What is Mindfulness?
|
Mindfulness is a purposeful and meaningful way of paying attention to your present life - your emotions, thoughts, ambitions, values, bodily sensations, impulses to act a certain way or fears that inhibit your potential. Mindfulness means becoming aware and making space for all of our experiences without judgement and using this awareness to notice what really matters to you, learn how to best respond to our current challenges and commit to the life you want. Self-compassion, kindness and acceptance are at the core of what mindfulness practice aims to achieve while enabling you to find peace in a frantic world. This also applies to musculoskeletal tension and tightness we hold in our bodies due to stress, anger or fear and therefore works very well in combination with receiving osteopathic treatment. Integrated with osteopathic treatment, mindfulness creates awareness of your own body, movements and actions to enhance wellbeing and flexibility in your current life.
|
|
Curious but not sure what to make of Mindfulness? Our osteopaths will be more than happy to give you a free taster of mindfulness and guide you through a 10 min mindful breathing practice within your standard osteopathic treatment. Make life more interesting - Try it!
In a Frantic World - Remember to Put the Glass Down........
Mindful Awareness - The 'glass of water metaphor'
|
'A psychologist walked around a room while teaching stress management to an audience. As she raised a glass of water, everyone expected they'd be asked the "half empty or half full" question. Instead, with a smile on her face, she inquired:
'How heavy is this glass of water?' Answers called out ranged from 8oz to 20oz. She replied: 'The absolute weight doesn't matter. It depends on how long I hold it. If I hold it for a minute, it's not a problem. If I hold it for an hour, I'll have an ache in my arm. If I hold it for a day, my arm will feel numb and paralysed. In each case, the weight of the glass doesn't change, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes. The stresses and worries in life are like that glass of water. Think about them for a while and nothing happens. Think about them a bit longer and they begin to hurt. And if you think about them all day long, you will feel paralysed – incapable of doing anything.' 'Remember to put the glass down!' Courtesy of Jimmy Harmon Mindfulness practice helps you to notice when you are running on auto-pilot and forget to put the glass down. So it empowers you to notice what is important in your present life and allows you to refuel your energy resources before you burn out. Mindfulness invites you to become more curious about what life has to offer off the beaten track.
|
Does Pain Always Correspond to Actual Tissue Damage?
Chronic lower back pain makes life difficult - We are here to help!
|
Although it sounds surprising, the scientific answer to this question is a simple "NO" - and that holds true especially for persistent painful conditions and chronic injuries that never recovered after the initial trauma. Pain itself is a highly subjective unpleasant experience, and not just a simple biological response. In this context it is vital to distinguish between acute pain and chronic pain - two types that have different underlying physiological, psychological and emotional mechanisms.
Acute pain works to protect us after any insults, and helps us to avoid damaging or potentially damaging situations, makes us rest the injured part of the body to let is heal and avoid situations of potential further damage in the future. While acute pain is more of a simple response (tissue damage causing the sensation of pain), chronic pain works on several levels. This includes the increased responsiveness of neurons as well as a decreased threshold for activation of these receptors in the previously injured body part (peripheral sensitisation). Therefore, another slight irritation of the same area triggers a bigger pain response, which does not necessarily correspond to more tissue damage. On top of this, the neurons in our brain representing this body part change in a way, so that any stimulus to that area becomes even more amplified (central sensitisation). This results is a heightened excessive pain response, which can make patients believe that their problem is much worse and that there is massive tissue damage although the actual insult is minor. Additionally, everyone who has ever been in pain over a prolonged period will know, how psychologically and emotionally draining persistent pain can be. So our skilled practitioners will work with a range of techniques to address the actual tissue damage, but also to address this sensitisation that can hinder the healing process and return to everyday activities or sports. |
Living well with Chronic, Persistent Pain - The Mindfulness Approach
|
In its most benign form, acute pain acts as a warning signal that something is not quite right. However, persistent chronic pain can severely impair quality of life and affect all aspects of our existence, making life very 'small'. Mindfulness in this context works with your current physical abilities and life situation, to find ways to react more efficiently and flexibly to improve your wellbeing, resilience and quality of life. Mindfulness can then be an approach to create a more fulfilling life. It widens the awareness of your present experiences, teaches how to open up to exploring what choices you have in your life, and how to do what matters to you. It is about noticing when we are on 'autopilot' reacting in routine, habitual ways that perpetuate the discomfort - for many, this means reacting to pain and discomfort with physical, emotional and mental tension, struggle and worry, which in turn inflicts more tension, pain and discomfort. Developing mindfulness skills will enable you to notice when this 'autopilot' is no longer useful to you, and letting go of unworkable habits could open up energy to spend on meaningful and fulfilling opportunities.
|
The Story of Salt, the Glass of Water and the Lake....
|
This little story is an inspiration to broaden our experiences and notice opportunities for making choices in our lives that help us find a fuller, more meaningful life.
Once an unhappy young man came to an old master and told he had a very sad life and asked for a solution. The old Master instructed the unhappy young man to put a handful of salt in a glass of water and then to drink it. “How does it taste?” – the Master asked. “Terrible.” – spat the apprentice. The Master chuckled and then asked the young man to take another handful of salt and put it in the lake. |
|
|
The two walked in silence to the nearby lake and when the apprentice swirled his handful of salt into the lake. The old man said, “Now drink from the lake.” As the water dripped down the young man’s chin, the Master asked,
“How does it taste?” “Good!” – remarked the apprentice. “Do you taste the salt?” – asked the Master. “No.” – said the young man. The Master sat beside this troubled young man, took his hands, and said, “The pain of life is pure salt; no more, no less. The amount of pain in life remains the same, exactly the same. But the amount we taste the 'pain' depends on the container we put it into. So when you are in pain, the only thing you can do is to enlarge your sense of things. Stop being a glass. Become a lake." |
In our Clinic we often use Mindfulness Practice for:
|
|
