Mindfulness III: The Longest Five Minutes You’ll Spend Today

Click here and follow along with the video! Quick adventure. Five minutes. In and out. CLICK:

I uncrossed my legs and set both arms on the armrests. I became aware of my body and its weight while sitting in the chair. I also became aware of how restless I felt, like an impulse to tap my feet. I closed my eyes and became aware of my breath. I was breathing in through my nose. When the guide prompted me to breathe in deeply twice, I did so through my mouth due to my right nostril being pretty clogged. I was pulled out of the present moment by a thought about household chores and budgeting. I then had a thought “wow that wasn’t very mindful.” Intentionally, I acknowledged both the distracting thoughts as well as the mental annotations. I returned my awareness to the sensation of my abdomen rising and falling with the breaths. After three breaths, I noticed I hadn’t been listening to the guided meditation. I also had trailed off and started thinking about the lunch I just ate. I also noted an impulse to strive to control my breathing due to my full stomach. Again, I acknowledged that my mind was pulling me away and returned my awareness to the breath, this time with a focus on the cool air entering my left nostril. I followed the cool air as it entered my nostril, went down my throat, into my chest, and back out the reverse route as warmer air. After a couple of breaths, I yawned. I listened to the guided meditation and a thought arose about writing this blog post as well as an associated judgment that “it better be good…” I acknowledged these thoughts and feelings. I allowed my mind to settle down into the present. The guide’s words “this breath” helped me focus on each individual breath as an instance of the present. I noticed that my right shoulder ached a bit and felt an impulse to massage it. Instead, I allowed the ache to remain as I focused on the sound of the air going through my narrowed nostrils. At the end of the meditation, when he invited me to congratulate myself, I felt calmer than when I started, a bit sleepy, actually, and begrudgingly opened up this word processor to type.

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As you can see in the above recollection of my stream of consciousness for the five-minute breathing meditation, it is riddled with distractions, judgments, and annotations. This is completely natural. Evolutionarily, it is advantageous for one’s survival to have extra thoughts about seemingly innocuous content; the rustling of tall grass in a field brings to mind the possibility of a lion leaping out. I was also conscious of the impulses that my mind and body were exhibiting. I wanted to tap my feet, rub my shoulder, and breathe slower. Again, this is natural as well. For like I explained in the first blog post, we are all humans wired to respond to stimuli. To remain in the mindful stance, I did not strive to change the experience except for bringing my awareness back to the present.

When the mind leaves the present, there are multiple ways to bring it back to the present. One way to anchor to the present is through bodily sensations. You can use the feeling of your ribcage going up and down or the nose hairs in your nostrils reacting to the air or the feeling of your back in the chair.

Another way to anchor is the voice of the guided meditation itself and other audio-visual stimuli. In the aforementioned script, it allows for you to fix your gaze on a point in space. I also have a white noise machine on which can be an easy anchor point into the present moment.

The third, kind of “meta” way to reorient yourself to the present is to ask and answer the question “What am I thinking/doing right now?” Let’s say you catch yourself judging, annotating, or getting worked up over intrusive thoughts from your to-do list. If you call it out as “I am having a thought about work,” that technically fits the bill of the mindful stance. This is because you are being non-judgmentally aware of the present moment and your present moment is thinking about work.

This labeling, this calling-a-spade-a-spade works for any distraction from the present moment, especially the thoughts and feelings we deem as negative. I understand it can be disheartening to start a meditation and then feel distressed. The mind can gravitate towards all sorts of reflexive thoughts. “Why is this happening to me?” “How can I make this stop?” “I must be doing this wrong.” are all examples of judgments and annotations. In mindfulness, we are simply answering the question of “what is happening right now?” If we pursue anything extraneous, we are intentionally choosing to leave the mindful stance.

I used to teach mindfulness at an intensive outpatient group therapy program, and an interesting side benefit is the information my patients gather about their patterns of thoughts and emotions through doing mindfulness. Just like in the YouTube link above, I prompted my patients to notice what the distracting thoughts are. In a group discussion, the “distracting” thoughts often turned into big therapy “Aha!” moments. It turns out once you start to look at repetitive thoughts without judgment and with pure curiosity, you start to find new perspectives on your life. In short, once you answer the question of “What?” through mindfulness, you can start to answer the question of “Why?” and “How?” in psychotherapy.

And that’s really all there is about how to do mindfulness. You are letting yourself notice things without reacting to things. No where in the equation is there striving for an outcome or doling out points for or against yourself. There is a pleasant simplicity in mindfulness, perhaps one you are now intrigued on savoring.

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FAQs

How do I start a mindfulness practice?

Like all habits, start small and keep consistent. Find five minutes of every day and a consistent place whether it is your desk at work, your favorite toilet, or a nook in your apartment. Try to stick to mindfulness meditations that focus on the body like breathing, body scanning, and progressive muscle relaxation. More “heady” type meditations like guided visualization, mindfulness of emotions, and conjuring feelings of goodwill are much harder to start at. Lastly, I always vouch for a good guided meditation because it is an added anchor point for you to return to the present.

How closely do I have to follow the meditation that the guide is narrating?

This question comes up a lot with mindful visualization meditations (e.g. “Imagine you’re on a beach…”). Think of the words as suggestions that then evoke thoughts and feelings within your brain. Putting it another way, you are allowing your brain to absorb the words in a language you comprehend at a reflexive level to then induce your mind to experience certain things. Since there is no right or wrong in mindfulness (as that would be judgment), you are either being mindful or not being mindful. A keyword here is to “allow” your mind to do whatever it is doing when it hears the words from the guided meditation.

Can I do mindfulness of an activity as opposed to just sitting still?

Yes! As long as you are observing the present moment without judgment, you can be mindful of any activity. Take a mindful walk or jog. Feel the bristles of your toothbrush mindfully as you brush your teeth. Mindfully eat a hand fruit. The sky is the limit (although I guess you can do a mindful space tether walk if you’re reading from up there).

But seriously though, why isn’t this working for me? I’m feeling more anxious than before!

There may be many reasons why it’s not working including not actually being in the mindful stance. Perhaps it is also due to your body’s unfamiliarity with the feeling of not doing anything. Mindfulness really needs to be practiced by us in order to feel its calming effects. Getting feedback about your practice may be helpful in accelerating your progress.

If you are interested in either private or group mindfulness coaching sessions, I will be more than happy to set up an appointment with you. Please email me at jeremyyingmd@gmail.com to inquire.