Hello guys and welcome back.
Firstly I would like to say big thank you for your support and hope that my blog is little bit useful for some of you. I would like to dedicate this post to great knowledge of mindfulness. This blog is follow up of NHS blog I posted earlier. Right what is mindfulness, what does it do and how does it help with Anxiety and Depression??
Mindfulness is ancient eastern practice witch is very relevant for our lives today. Mindfulness is very simple concept. Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way - on purpose, in the present moment and non judgementally.
Everyone can perform Mindfulness exercises, there is no religion involved, doesn't contain any religious believes as many of you probably thinking. Mindfulness does not conflict with any beliefs or traditions, whether religious, cultural or scientific.
It is simply a practical way to notice thoughts, physical sensations, sights, sounds, smells - anything we may not normally notice. The actual skills may be simple, but because it is so different how our minds normally behave it takes a lot of practice.
Mindfulness can simply be noticing what we don't normally notice, because our heads are too busy in the future or in the past, thinking about what we need to do next or going over what we have done.
For example look at picture above... What you see??
Your mind will tell you probably ohh its girl hiking in mountains... Its true and how your mind and brain react to this information. Try again and look at the picture using Mindfulness... What you see??
I can see sunny weather, beautiful wild life flowers, pine trees and can imagine in my mind that there is loads of birds singing song... That is basic knowledge of mind fullness. Non-judgmental, present in time thoughts. You only need 5 minutes a day to find time for you relaxation.
It is scientifically proven that our minds wonder about 50% of the time, but every time we practice being mindful we exercising our attention and choose what we focus on rather then passively allowing our attention to be dominated by that which distresses us and takes us away from present moment. Mindfulness may be simply describe as choosing and learning to control our focus of attention.
Did you heard about auto-pilot?? I bet you did.. Just think leaving for work locking your door with no attention or thought about task you just perform. Do you know what colour is your door handle or key?? Driving car not thinking about route you choose, places you pass on your journey, sounds, body movements. Doing tasks that you have to think later if you actually done it... I done it and I bet you that you did it as well. But that's not a problem, we are living in world that make us constantly busy and pre-occupied. Just sit down and think when was the last time you did not check you phone, social media, news, when was the last time that you sat in your garden feeling happy to do some gardening... In our busy fast going lives we loosing ourselves. Mindfulness can help you to restore that inner peace, find yourself again, enjoying every day stress free. Mindfulness is also tool helping people with Depression and anxiety by recognising bad thoughts, deal with them and restore inner balance and avoid re-lapse.
Day by day we introduced to new drugs for all sorts of conditions. Some drugs are good and some drugs are not that good. We need medicinal drugs in our lives but I agree that pills, drops, antibiotics etc.. should be last possible treatment offered. We abusing medicine buy swallowing pills like vitamin C. Get Kiwi instead of pill, Cold and flu - try herbal teas and remedy no Paracetamol. Use nature and meditation to boost your immune system. Heath benefits of mindfulness contain - lowering blood pressure, reducing stress, widening veins, helping sleep, eat and many more. I was introduced to Mindfulness thru My Psychological Therapy and after completing 8 weeks session I decided to became Mindfulness practitioner and helping people in future organising 1 to 1sessions, group sessions, skype sessions and email sessions. But this plan is just in my head but let you know when is ready.
Ok guys after introducing Mindfulness I hope that you ready to start your journey with me and explore you inner world left buried beneath all worries, stress, and thoughts of our daily lives. Thank you for reading and get ready for part 2 .
Happy Gardening and see you soon. Jerry