Microsoft Word - Handout for comcast training.docx



SELF-CARE and STRESS REDUCTIONSelf-Care is critical for your well-being. If you do not get enough sleep, your brain is foggy. If you do not eat nutritious food, you will feel sluggish and tired. Exercise can help you feel energized and focused. It will also make your body healthier and fit. Connection with family and friends provides the support you need for daily living. Time management can help you feel more organized. Relaxation is essential. To be a mentally and physically healthy, you must make time for yourself. You will not gain the full benefit of these self-care activities, however, if you have stressful thoughts. Your thinking can keep you awake, cause you to eat poorly to relieve stress, make your mind feel chaotic, and take you out of conversations that matter most. The human mind is a gift which allows us to plan, organize, analyze, remember, calculate and other activities. Often, however, it causes us suffering. Scientific research suggests that the human mind wanders about 50% of the time. While daydreaming can be wonderful, science has shown that when the mind wanders, we are usually less happy. Our minds often focus on unresolved issues or worries. Mindfulness is a practice to pay attention to the here and now with kindness, openness and curiosity. You will learn to let go of your distracted thinking and refocus your attention on the present in a nonjudgmental way. It does not require the elimination of thoughts…you will always have thoughts. It is a practice to notice your thinking and to redirect your thoughts to your chosen focus. Scientific studies of mindfulness suggest that it can: Reduce stress and the hormones involved in stress, such as cortisol. Improve immune system functioning. Improve memory. Increase gray matter in areas of the brain associated with planning, decision-making, judgment, memory, body sensation, and impulse control. Decrease reactivity to unpleasant situations and events, allowing us to respond more skillfully. Who is doing it? Mindfulness is currently being offered in about 21% of American companies. It is also being offered in medical Institutions, schools, and the U.S. military. What does it involve? Most people take classes to learn mindfulness online or in person. Six-to-eight sessions cover techniques which can be used to train the mind, including practice using breathing, sound, and body sensations. Mindful walking is also taught, as are practices of paying attention to our everyday activities of driving, eating, showering and other activities. The training will also teach you to be with physical pain, strong emotions, and challenging thinking. You can also find apps to guide you. The Veteran’s Administration has released a free app, Mindfulness Coach. Other popular apps include UCLA MARC, 10% Happier, Calm, Breathe, Insight Timer, and Headspace. A Few Practices: Below are some basic practices you can use to train your mind to focus on the present moment. First, get into a mindful body (feet flat on the floor, hands resting in lap, spine erect but not rigid, eyes closed or gazing downward softly without focusing in). Choose one of these practices: TAKING 3 -6 LONG SLOW-DEEP BREATHS (engages our system of rest and digest): Get in your mindful body. Focus your mind on what you are about to do.Take 3-6 long, slow deep breaths in through the nose all the way to the belly and out through the mouth until you can’t push air out any longer. It can be helpful to do the breathing to the count 3-2-5. Inhale through the nose for 3. Hold for 2. Blow out of the mouth for 5. If you are somewhere where you cannot blow out of the mouth, exhale from the nose for 5.This practice will lower blood pressure, facilitate digestion, increase relaxation, and create alpha waves of calm in your brain. FOLLOWING YOUR BREATH USING A NOTING PRACTICE to stay focused a. Get in your mindful body. Notice your breathing happening naturally. Pick the place—nose, chest or belly—where the breath feels easiest to follow.Begin to count your breaths 1-10 (inhale, exhale, 1; inhale, exhale 2) and then start back at 1.When your mind wanders, silently say “thinking” and return to counting your breaths. MINDFUL HEARING Get into your mindful body.Focus your attention on listening. Sounds may come from outside, inside the room, or from your body. Don’t search for sounds, just listen as they come and go…and to moments of silence. Your mind will label (bird, gurgling, talking); instead, try to listen to the bare essence of the sounds (hear what the sounds sound like). When your mind wanders, silently say “thinking” and return your focus to listening. Mindful Awareness Practices. We practice training our minds to be more aware in our daily lives. We can also use daily activities—driving, bathing, or eating—to train the mind to focus. How many times have you driven down a road and not seen the drive, lost in thought? Most, if not all, of us have had that experience. When you notice mind leaving the car, see if you can bring it back to the car by feeling your body on the seat, your foot on the pedals, your hands on the wheel, the air on your skin, or by looking at the sky or the cars in front of you. We always return to present moment through the body, as it cannot be anyplace else.Practices to Cultivate Positive Emotions:Question Your Thoughts: Can you Know That It is True? Scientists do not know how many thoughts we have; but estimates from various neuroscience labs have run from 12,000 to 80,000 thoughts a day. Many thoughts flow through our heads and leave. Some thoughts arise from specific stimulations in the environment. A smell, a sight, or a sound may bring a thought. Some thoughts are body related. A pain, hormonal changes, or a body sensation can bring thoughts. Many thoughts are repetitive (how is the traffic today?).Sometimes we choose where to focus our minds, such as choosing to read a book, but often we do not stay on focus. Thoughts come from our habitual conditioning and are not personal. You are not your thoughts! You have a choice on which thoughts you entertain and which you release. You want to let go of unhelpful thoughts, not dwell on them. You can observe many types of thoughts, including patterns of cognitive distortion. Sometimes we may have all or nothing thinking (words, like always, never, everyone, nobody, are signs of this thinking). Sometimes we overgeneralize (he didn’t call turns into he doesn’t want to talk to me). We label (he doesn’t want to talk turns into he’s a jerk). We think we can read minds (they think I’m stupid) or tell the future (I’m going to fail this exam). Some of us magnify the negative (ten people loved your presentation, but one was critical, and you focus on the one); or we minimize the positive (they are just saying that to be nice). We catastrophize (imagine the worst outcome). We personalize (my daughter got detention=I’m a bad mother.) We blame. We have lots of shoulds, oughts and musts. These thoughts come from beliefs that often conflict with reality.We also have lots of thinking biases. We can rely too heavily on one piece of information; we tend to see what we think we will see; when things are repeated often, we believe they are true; we tend to think of ourselves as consistent when our attitudes and behaviors change constantly; we often see ourselves as more important to outcomes than we are; we attribute negative behaviors to someone’s character instead of to the environment/situation…and there are dozens of others. We can learn to let go of our cognitive biases and distortions. Some people will use thought replacement (change the thought to another thought), but mindfulness has been found to be more effective in some studies. Ask yourself, “can I know that what I am thinking is true?” Cultivate Loving Kindness & Compassion. Self-criticism is not helpful. In fact, it is demotivating and stressful. Learn to speak to yourself as you would a good friend. Visualizations can help: picture a stronger part of you speaking to the part who is hurting, burned out; picture a loving person in your life or a religious figure speaking to you. Gently say these phrases or others like them to soothe yourself: You are overwhelmed. It is hard. May you be gentle with yourself. You are doing the best you can in this moment and that’s all anyone can do. I am here for you. May your stress be eased and may you find moments of relaxation.You are going through a lot right now. May you feel comforted in this challenging time.May you accept yourself just as you are, perfectly imperfect, like everyone else.May you speak to yourself like you would a good friend, with kindness and compassion. May you find moments of happiness, laughter and joy in your day. May you remember that this, too, shall pass. May you know that you are not alone; millions of others across the globe feel the same way for the same reasons.May you remember that there are people who care about you and want to be supportive. May you have peace and peace of mind through this difficult experience. Find a Nurturing Moment. Close your eyes and remember either a place where you felt strong, whole, peaceful and connected OR a person or pet with whom you felt strong, whole, peaceful, and connected. Visualize the scene as if it is happening now, taking in colors, shapes, forms, smells. Notice how this place or person/pet makes your body feel, makes your heart feel, and makes your mind feel. Let those physical sensations extend through your body. Remember that you can return to this image at any time for a nurturing moment. Use Gratitude Practice.Research on gratitude shows that it can raise your spirits, create well-being, improve sleep, and boost connection, among other benefits. It doesn’t matter how much you have; it matters that you are grateful for what you have. Here are just some of the many practices you can use to cultivate gratitude:When you notice that you are thinking how much is wrong with any given moment, see if you can instead think about what is right in that moment.Pick an object you truly enjoy or treasure. It can be beneficial to call to mind everyone who brought you that object. For example, if you love a certain shirt, close your eyes and imagine how it was created. You might think about the farmer and fieldworkers who raised the crops to create the fibers. Those fibers were sent to a mill, where others labored to create fabric. That fabric may have been dyed or embroidered by other workers. Eventually bolts of the fabric were sent to a shop where others cut out the shapes. Seamstresses had to sew them. Then, other workers likely packaged them. The packaging had to be created by other workers, elsewhere. The final product may have been loaded into trucks made by workers in Japan or Detroit and then had to go down roads, which were laid by construction crews, to a store in Houston. Others worked in the store. You went in and picked it out, and a cashier rang you up. Realizing how interdependent we are and feeling gratitude for all of the people who worked to bring you something special can make you happy and make you realize just how special that object really is!Take moments to savor your food…truly see, smell, touch, hear, and taste it. You will find it makes eating more pleasurable and satisfying.Even in a classroom, you may be able to look out the window and watch a bird soar by. How lucky are we to have eyes and the beauty of nature!There is so much that you can focus on for gratitude—music, art, dance, technology, family, friends, pets, housing, clothing/fashion, transportation, appliances, sports/exercise, health, medicine and medical personnel, first-responders, neighbors, sciences, literature, and more. Pick a topic, close your eyes, and think about everything that brings you joy surrounding that topic. For Further Information on Mindfulness Training, contact:Ann Friedman, Ph.D. (partners: Michele Pola, Ed.D. or Eric Lopez-Maya, Ph.D.)Mindful Being, P.C.4544 Post Oak Place Dr, Suite 100Houston, Texas 77027(713) 443-6273 ................
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