Mindfulness and your Mental Health
We recently had the pleasure of listening to Martin Stepek, one of Scotland’s foremost teachers of Mindfulness for an introduction to the simple, scientifically proven techniques of mindfulness. The session helped us understand this life changing philosophy and see clearly how mindfulness can help your wellbeing. Here’s an insight into Mindfulness and how it relates to our mental health from Martin
“Inspire Scotland Blog
Mindfulness and your Mental Health
We all feel stressed from time to time, or irritated, impatient, annoyed, disappointed, and so many other unpleasant and unhelpful feelings and moods.
Most people would say these are caused by external things. Other people. Things you can’t control , like the weather. Traffic jams or rush hour. Bad drivers. These are common causes of negative reactions in our mind.
Yet we’re all unique. Some people are laid back and others are tense and impatient. No one chooses to be tense and impatient, and those who are by nature calm and laid back are just lucky to have an easy-going personality.
So try not to blame yourself or beat yourself up when your emotions do let you down. Just accept that this is the case.
Also try to stop blaming and judging others for their moods and behaviours. It’s all just part of the personality they grew up to have. Stopping blaming people calms you down and makes you feel a whole lot less stressed.
Most importantly now that you see that emotions, feelings, and reactions are just things we are born with, we can slowly but surely focus on doing things that change our habitual negative moods.
That’s because it’s not only our genes that make us who we are. It’s also our life experiences, every single one of them. Each experience you have shapes you a little bit, and by the time you are your age you have had thousands of experiences all shaping you, moulding your character and moods.
In neuroscience this is called neuroplasticity, which means basically mind-shaping. Your personality is moulded from your first experiences in the womb right until the moment you die.
Mindfulness is a direct tool we can use to try to shape our future experiences so that they mould us in a direction we want rather than just being shaped by life’s random ups and downs.
Positive experiences shape us to see life in a happier light, so we can deliberately try to see as much good in any situation we experience in order to put more and more good experiences into our mind. At the same time we can try to notice any negative states of mind or reactions we have through the day, not suppress them but gently let them fade away by taking our attention to something more positive or uplifting. Traditionally in mindfulness we use awareness of our breathing to do this, though other things can be used. An in-breath feels clear and refreshing when we pay attention to it, and an out-breath feels quiet and peaceful. So it’s clear why focussing on these things can lift the mood from negative to calm and positive.”
