the world; we see what our minds think the world is about to look like. Nor do we truly hear, but instead experience the sounds that the mind believes are about to hit our ears. And the same is true for our other senses, too. The mind predicts what we are about to taste, feel and smell. And in practice, it is this prediction – or simulation – that we experience, rather than the ‘real’ world.

As you can imagine, this is a fantastically complex process, but a simple analogy helps here: if you are talking about politics in the UK and someone mentions the Houses of P . . . you can guess what’s coming next (the word ‘Parliament’). Because you have predicted the word, you don’t need to listen to the word itself. You can instead use that moment to capture the meaning of the whole sentence. Such predictions make perception and responses more fluent because the world is normally predict­able. As explained above, we don’t create a prediction for one single sense but for all of them. Simultaneously. We construct a global model that incorporates sights, sounds, smells, tastes and sensations. This model is constantly updated, moment by moment, and incorporates any deviations from the real external ‘reality’; we move through the world creating and updating – pre­dicting and checking – it. And if our checks show that we have made an error (like when we approach a shop door and pull on the large handle rather than pushing on it), we simply begin to pay more attention to the actual stream of data arriving from our senses. Any necessary corrections are then built into the model. The mind runs many different variations of the model simultaneously, and each is continuously checked against reality to notice the beginnings of any divergence. The most accurate one ‘wins’ and becomes a moment in the simulation that we experience.

Often, we only get an inkling of this process when the mind ‘jumps the tracks’ from one model to another and we experience such things as this cocktail-party effect. It can be powerful and, occasionally, eerie. Central to this process is the brain’s capacity to monitor the world for important information that signals when you might need to update your global model – or switch to an entirely different track. From moment to moment, your brain compares the mind’s predictions with the actual incoming data from the senses and looks out for ‘surprises’ – or prediction errors. If it detects such an error, your attention switches towards the source of the surprise – the voice that has just spoken your name, for example – to see whether the model needs updating. Often, only a little tweaking is needed, but, for an instant, there is an uncer­tainty that needs to be resolved in case more significant action is needed, and so your attention is inexorably drawn to anything new or surprising. For example, all animals are sensitive to movements in their peripheral vision because it indicates the possible presence of a predator. And humans are no different. Evolution has hard-wired our brains to look out for many such ‘distractors’, and we don’t have a choice whether we notice them or not. Ever found yourself incessantly distracted by a flickering TV above a bar? Put it down to your primate ancestors.

We can also learn to look out for other distractors and these can become written into the mind’s ‘software’. Hearing your own name in a crowded room is one example, but so too are conversations that resonate with you. Looking to move house, buy a car or take a holiday? Suddenly, you start to notice references to them everywhere and feel compelled to pay attention. Normally, though, after a few moments of heightened awareness, you slip back into your own thoughts and are, perhaps, left in awe of your mind’s ability to keep track of the world.

In practice, even if you are focusing on one thing and trying to ignore everything else, your mind continues monitoring the world in the background in case something important needs attending to. Often, though, your attention isn’t waylaid in such an obvious fashion but is, instead, subverted without you realising it. Such subversion is often far more insidious and powerful in the long run than any number of cocktail-party hijackings.

It works like this: if you are not paying attention – really paying attention – then you will not notice the accumulating ‘prediction errors’ that allow you to keep a tight grip on reality. It is these prediction errors that, when noticed, keep us in contact with the real world and prevent us from living inside a discon­nected simulation. They provide the exciting little jolts that bring us back into full consciousness and spark our curiosity. They are the source of life’s joy. They provide the magic – the stardust – that makes life worth living.

The message is in the error.

Allow us to explain this seemingly irrational idea.

If you are eating your favourite treat, your mind will pre­dict how it tastes and feels in your mouth. It will be a fairly accurate simulation, but it will not be real. If, however, you fully tune in to each of your senses as you eat, your experience will be slightly different from your mind’s simulation. There will be errors in the simulation that will normally pass you by unnoticed. This means that the real treat, the one that you are eating in the present moment, will be far more wonderful because you are actually tasting it, rather than experiencing a simulation. All the interleaved nuances of flavours, aromas and textures will be experienced and savoured. They will be absolutely real, not an imitation. If, however, you do not pay attention, you simply will not notice the taste of your food – along with countless other things, such as the feel of the sun on your skin, the smell of freshly baked cakes, the smiles of loved ones, hugs and kisses, the laughter of children in the park . . . The list is truly endless.

Thankfully, such losses are not inevitable because you can learn to pay attention in a very special way; a way that allows you to reconnect with the world around you. And when you do so, something astonishing happens. You begin to see the world in its true glory – full of magic, mystery and wonder. This is what the eight-week course (or plan) in our latest book Deeper Mindfulness offers; and it’s so much more than the absence of anxiety, stress, depression and exhaustion. It offers you the opportunity to reclaim your life – to rediscover the simple, beautiful, joy of being alive.

A Life, Reconnected

The first step to regaining control over your life is learning to notice when your mind has begun to subvert itself and slip into unconsciousness. This is done by first training it to focus on one single thing at a time and then gradually learning how to move this ‘spotlight of attention’ around as you wish. You may not find it easy at first, but with gentle persistence, you can learn to see where the spotlight of attention is pointing, when it starts to wander away from your chosen focus, and then to bring it back to where you had intended it to be. And you do this by setting aside a few minutes each day with the sole aim of training the mind: seeing your attentional spotlight at work, and then bringing it back each time that it wanders away from your chosen focus.

To aid this process, it is helpful to have one place you can bring it back to, over and over again. You see, your mind is like a boat; it needs an anchor, so that it doesn’t drift too far away from the shore with the ebb and flow of the tide. Meditation traditionally uses the breath as this anchor. For some meditators, the breath is sufficient, but for many (or when the mind is unusually scattered or busy) the breath may not be enough. People often need stronger and more noticeable sensations to focus on than those provided by the gentle to-ing and fro-ing of the breath. They need more options. This is especially true if you have breathing difficulties, or if distractions have become too intrusive.

If you have found the breath to be sufficient so far, don’t worry – it will still be there for you later on. However, the first week of the meditation course in Deeper Mindfulness is dedicated to exploring alternative anchors (be they the feet, the hands or the feeling of contact with a seat or mat, or even an external one, such as sounds) to give you a taste of the different qualities that each one brings. If you have practised mindfulness in the past, particularly if you have read our previous book, the two-million selling Mindfulness: Finding Peace in a Frantic World, or taken a course based on it, some of the ideas will seem familiar. But there are many subtle but crucial differences, the primary one being that you learn how to tune in to the vedana (or feeling tone) as you carry out the core meditations. You tune in to the different flavours of awareness as you carry out meditations that may seem familiar but are, none the less, different from those that you may have practised previously. These vedana focused meditations deepen your experience and understanding. This is the kernel of what we want to share with you through our latest book Deeper Mindfulness. It has, for us, become a treasure trove of new insights from the most ancient of Eastern traditions, as well as modern psychology and neuroscience. They have transformed our understanding of meditation and we hope that they will do the same for you, too.

You can stream/download the Finding Your Ground meditation here.

For more information on vedana, or feeling tone, see here.

More articles and blogs here:

What is mindfulness?

What it can do for you

NEW BOOK: Buy now from Amazon UK

NEW BOOK: Buy now from Amazon US

Free meditations from our 2-million selling ‘Mindfulness: Finding Peace in a Frantic World’

Download Chapter One of our new book Deeper Mindfulness for free (the US & UK versions are the same apart from the cover)

  1. For a review of this approach, see Andy Clark, Surfing Uncertainty: Prediction, Action and the Embodied Mind (Oxford University Press, 2016), Lawrence Barsalou (2008), ‘Grounded cognition’, Annual Review of Psychology, 59, pp. 617–45 and Lisa Feldman Barrett, How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain (Pan Books, 2017) and Manjaly, Z. M. & Iglesias, S. (2020), ‘A computational theory of mindfulness based cognitive therapy from the “Bayesian brain” perspective’, Frontiers in Psychiatry, 11, p. 404. ↩︎

Jul 10

Meditation Becoming Difficult, Troubling or Challenging? Here’s What to Do

Practicing mindfulness meditation can sometimes feel like a surprisingly frustrating experience. It can be especially painful when you have been practising meditation for a while – and you feel that you are finally dealing with your most difficult emotions – only to find yourself getting very sad, anxious or angry once again. For some, it can feel as if the meditation itself is making things more intense. Difficult moods, and the memories, daydreams, plans or worries that come along with them, can assail the mind as if from nowhere. It can happen to anyone, but it is more likely to occur if you have suffered difficult and traumatic events in the past. Sometimes the feelings evaporate as quickly as they arrive while at other times they stick around, almost as if they have taken up residence in the mind and refuse to leave. From time to time, people who follow a course based on one of our bestselling books Mindfulness or Deeper Mindfulness will ask us how to deal with such difficulties. So before you embark (or continue) with your practice, it is important to know what you can do when such challenges arise, both in meditation but also in daily life.

  • Firstly, it’s useful to remind yourself that we all differ in what we most need to cope with life, to live with ease, presence and kindness in the midst of our chaotic world. And each of us copes in different ways at different times in our lives. A good mindfulness course, or teacher (or one of our books) will offer a range of ways to help you on these occasions and it is worth experimenting to see what is most helpful for you.
  • Secondly, it’s important to practice mindfulness at a pace or intensity that feels right for you. The practice of mindfulness involves becoming aware of the full range of your experiences. It undoubt­edly opens your eyes to the beauties and pleasures of everyday life, many of which you may have forgotten, but it can also put you in close contact with some of your most difficult thoughts, feelings, emotions and impulses. Learning to respond wisely to these moments is central to all mindfulness courses. But what is often forgotten is that it takes time – a period of allowing that cannot be rushed through or ignored. Always try to remember, therefore, that it’s perfectly fine to stop and start elements of your mindfulness practice as the need arises. True healing, and learning, will often occur in the quiet moments between practices, so don’t feel that these periods are wasted or that you are in some way ‘giving up’. Learning to pause can be a valuable lesson in itself. Here are some specific things to look out for and ideas that you may find helpful.1

Sudden storms

Difficulties can arise at any moment of the day or night, not only while meditating, and they can feel overwhelming. When this happens, see if it’s possible to be very gentle with yourself. Perhaps in that very moment, taking a few deeper breaths and allowing your attention to drop to your feet on each out-breath. In such moments, the Six Second Stress Reliever (see, below) can be particularly helpful.2 As you focus on your feet, explore the sensations of contact between the feet and whatever is supporting them. This helps you to find ‘solid ground’ from which you are better able to make a choice about what to do next.

The Six-second Stress Reliever: Soles of the Feet Meditation3

Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and slowly and gently draw in a long, slow, breath.

Breathe out slowly, naturally and, as you do so, drop your attention to the soles of the feet.

Pay attention to all the different sensations as they rise and fall like waves on the sea. You might notice a feeling of pressure under the heels and the balls of the toes, maybe a generalised achiness or tingling all over your feet or, perhaps, patches of warmth, coldness or maybe a sense of moistness between the toes. You might not experience anything at all, so try not to pre-judge what you will find.

You can do this exercise over one breath – but more will be better.

How can something so simple be so powerful?

When you switch attention away from your churning mind and towards the sensations in your body (such as your feet), you are not just changing what fills your mind, but the whole mode of mind: you are shifting away from thinking mode to sensing mode (from Driven to Being mode). Driven mode (used during rational critical thinking) is great at solving problems – let’s not criticise it – but its main way of attempting to solve problems is to use its ability to do mental time travel: ‘hurrying on to a receding future . . . hankering after an imagined past’ in the words of poet R. S. Thomas.4 If you get stuck in a thinking loop, then more thinking won’t help you break free. Instead, it will tend to dredge up more bad memories and dangerous and imagined futures. This creates anxiety, stress, and unhappiness and also burns up lots of energy. If, instead, you switch away from the whole Driven mode, you also switch away from your troubles. Focusing on sensations does this because they can only occur only in the present moment.

Another way of entering the Being (or sensing) mode during difficult times is by expanding the ‘zoom lens’ of your attention to encompass your whole body, allowing the difficulty to be held in a much larger space with the breath in the back­ground. In such moments, try to remember that it’s also perfectly fine to move your attention away from the body to things around you. You could intentionally look around and maybe name the objects that you see such as ‘chair’, ‘rug’ or ‘picture’, or you could just focus on the sounds around you.

Difficulty when meditating

Upsets can also arise when you are actually meditating, especially when something troubling has recently happened to you, or reminds you of a past hurt. It may feel like these troubles have been reactivated by the meditation itself, or you may perhaps feel disappointed because the meditation was different to the simple relaxation that you were seeking. In such times, it’s good to remember that you have choices. There is no need to grit your teeth and continue meditating through extreme mental or physical discomfort. The aim of meditation is not to ‘harden your heart’, so that you disconnect and no longer feel fully alive or able to embrace life. Rather, you are training the mind to deal skilfully and tenderly with what troubles you. In these times, it’s helpful to distinguish between your willingness and capacity.5 So when a difficulty arises, you could try making a choice as to whether or not you are willing to stay a little longer to work with it. But even if you are willing, is this the kindest thing to do? Gently ask yourself: Do I have the capacity, the energy, right now? If you’re too tired or upset, it’s fine to leave the difficulty on one side for a while, until you feel more able to work with it. If you don’t want to set it aside completely, try choosing how close you want to move towards it, perhaps staying just on the edges, or seeing it a little way off in the distance, or perhaps broadening your field of awareness to your whole body so that it feels as though the difficulty is being held in a wider space. You could also try setting a time limit on how long you are willing to stay with it – say, five or ten breaths.

Whatever happens during your practice, always try to remem­ber that in the midst of difficulty it can feel as if you are truly alone; but you are not. Countless people have experienced the same difficulties as you and they will wish to help. If you find yourself struggling, gently pause for a while, then reach out to like-minded people either over the Internet or in real life. You may find the advice of an experienced meditation teacher to be helpful too. And remember that you can always reach out to a qualified medical or psychological treatment practitioner if your experi­ences become too difficult for you.

In this way, by exploring a range of options, you are finding new and flexible ways to respond wisely to the ups and downs of life. In being flexible, nothing of what you have learned from your past meditation practice is lost, but much is added that might benefit you and those around you.

For all these reasons and more, the first thing we teach in the course (or plan) in our latest book Deeper Mindfulness is how to steady and ground yourself. This will give you a ‘place to stand’, a vantage point from which you can explore the moment-by-moment unfolding of your experience. You can listen to the Finding Your Ground Meditation here.

More articles and blogs here:

What is mindfulness?

What it can do for you

NEW BOOK: Buy now from Amazon UK

NEW BOOK: Buy now from Amazon US

Free meditations from our 2-million selling ‘Mindfulness: Finding Peace in a Frantic World’

Download Chapter One of our new book Deeper Mindfulness for free (the US & UK versions are the same apart from the cover)

  1. We are grateful to David Treleaven for his advice on this section, and for his 2018 book Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness: Practices for Safe and Transformative Healing (W. W. Norton). ↩︎
  2. Singh, N. N., Singh, J., Singh, A. D. A., Singh, A. N. A. & Winton, A. S. W. (2011), ‘Meditation on the soles of the feet for anger management: A trainer’s manual’, Raleigh, NC: Fernleaf (www.fernleafpub.com). In our Oxford Mindfulness Centre’s work in prisons, we have found that inmates appreciate a simple way of dealing with moods when things get too stressful, especially when they are about to get into arguments or fights. ↩︎
  3. Psychologist Nirbhay Singh pioneered this field and has taught the ‘Soles of the Feet’ technique successfully to school students: Selver, J. C. & Singh, N. N. Mindfulness in the Classroom: An evidence-based program to reduce disruptive behavior and increase academic engagement (Oakland, CA, New Harbinger, 2020); for  adolescents with autism: Singh, N. N., Lancioni,G. E., Manikam, R., Winton, A. S. W., Singh, A. N. A., Singh, J. &   Singh, A. D. A (2011) ‘A mindfulness-based strategy self-management of aggressive behavior in adolescents with autism’, Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 5, pp. 1153–8; adults with learning difficulties: Singh, N. N., Lancioni, G. E., Winton, A. S. W., Adkins, A. D., Singh, J. & Singh, A. N. (2007), ‘Mindfulness training assists individuals with moderate mental retardation to maintain their community placements’, Behavior Modification, 31, pp. 800–14; and older adults with Alzheimer’s Disease: Singh, N.N., Lancioni, G. E., Medvedev, O. N., Sreenivas, S., Myers, R. E. & Hwang, Y. (2018), ‘Meditation on the Soles of the Feet Practice Provides Some Control of Aggression for Individuals with Alzheimer’s Disease’, Mindfulness, published online Dec 2018, doi: 10.1007/s12671-018-1075-0; the Mindfulness in Schools Program uses a similar approach, inviting students to take a moment to feel their feet on the floor and their buttocks on the chair. The students named it FOFBOC (feet on floor, butt on chair); see www.mindfulnessinschools.org ↩︎
  4. R. S. Thomas, ‘The Bright Field’, Collected Poems (Phoenix, 1993, p.302). ↩︎
  5. We are grateful to Willoughby Britton for this distinction (International Conference on Mindfulness, Amsterdam, 13 July 2018). ↩︎

Jul 3

Is Mindfulness Risky or Even Dangerous?

From time to time, stories appear in the media about the supposed dangers of meditation. It is a legitimate area of concern. Nobody teaches meditation with the aim of hurting their clients but are they doing so unwittingly? Research indicates that mindfulness can, rarely, enhance existing unpleasant states of mind but, overall, it is a very powerful way of treating anxiety, stress, depression and exhaustion. In fact, numerous clinical trials show that it is at least as powerful as medicine or therapy for treating these conditions.

In psychology, there is an old adage that a treatment with no side effects is inert. Indeed, between three and ten per cent of people undergoing any psychological treatment may find that they feel worse afterwards than they did before they started[1]. Active ingredi­ents make a difference, and sometimes the results won’t be pleasant. Newspaper columnist Oliver Burkeman expressed it by saying that if you are using a hammer with enough strength to drive a nail into a wall, then if you hit your thumb, it will hurt.

In our experience, meditating can very occasionally make people feel worse in two contexts. The first is when a difficult or traumatic memory pops into the mind during meditation and it begins to feel overwhelming. If this happens, it is important to acknowledge it, to open your eyes and reground yourself, and perhaps even pause the practice for a while. The second is when someone has gained so much from their mindfulness practice that they start to practise too much, sometimes for several hours a day, and then find themselves ‘crashing’. The same advice applies: let it go for a while, seeking help from a meditation teacher if you need to.

Meditation, in common with many other psychological approaches works, at least in part, by encouraging practitioners to approach their difficulties. Sometimes this will not be pleasant, which is why in our books we emphasise the importance of progressing at your own pace. If a state of mind starts to become too unpleasant, then it is important to stop until you once again feel comfortable with your practice. The aim of mindfulness is to heal your most unpleasant states of mind, not to punish yourself. There really is never a need to rush through your practice, to grin and bear it, to bulldoze your way to recovery. Kindness and gentility are paramount.

Some meditations may encourage you to gently approach your most difficult states of mind. If that becomes too uncomfortable then you should simply stop, be kind to yourself, and return to your practice when you feel comfortable doing so. This pause in your practice may only be for a few moments or perhaps for a number of minutes, or days, or perhaps far longer. This will often be a delicate balancing act between the need to approach a difficult state of mind while not being overwhelmed by it. It takes practice; there is never a rush.

If you still find a particular practice overwhelming, then perhaps you should try a different meditation with the guidance of a trained teacher or counsellor. We cannot emphasis enough the importance of kindness in your practice – kindness to yourself – and this includes giving yourself permission to pause your practice or even to stop it entirely.       

A small minority of people who ignore this advice can enhance their suffering but it tends to arise in two scenarios. The first is when their existing suffering becomes so intense that they seek help in a meditation retreat or on an intensive course. Neither of these are ideal for beginners. Retreats can be very austere places dedicated to intensive practice, and are often not ideal for beginners, especially ones with pre-existing conditions, unless the courses have been specifically designed for them. However, meditation teachers in such retreats or those leading mindfulness courses will normally carry out a thorough psychological assessment of prospective clients. The idea is to identify those who may experience an adverse reaction and to then refer them on to an experienced psychologist or on to a more appropriate course. This minimises the potential for harm.

An ideal way to learn mindfulness is on an accredited course, most of which use our books Mindfulness: Finding Peace in a Frantic World. Follow-on courses often use our book Deeper Mindfulness: The New Way to Rediscover Calm in a Chaotic World. Both books have been proven to work in clinical trials carried out at Oxford University and other institutions around the world. And crucially, both were designed for home use and were only later adopted for use on meditation courses.

Mindfulness can be seen as analogous to physical fitness training, which can sometimes injure you – especially if you overdo it when your body is unused to it, but also even when you have taken every precaution or are very experienced. You do not then conclude, however, that physical fitness and exercise are bad for you – rather, that you simply need to pace yourself. The same is true for mindfulness meditation.

And finally, it is important to remember that mindfulness is not an extreme sport. To the best of our knowledge, nobody has been killed or seriously injured whilst sitting on a cushion, meditating.

What is Mindfulness?

What it can do for you

NEW BOOK: Buy now from Amazon UK

NEW BOOK: Buy now from Amazon US

Free meditations from our 2-million selling ‘Mindfulness: Finding Peace in a Frantic World’

Download Chapter One of our new book Deeper Mindfulness for free (the US & UK versions are the same apart from the cover)

[1] Baer, R., Crane, C., Miller, E., & Kuyken, W. (2019). Doing no harm in mindfulness-based programs: Conceptual issues and empirical findings. Clinical psychology review, 71, 101–114. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2019.01.001

Jun 26

Mindfulness Meditation: Creating the Time, Space and a Place for Your Practice

Mindfulness can often seem a little tricky, particularly by beginners, but it doesn’t have to be this way. Here’s a little guide to making your mindfulness practice as simple and straightforward as possible by streamlining the process of actually getting to your meditation cushion or chair. Yoga teachers say that the most difficult move in yoga is the one on to your mat. The same is true for mindfulness. Your mind, just like ours, will always find a litany of reasons why you can’t meditate just now, in this moment, so try the following tips to help you get around this difficulty.

Time for meditation

When you embark on your meditation journey there will be many times when you feel that you do not have any spare time to meditate. This is undoubtedly true. Life is busy and you have many priorities to juggle. So, if you did have any spare time, the chances are you would already have allocated it to something else by now. So, you have to make time to meditate, but in the long run you will earn that time back since maintain­ing a meditation practice helps to streamline life. If you are still concerned by this commitment, gently ask yourself how much time you spend each day worrying, procrastinating and running through seemingly pointless habits. Maybe you could promise yourself to devote part of this time to meditation?

In practice, any time of the day is good for meditation although many people prefer the morning before work or the evening after they return home but before they have begun preparing their evening meal. If you can’t manage these, look out for little gaps in your day, such as during your morning commute or perhaps during a lunch break. And remember, many of the meditations in our books are only ten minutes long and one ‘emergency’ practice takes just three minutes so you should be able to squeeze one in during even the most busy of days.

Some people are put off starting a meditation programme because they fear it might be seen as ‘self- indulgent’. If this con­cerns you, perhaps you could see it as a fitness programme for the mind. Many people spend several hours a week running or working out at the gym. Why not spend a little time each day doing the same thing for your mind?

Where . . .

It is best to meditate in a pleasant and peaceful place. This can be as simple as a tranquil corner of your home. Try to avoid the bedroom because this might encourage drowsiness. However, if this is the quietest and most tranquil space available to you, it’s OK to meditate there. You might also like to let others in your home know that you would like to remain undisturbed while you practise. Some people find this a little embarrassing, fearing that others will think mindfulness a little odd. In practice, your friends and family will probably be pleased that you are finding the time to enhance your life. If a quiet place is unavailable to you for whatever reason, then turn noise and ‘distractions’ into practices in themselves using, for example, the Sounds and Thoughts Meditation.

And what equipment will you need? You will need only a phone or computer to listen to the meditation tracks (or to stream them to a TV, headset or hi- fi), a chair to sit on and per­haps a blanket to keep your legs warm. If you use your phone to listen to the meditations, it will be helpful to turn off notifica­tions, switch it to silent or divert calls to voicemail. If you are following the programs in one of our bestselling books, each week’s meditation tracks can be found by following the QR code or web address shown in each chapter (in, for example, the practices for the week box).

. . . how

Most people find that sitting on a straight-backed chair is good for meditation, but it’s also fine to use a meditation cushion or bench to sit on. If sitting feels difficult, then the meditations can be done lying down on a rug or mat. If sitting, see if it’s possible to adopt an alert posture, upright but not stiff, with your spine self-supporting, about 2–3cm from the back of the chair. It often helps the posture to sit a little towards the front of the chair and to put a small cushion on the seat, so that your hips are slightly higher than your knees. This will allow your back to follow its natural curves and create a sense of openness in the chest. It will also encourage alertness and emotional ‘brightness’.

The feet should be flat on the floor, about hip-width apart. This encourages a feeling of strength and stability. The hands are best left relaxed, supported by the lap or the thighs.

The best position is one that causes as little muscular strain as possible, while encouraging an alert but relaxed state of mind. Whatever position you choose, remember that you will gain nothing by forcing yourself into a harsh or uncomfortable one. You certainly shouldn’t feel the need to sit cross-legged on the floor. Newspapers and magazines love pictures of people meditating in this posture, but there really is no need to do so. While some people do meditate in this way, it is often extremely uncomfortable if you are not used to it. Sitting crossed-legged has nothing to do with the practice of meditation. It is simply the way people traditionally sat in the East.

You may need to shift positions part-way through a medi­tation. Again, this is OK. Fidgeting is normal, too, and even experienced meditators need to move from time to time. If you do move, see if you can include this in your meditation, moving with full awareness, sensing how the feeling tone fluctuates before, during and after the movement.

. . . and when?

Why not close your eyes for a few moments, take a deep breath, and begin right now? Perhaps with this simple Finding Your Ground Meditation from our latest book Deeper Mindfulness. Other free to stream/download meditations can be found here.

What is Mindfulness?

What it can do for you

NEW BOOK: Buy now from Amazon UK

NEW BOOK: Buy now from Amazon US

Download Chapter One of our new book Deeper Mindfulness for free (the US & UK versions are the same apart from the cover)

Apr 30

Mindfulness in the Workplace Is Still the Future of Wellness

In an age of endless emails, Zoom fatigue and constant deadlines, companies are waking up to a quiet revolution: mindfulness in the workplace. What began as an ancient spiritual practice is now a proven method for enhancing mental well-being, boosting productivity, and reducing stress at work.

Whether you’re new to meditation or a seasoned practitioner, there’s no denying its growing impact on modern work culture.

What Is Workplace Mindfulness?

Workplace mindfulness means being fully present and aware, even amidst tight deadlines and team meetings. At the heart of it is meditation — a simple, effective practice that helps reduce stress, enhance focus, and build emotional resilience.

As mental health becomes a core priority for employers, meditation is becoming one of the most powerful tools in the corporate wellness toolkit.

Try these free guided meditations from our two-million selling book Mindfulness: Finding Peace in a Frantic World to get started.

Why Meditation at Work Is on the Rise

In today’s fast-paced, always-on world, distractions are everywhere. That’s why companies are increasingly turning to mindfulness programs to help employees thrive rather than just survive.

This shift is about more than just stress relief — it’s about cultivating focus, resilience, and emotional well-being.

The Proven Benefits of Meditation for Employees

Mindfulness meditation offers a wide range of evidence-based benefits:

  • Sharper focus and attention
  • Better emotional balance
  • Enhanced creativity and decision-making
  • Greater stress resilience (and it’s also great for dealing with anxiety and depression)

Taking a few minutes each day to pause and breathe can make a huge difference to how employees feel and perform.

Real-World Success Stories

Companies such as Google, Aetna, and General Mills have embedded mindfulness into their culture — with powerful results. Employees report feeling more focused, less anxious, and more connected to their work.

These corporate pioneers are setting an example, proving that well-being fuels performance.

The Science Behind Workplace Meditation

Mindfulness isn’t just feel-good fluff — it’s grounded in science. Research shows that meditation:

  • Lowers stress hormone levels
  • Increases grey matter in brain regions linked to focus and empathy
  • Improves sleep, memory, and emotional regulation

The evidence is clear: regular mindfulness practice can reshape the brain in ways that support well-being and performance.

How to Create a Meditation-Friendly Workplace

Want to introduce mindfulness into your workplace? Start small:

  • Set up a quiet space or “mindful break” area
  • Offer lunchtime or pre-meeting guided meditations
  • Share access to free mindfulness resources
  • Lead by example: encourage leadership to practice and support mindfulness initiatives

Overcoming Resistance to Meditation at Work

Not everyone warms to the idea of meditation at first — and that’s OK. Common concerns include:

  • “I don’t have time.”
  • “It’s too spiritual.”
  • “I can’t clear my mind.”

These can be addressed through clear education, secular language, and real-world results.

Try this: A 3-Minute Breathing Space – a short, simple practice that fits easily into any workday.

The Future of Mindfulness in the Workplace

As more companies embrace a culture of well-being and psychological safety, meditation will likely become a standard offering — just like gym memberships and standing desks.

Mindfulness is not a trend; it’s a transformational shift in how we work, lead, and live. The more companies prioritise mental wellness, the more sustainable and human our workplaces will become.

Final Thoughts

Meditation is no longer a luxury reserved for yoga retreats — it’s a practical tool for thriving in modern work life. From reducing stress to enhancing creativity, its benefits are clear, measurable, and far-reaching.

If you’re ready to bring more calm, clarity, and focus into your workday, start with these free meditations from Mindfulness: Finding Peace in a Frantic World.

What is Mindfulness?

What it can do for you

NEW BOOK: Buy now from Amazon UK

NEW BOOK: Buy now from Amazon US

Download Chapter One for free (the US & UK versions are the same apart from the cover)

Nov 23

A Major Cause Of Mental Ill-Health Has Been Discovered And So Has A Powerful New Treatment

In the Matrix movies, there are those who famously opt to take the ‘red-pill’ and discover that they are living inside a computer simulation of the world, while those who take the ‘blue-pill’ continue to live in blissful ignorance. Hollywood hyperbole aside, could the Matrix really contain a glimmer of truth? In recent years, neuroscientists have started to believe that we do indeed live inside a simulation, albeit one created by the brain rather than an alien computer. And this has profound implications for our understanding of the origins of thoughts, feelings and emotions but also for many mental health problems too.  

The New Psychology of the Mind: Predictive Processing

It takes an enormous amount of mental energy to become con­scious of the present moment. This is because of the vast amount of information flowing in from our senses, all of it needing to be co-ordinated and integrated so that we can become not only conscious of the world but also make decisions and act upon them – in real time – in the present moment. Given the complex­ity of the task, you would expect this to make everything – from walking along a crowded street to such simple things as catching a ball – extremely difficult. But nature has got around the problem by giving us a brain that predicts the future. It constructs a ‘simplified’ model of the world that is constantly updated and enriched by information from our senses. What we regard as the present moment is actually a stunningly realistic illusion created by the mind. An illusion so compelling that we mistake it for reality. It is called a simulation and the process it relies upon is known as ‘predictive process­ing’[i].

Predictive processing works by constantly ‘guessing’ what information the senses are about to send to the brain. We do not truly see the world; we see what our minds think the world is about to look like. Nor do we truly hear, but instead experience the sounds that the mind believes are about to hit our ears. And the same is true for our other senses, too. The mind predicts what we are about to taste, feel and smell. And in practice, it is this prediction – or simulation – that we experience, rather than the ‘real’ world.

As you can imagine, this is a fantastically complex process, but a simple analogy helps: if you are talking about politics in the UK and someone mentions the Houses of P . . . you can guess what’s coming next (the word ‘Parliament’). Because you have predicted the word, you don’t need to listen to the word itself. You can instead use that moment to capture the meaning of the whole sentence. Such predictions make perception and responses more fluent because the world is normally predict­able. As explained above, we don’t create a prediction for one single sense but for all of them. Simultaneously. We construct a global model that incorporates sights, sounds, smells, tastes and sensations. This model is constantly updated, moment by moment, and incorporates any deviations from the real external ‘reality’; we move through the world creating and updating – pre­dicting and checking – it. And if our checks show that we have made an error (like when we approach a door and pull on the large handle rather than pushing on it), we simply begin to pay more attention to the actual stream of data arriving from our senses. Any necessary corrections are then built into the model.

The brain also stores core experiences ready for re-use in the simulation. Imagine you are walking through your local park on a lovely sunny day. You have been to the park countless times before, and know it in detail. You have seen the sun filtering through the leaves of the trees many times; you know how the grass looks and smells, the sounds made by the children on the swings, the dogs barking and the traffic in the distance. You know everything you need to know about the park in order to reconstruct a highly accurate simulation of it in your mind. And if there are a few gaps – well, the mind is perfectly capable of filling them in and constructing a seamless experience.

States of Distress Are Also Ones of Hope

It’s not just visits to a lovely park that are recalled from memory to prime your simulation. Distressing thoughts, feelings and emotions are, too. In fact, troublesome states of mind are the easiest to recall. This is because the mind tends to store the most salient experiences on a hair-trigger (along with your most potent thoughts, feel­ings and emotions). So in practice, the things most likely to be re-experienced in your simulation are the most negative ones. Such dark and amorphous emotions as anxiety, stress, anger and unhappiness are held at the front of the queue.

None of this means that your distress is exaggerated or untrue. If you feel sad, then you are sad. If you feel anxious, stressed, exhausted or angry, then you truly are experiencing such distress. Your predictions are true for you. Simulation is reality.

Painful though they are, these states of distress are also ones of hope. For they are not solid, real and unchanging. Your simulation can be ‘re-calibrated’ to better reflect reality. And you can do this using an ancient type of mindfulness known as vedana or feeling tone meditation (See Deeper Mindfulness: The New Way to Rediscover Calm in a Chaotic World). In these meditations, you are asked to still the mind with a simple breath or body meditation and then to focus, in a very specific way, on the feelings and sensations that arise in the moment that the unconscious mind crystallises into the conscious one. In this way, your simulation is progressively recalibrated and brought into closer alignment with reality. So you learn to experience the world as it truly is rather than one recreated from your darkest memories or deepest fears. Feeling Tone meditations progressively release the grip that such distressing states of mind hold over you. You come to realise that yes, sometimes life can be painful, but at other times it is glorious, too. So you come to experience life as an ever-flowing series of pleasant and unpleasant moments. Moments of keen reality. And it is in such moments, that you can genuinely start to live again.

And research is beginning to show that an eight week program based on these feeling tone meditations can be a highly effective treatment for anxiety, stress, and depression while also enhancing overall wellbeing.[ii] It might not be necessary to take a Red Pill to break free of a distressing simulation. Feeling tone meditations may be enough.

You can download/stream some Feeling Tone meditations HERE.

Buy Deeper Mindfulness: The New Way to Rediscover Calm in a Chaotic World from Amazon UK

Buy Deeper Mindfulness from Amazon US

Download Chapter One for free (the US & UK versions are the same apart from the cover)

[i] For a review of this approach, see Andy Clark, Surfing Uncertainty: Prediction, Action and the Embodied Mind (Oxford University Press, 2016), Lawrence Barsalou (2008), ‘Grounded cognition’, Annual Review of Psychology, 59, pp. 617–45 and Lisa Feldman Barrett, How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain (Pan Books, 2017) and Manjaly, Z. M. & Iglesias, S. (2020), ‘A computational theory of mindfulness based cognitive therapy from the “Bayesian brain” perspective’, Frontiers in Psychiatry, 11, p. 404.

[ii] Williams, J.M.G., Baer, R., Batchelor, M. et al. What Next After MBSR/MBCT? An Open Trial of an 8-Week Follow-on Program Exploring Mindfulness of Feeling Tone (vedanā). Mindfulness 13, 1931–1944 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-022-01929-0

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