Mindfulness at Work - how does it really work?

Mindfulness at Work - how does it really work? Try a sample and let us know what you think!

‘Mindfulness’ has recently become the buzz-word across the spectrum of science, psychology and the corporate world. When people reach out for a way to lighten the burden of a frantic day – instead of grabbing the usual highly-dosed sugar snack, they are delving into sensing the movement of their breath. Strange replacement, right?

So why the hype…? And more practically, how does this help in the place that we spend most of our time – at work?

Here are 3 things to try this week to find out for yourself…. Each takes one minute or less!

Email meditation

1. Before you open your emails in the morning, check in with what assumptions you have about what you will see/read.
2. Then check your emails.

Phone meditation

1. Before answering the phone, in the first 3 rings just become aware of the pace of your breath – whether it be slow, fast etc.. does not matter – just notice it. See if you can notice the sensation of air coming through your nostrils, filling up the lungs and the rise and fall of the abdomen. 
2. Become aware of the rise and fall of the breath around the area of the abdomen. 
3. Then answer the call.

Meeting meditation

• Before going to a meeting, take one minute to check in with any assumptions you have about what will happen. Then become aware of your breath – you can always place a hand on the belly and/or chest to help sense its movement.
• Then go to your meeting.

Try it for the week!

Tell us what you notice – and next week we will follow up on any of your reflections and questions, as well as some research, for the next article in Mindful Action!

Written by: Bianca King

Mindfulness - An essential skill for healthy relationships

Written by Jeremy Limpens 

Mindfulness is a skill we can acquire, a compassionate practice we can integrate into our lives, allowing us to have an easy, always available method to calm ourselves down when distressed. Mindfulness increases our awareness of what we are experiencing and allows us the space to decide how we want to act in our daily lives. It is easy to picture how enhancing these abilities within ourselves would lead to better outcomes in our relationships. 

Imagine, for example, being triggered by your partner. Picture yourself in that heated moment when everything just feels overwhelmingly wrong: anger is bubbling over inside you, combined with intense distress. Now imagine being able to feel your emotions without reacting in the moment. Imagine observing the emotions and thoughts that are arising without getting caught up in them -- being able to keep your emotional balance. This allows you to think about how you would like to respond in the situation vs how you would instinctively react. Mindfulness is a means by which we can get to know our thoughts and stay connected to our feelings without falling victim to inappropriate, intense reactions based on unresolved issues from our past. 

When it comes to leftover emotional pain from our earliest relationships, no one will trigger us like our romantic partner. How many times have you found yourself saying something in a moment of distress that you later deeply regret? How is it we find ourselves lashing out at the person we value the most? Ironically, our closest relationships tend to present us with the biggest challenges in our lives. New connections stir up old feelings from our past. Relationships test us in many ways, redefining how we see ourselves and the world around us. In addition to bringing us joy, finding love can cause us a great deal of anxiety and sadness. In romantic relationships, we make ourselves vulnerable to the good will of our relationship partner. Our fears of being hurt in this vulnerable state can make us more reactive, and we run the risk of self-sabotaging, not acting in our best interest in relation to the ones we love. 

Mindfulness presents a valuable tool for facing the daily challenges of staying close to our partner. It allows us to become more centered and calm, so we can talk things out instead of spiraling into a screaming match. When we are on the defensive with our partner, overreacting to every word they say, we fail to really hear what's going on with them. What are they experiencing? What has triggered their upset? What are they really saying to us or asking of us? 

A typical conversation between a couple may involve one partner remarking, "You used to be up for anything. You were so lively when we met." This may spark a defensive response in the other partner: "What? You're saying I'm not spontaneous any more? You think I'm boring? What about you? You never get off the couch!" This type of angry and accusatory response tends to have a snowball effect. "I never said you were boring, and now you're calling me lazy? I work day and night to make you happy. You're so ungrateful."

Couples tend to key off each other when they are triggered. In that "flipped lid" state, their resentments toward each other start to spill out. At this point, the higher functions of their brain are offline and the emotional centres are firing out of control. Strong, exaggerated, hostile statements fly back and forth. Yet, if either could be more mindful in the interaction, they would take pause before responding. They could notice that they are triggered and angry and then choose to do something else, take a break and do an activity that will help them calm down. This may mean taking a few deep breaths or a long walk. 

This will allow them to get their "lid" back on and react in a more constructive manner. It's important to take time to reflect, to notice the feelings but to consciously choose how we deal with them. This frees them to take actions in our own self-interest and to not cause the partner unnecessary hurt. Once they have centered themselves and calmed down, they can communicate clearly and from the heart. 

Mindfulness isn't about denying or burying our emotions. It's simply about cultivating a different relationship to our feelings and experiences, in which we are in the driver's seat. We can see our feelings and thoughts like a passing train roaring through the station, but we alone choose if we want to get on board.

When we learn to observe our experiences in this manner, our thoughts and feelings start to flow through us like waves. We can feel solid like a mountain in who we are and how we respond. "What mindfulness does is it creates this space; it takes us out of the catastrophe. And as a couple working together in a mindful way ... there's a lot more heart available. There's a lot more understanding possible than this need to defend."

Meditation is an extremely effective way to get to know our thoughts by slowing down and paying attention. It helps us become familiar with our mind. Ultimately, it allows us to recognise the many critical voices in our head that, without us even knowing it, we would typically allow to rule our lives. As we get to know these "voices," we can start to act against them, not permitting them to color our perceptions of ourselves or our partner.

When we know ourselves, we become stronger in our relationships. Mindfulness is about paying attention to the present moment on purpose and without judgment. If we stay in the moment with our partners, we are far less likely to build a case against them, to catalog their flaws or turn against them at the drop of a hat. Instead, we can take each moment as it comes. We can cultivate empathy, insight, and morality within ourselves and extend these compassionate attitudes to those we love.

As we become more mindful, we achieve a greater sense of inner peace that is beneficial to us and the world around us, especially the people close to us. We alleviate the unhealthy levels of stress and tension that we carry with us in our daily lives. In addition, as we exercise the muscle of putting our attention where we want it, we gain more power over our thoughts, but even more so over our actions. 

When we find someone we care for, a person with whom we know that, whatever each of us brings to the table, our relationship is worth working on, then half the battle is won. Mindfulness practices will better enable you to truly go after what you want, not only in your relationship, but in your personal goals. It's an ongoing practice that can help you to become the person you want to be every day for the rest of your life.

For more information on Mindfulness programs or coaching, contact the team at Mindful Action. 

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The One Skill That Can Transform Health Care

Written by Jeremy Limpens 

Mindfulness helps everyone — patients, clinicians and administrators — to manage stress and achieve better results

A boatload of simultaneous priorities, a multitasking frenzy, role overload, time constraints, financial pressures, racing minds, exhaustion and stress — these are realities in health care (and life) today. And they are killers. In health care, these realities are killers of quality, engagement, morale, and the health and well-being of patients and families, health care leaders, doctors, and staff.

It would help to set priorities, to identify the select few objectives with the greatest impact and chase after them relentlessly. It would help to get better organised, add more staff, improve efficiency, learn to lead more effectively, hire more dynamos, engage process improvement teams, and lengthen each day by a few more hours. We've been trying to do all that without sufficient relief.

I propose a single, powerful approach that will help care providers and staff, patients and families all experience less stress and better results. The approach involves helping everyone — leaders, physicians, staff and patients alike, to master and use the skill of mindfulness. Mindfulness is transformative — for individuals and for organisations.

Mindfulness and Its Benefits

Mindfulness is the practice of focusing our attention purposely on the present moment and accepting it without judging. It is all about openly experiencing what is there. Mindfulness used to be considered a New Age skill, but no more. It's made its way into the mainstream, with everyone from kids to new mothers to physicians and CEOs recognizing its value and taking steps to make it habit.

In the personal realm, no matter what your role in life, mindfulness helps you engage fully in what you're doing and what's happening around you and within you. It helps you savour the pleasures and deal more effectively with adverse events. It stops you from worrying about the future or dwelling on regrets or negative past experiences. Also, it reduces rumination and stress. It boosts working memory. It helps you to focus your attention. It makes you less reactive and more reflective. It increases cognitive flexibility and creativity. And it improves relationships.

In health care specifically, mindfulness produces powerful benefits for leaders, staff, clinicians and patients alike:

Mindfulness offers significant benefits to executives. Imagine if you were to consistently practice mindfulness in your everyday work. You would focus fully on one major priority at a time. You would stop to reflect on what is actually happening in the present moment, how people are acting and reacting, what they're experiencing, seeing, hearing and learning. You would be plugged into the realities. You would tune into yourself and your inner wisdom, and you would experience others in a positive, open-minded and curious way. You would strengthen your focus and your relationships and make better decisions.

Mindfulness helps staff to create a positive and healing patient and family experience. When doctors, nurses and other clinical and support staff are mindful with patients and families, they notice cues and gain invaluable information that helps them to address concerns and provide safe and effective care. They feel more compassion and communicate with greater empathy. They ease patient and family anxieties, because patients and families feel their caring. They encourage patients and families to open up, to trust and to partner in their care.

As mindfulness expert Jon Kabat-Zinn says, only when we are mindful with patients will we release our innate compassion. He calls mindfulness “presence of the heart.” When caregivers really listen — in compassionate silence, taking in what's happening, instead of trying to fix it, push it away, hurry out of the room, or contemplate the next pressing thing they have to do — this is deeply healing for the patient.

Mindfulness benefits physicians professionally. Ronald Epstein, M.D., and Michael Krasner, M.D., at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, have confirmed that mindfulness training for physicians has a powerful, positive impact on care decisions, patient perceptions of their doctor and physician job satisfaction. Physicians benefit from a stronger feeling of connection with their patients, greater patient satisfaction and retention, reduced stress, and professional pride in their positive impact.

Nurses benefit, too. Nurses deal night and day with high-stress, high-emotion situations. It's not easy to stay focused and tuned in. Mindfulness is a de-stressor. It is an antidote to the rampant pressures that nurses experience, helping them to maintain inner resilience so they can be non-distracted, open, compassionate and receptive with patients, while taking care of themselves.

The organisation wins. If caregivers were to embrace mindfulness, we would see a revival in the doctor-patient relationship. We would see health care shift from fixing body parts to healing the whole person. Patients would engage, physicians would be more gratified, nurses would be less stressed and happier, and executives would be more focused and effective. The results: fewer errors, more accurate diagnoses, better patient outcomes, greater patient satisfaction, healthier and more fulfilled doctors, nurses and support staff, reduced absenteeism, more doctor and nurse retention, and even reduced cost.

With mindfulness, all partners on the health care team can enhance their effectiveness, their impact, and their own health and job satisfaction.

What about Mindfulness for Patients?

As we take steps to transition from a health care system that supports illness to one that advances wellness, we also should be educating and engaging patients and families to learn and practice mindfulness. There is a compelling evidence base that demonstrates the power of mindfulness to help people with chronic pain, anxiety, panic, gastrointestinal distress, sleep problems, depression, psoriasis, fatigue, high blood pressure, headaches and improved immune function. Mindfulness is critical to effective self-care and should be the No. 1 item on a patient's post-discharge plan and lifelong wellness plan.

 Here are four suggestions to advance mindful practice:

• Help people learn it. Initiate programs that help patients and staff learn this mental discipline. It is learnable and there are many resources and people available to help you shape the optimal approach. 
• Make mindfulness a job expectation for staff. After all, it's central to quality, safety, patient outcomes, stress management, wellness and the exceptional patient experience. Articulate in your service standards, job descriptions and competency-building processes the primacy of mindfulness in all interactions. 
• Promote the six-second approach. Suggest that people (including you) start small and experience the energising and calming impact of mindfulness. Invite people to focus on their breathing, pairing one deep, centering breath with a frequent, routine activity, such as every time you wash your hands or knock on a patient's door. Stop. Center yourself with one deep breath, taking one second to inhale through the nose and five seconds to exhale through the mouth. Then, you can approach the patient with compassionate attention and respect.
• Start with you. You'll benefit personally and be much more credible and effective when making the case with those who provide care and service in your organisation.

For more information, contact the team at Mindful Action.

Are you using control in the workplace?

Written by Jeremy Limpens 

For many of us, our need to use control depends on the day. There are times when we run into an obstacle and see it as an opportunity for creativity, a challenge that excites us. Then there are times when an obstacle throws us off balance, creates confusion and stress, and ‘leaks’ out in actions, whether verbal or physical. These reactions are, at best, counterproductive, and at worst, disrespectful and injurious. It all depends on our mind’s ability, on that day, in that moment, to regain equilibrium quickly so we can respond with spaciousness and creativity.

Fortunately, it’s possible to cultivate this capacity of the mind and train it in the same way we would train our body to be stronger, more flexible and fit. And, for this training to be particularly effective, it should be done in the context of strengthening and expanding our capacity to lead.

In the past several years, new leadership training has emerged, one steeped in the knowledge that leaders have the capacity to strongly influence others and our world, for better or worse. It also recognises that the vast majority of people in leadership roles have strong minds, deep expertise and good hearts. This training is based on the mental discipline of mindfulness practice. It cultivates the mind’s innate ability to be present, and it applies this learning to everyday life. The research results have been startling—both in what people already recognise about their lives, and in what evolves in a short period of time. And while there are practices specifically relevant to the most senior leaders, there are also mindful leadership courses that recognise the leadership potential at every level of an organisation.

A survey research project involving more than 75 graduates of three mindful leadership courses offers some extraordinary insight. The participants responded to 19 statements asking them to indicate the frequency of a certain behavior using a six-point scale (‘almost always’ to ‘almost never’). When responding to the statement ‘I am able to be fully attentive to a conversation,’ only 34 percent of participants answered in the top two boxes (almost always/very frequently). Nearly two-thirds of the participants knew they were not fully listening to conversations most of the time. After the participants had been practicing mindful leadership training for just seven weeks, the number increased from 34 to 74 percent. As participants begin to develop the capacity to notice when the mind is not present and redirect their attention as part of their daily assignments from the course, they also recognise what is missing in a state of mind that is only partly ‘there.’ Similar numbers were seen when the survey asked about the ability to be ‘fully attentive in meetings, conference calls and presentations’ (31 percent before the training and 75 percent after the training).

Recent mindful research on leadership and work:

Meditation can boost productivity at work: Eight weeks of mindfulness training later, a group of human resource managers proved to be less stressed and more able to concentrate on tasks than their counterparts who did not receive the training.

Mindful multitasking: Meditation training can help you stay on tasks longer, with fewer distractions, and also improves memory and reduces stress.

Female entrepreneurs are more likely to meditate: Research by Baylor University in Waco, Texas reveals that 37 percent of female entrepreneurs practice meditation—almost 10 percent more than their male counterparts. 

And while these numbers and results are compelling, giving us a glimpse into the cultivation of the mind’s capacity to be less reactive and fully present, they tell only part of the story. The rest of the story involves the rediscovery of the passion that first brought participants to their chosen profession or to their leadership aspirations. Time and again, people are able to answer the call to be of service to their teams, to be compassionate leaders, to push the boundaries of knowledge, to the development of solutions to the world’s problems, and to the quality of overall excellence and engagement they find fulfilling.

It also isn’t a surprise, that when asked about the frequency with which participants are ‘distracted by thoughts about work when at home, or about home when at work,’ 64 percent said ‘almost always/very frequently.’ This is of note because it is so widespread as well as being self-reported as a ‘distraction.’ What participants learn from mindful leadership training is that they don’t need to be victims of these thoughts that carry them away from where they are. With practice, they can learn to redirect the thinking mind and be fully attentive to the present. Seven weeks after they began the journey of cultivating mindful leadership, the survey response in the ‘almost always/very frequently’ categories dropped from 64 to 17 percent.

Imagine the energy conserved and the productivity enhanced from this change alone! If we remove drains and distractions like this, or significantly lessen them, there undoubtedly will be more room for the spaciousness and clarity to allow us to respond with flexibility, calm and creativity when the unexpected occurs, and to simply and importantly be fully at work when we are at work, and fully at home when we are at home. Another critical ability the participants began to cultivate was to lessen the time that they lived 'on auto-pilot'—sometimes considered the only way to make it through the day. Participants learned that stopping and making the effort to be purposefully improving their capacity to be at their best enhanced their productivity and clarity. The responses to one of the simplest survey questions illustrate one aspect of this: only 26 percent of the participants said they frequently took time each day to optimise personal productivity. After the training, this number jumped to 87 percent. Why? Perhaps it was because they experimented with stopping and allowing themselves to question some of the auto-pilot and cultural norms that sometimes become ingrained as we juggle the demands of work/family/community.

As we explore mindful leadership training and its relationship to the aspects of life outside our ‘control,’ we learn a valuable lesson. What’s needed now, more than ever, is the ability to cultivate our mind’s capacity to be present, to experience life exactly as it unfolds, and to unwrap this potential gift of leadership presence with clarity, compassion and joy.

Mindful Action - 0400 995 939 

5 Steps to a Better Relationship With Yourself

Want to be compassionate of others? Direct some of those feelings towards yourself first!

Our faces are windows into our most intimate feelings. Yet we’re apt to treat them as strangers, reserving for them our harshest criticism.

We’re surrounded by mirrors that show us our faces. But how often do we really take the time to look at our faces, as opposed to concentrating on ways to conceal what we consider to be their less than agreeable qualities? The onslaught of internal commentary is probably familiar to us all. “My nose is too big/too small.” “I wish I had more hair/less hair!” “Why can’t I be more like my sister?” “…my brother?” “…my daughter?” “…my friend?”

Intuitively we know the face is like a stream, constantly moving and shifting in response to conditions. We witness this flux in the faces around us, and their expressions can move us to empathy. And yet when it comes to our own faces, we throw compassion out the window.

Enter mindfulness, which helps us see how things are with an attitude of receptivity, balance, and patience. Observing with unshaded eyes how we respond to ourselves, we lay the groundwork for building a relationship with ourselves—and others—steeped in trust and acceptance, as opposed to constant dodging or denial.

1. Sit in front of a mirror, in a well-lit place. Make your face the focal point, and relax it as much as possible.

2. Bring awareness to each part of your face: forehead, eyes, cheeks, nose, lips, chin, jaw. Now include your hair and ears. Note what you see objectively, without judgment. They’re not “wrinkles,” for example, but instead, as the philosopher Emmanuel Lévinas put it, places where the face has left “a trace of itself.”

3. Pay attention to internal comments of liking or disliking, as well as places in your face or elsewhere in your body where you experience tightness, clenching, or discomfort. Notice if your thoughts spin out—does resistance to the shape of your nostril expand into recalling a difficult conversation earlier in the day? Notice the emotions that cling to any of these thoughts or physical sensations.

4. Releasing areas where you are holding tension, watch the topography of your face shift and settle. What do you notice?

Extend to yourself a wish of good will and well-being. It’s like the sentiment captured in these lines from Derek Walcott:

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door,
in your own mirror
and each will smile
at the other’s welcome.

5. Observe your face again. Bring the attention that a grandmother would bring to the face of a beloved grandchild.

Does meditation change your brain?

Sara Lazar, a neuroscientist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, was one of the first scientists to take anecdotal claims about the benefits of meditation and mindfulness and test them using brain scans.

What she found surprised her – that meditating can literally change your brain.

Q: Why did you start looking at meditation and mindfulness and the brain?

A friend and I were training for the Boston Marathon. I had some running injuries, so I saw a physical therapist who told me to stop running and just stretch. So I started practising yoga as a form of physical therapy. I started realising that it was very powerful, that it had some real benefits, so I just got interested in how it worked.

The yoga teacher made all sorts of claims, that yoga would increase your compassion and open your heart. And I'd think, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm here to stretch." But I started noticing that I was calmer. I was better able to handle more difficult situations. I was more compassionate and open-hearted, and able to see things from others' points of view.

I thought maybe it was just the placebo response. But then I did a literature search of the science and saw evidence that meditation had been associated with decreased stress, decreased depression, anxiety, pain and insomnia, an enhanced ability to pay attention, and an increased quality of life.

At that point, I was doing my PhD in molecular biology. So I just switched and started doing this research as a postdoc.

Q: How did you do the research?

The first study looked at long-term meditators versus a control group. We found that long-term meditators have an increased amount of grey matter [compared with the non-meditating control group] in the insula and sensory regions, the auditory and sensory cortex. Which makes sense. When you're mindful, you're paying attention to your breathing, to sounds, to the present moment experience, and shutting cognition down. It stands to reason your sense would be enhanced.

We also found they had more grey matter in the frontal cortex, which is associated with working memory and executive decision-making.

It's well documented that our cortex shrinks as we get older: It's harder to figure things out and remember things. But in this one region of the prefrontal cortex, 50-year-old meditators had the same amount of grey matter as 25 year olds.

So the first question was: Well, maybe the people with more grey matter in the study had more grey matter before they started meditating. So we did a second study.

We took people who'd never meditated before and put one group through an eight-week programme of mindfulness-based stress reduction.

Q: What did you find?

We found differences in brain volume after eight weeks in five different regions in the brains of the two groups. In the group that learned meditation, we found thickening in four regions:

1. The primary difference we found in the posterior cingulate, which is involved in mind wandering and self-relevance.

2. The left hippocampus, which assists in learning, cognition, memory and emotional regulation.

3. The temporoparietal junction, or TPJ, which is associated with perspective-taking, empathy and compassion.

4. An area of the brain stem called the pons, where a lot of regulatory neurotransmitters are produced.

The amygdala – the fight-or-flight part of the brain which is important for anxiety, fear and stress in general – that area got smaller in the group that went through the mindfulness-based stress-reduction program. The change in the amygdala was also correlated to a reduction in stress levels.

Q: How long does someone have to meditate before they begin to see changes in their brain?

Our subjects took a weekly class. They were given a recording and told to practise 40 minutes a day at home. And that's it.

Q: So, 40 minutes a day?

Well, it was highly variable in the study. Some people practised 40 minutes pretty much every day. Some people practised 20. Some only a couple times a week.

In my study, the average was 27 minutes a day. Or about a half-hour a day.

There isn't good data yet about how much someone needs to practice in order to benefit.

Though there's absolutely no scientific basis to this . . . anecdotal comments from students suggest that 10 minutes a day could have some subjective benefit. We need to test it out.

We're just starting a study that will hopefully allow us to assess what the functional significance of these changes is. Studies by other scientists have shown that meditation can help enhance attention and emotion-regulation skills. But most were not neuroimaging studies. So now we're hoping to bring that behavioural and neuroimaging science together.

Q: Given what we know from the science, what would you encourage readers to do?

Mindfulness is just like exercise. It's a form of mental exercise, really. And just as exercise increases health, helps us handle stress better and promotes longevity, meditation purports to confer some of those same benefits.

But just like exercise, it can't cure everything. So the idea is it's useful as an adjunct therapy. It's not a standalone. It's been tried with many, many other disorders, and the results vary tremendously: It impacts some symptoms, but not all. The results are sometimes modest. And it doesn't work for everybody.

It's still early days for trying to figure out what it can or can't do.

Q: So, knowing the limitations, what would you suggest?

It does seem to be beneficial for most people. The most important thing, if you're going to try it, is to find a good teacher. Because it's simple, but it's also complex. You have to understand what's going on in your mind. A good teacher is priceless.

Q: Do you meditate? And do you have a teacher?

Yes and yes.

Q: What's your own practice?

Highly variable. Some days, 40 minutes. Some days, five minutes. Some days, not at all. It's a lot like exercise. Exercising three times a week is great. But if all you can do is just a little bit every day, that's a good thing, too. I'm sure if I practised more, I'd benefit more. I have no idea if I'm getting brain changes or not. It's just that this is what works for me right now.

Mindfulness Meditation and Cancer

Mindfulness meditation is known to have a positive emotional and psychological impact on cancer survivors. But some groundbreaking new research has found that meditation is also doing its work on the physical bodies of cancer survivors, with positive impacts extending down to the cellular level. 

Practicing mindfulness meditation or being involved in a social support group causes positive cellular changes in breast cancer survivors, according to research conducted at the Alberta Health Services and the University of Calgary.

"We already know that psychosocial interventions like mindfulness meditation will help you feel better mentally, but now for the first time we have evidence that they can also influence key aspects of your biology," lead researcher Dr. Linda Carlson of the Tom Baker Cancer Center at Albert Health Services, said in a statement.

Publishing in the journal Cancer, Carlson and team found that telomeres (DNA sequences at the end of chromosomes) were longer among a group of breast cancer survivors who had a mindfulness practice or participated in a support group, compared to survivors who didn't have these interventions.

Telomeres are pieces of DNA at the end of every cell's chromosomes that protect the integrity of its genetic information. As cells divide, telomeres shed some of their length. In other words, telomeres shorten with age and are often associated with diseases such as cancer. Telomere length is also associated with breast cancer outcomes, reported the researchers, and longer telomeres are generally considered a sign of good health. 

The researchers tested a group of 88 breast cancer survivors, at an average age of 55 years old, who had completed their treatment a minimum of three months earlier (although most had been in recovery for two years). All women who took part in the study were experiencing significant emotional distress. 

The group that took part in Mindfulness-Based Cancer Recovery attended eight 90-minute weekly sessions with instruction in meditation and gentle yoga, and were asked to practice 45 minutes of meditation and yoga at home each day. The Supportive Expressive Therapy group participated in 12 90-minute weekly group support classes, in which they were encouraged to share their emotions freely and seek support from other women. The control group attended one six-hour stress management seminar. 

All participants had their blood analysed and telomeres measured before and after the interventions, and participants in both the mindfulness and support group interventions were found to have longer telomeres. Carlson says that it was surprising to see any changes at all in telomeres after such a short test period. 

While there was no statistically significant difference in telomere length between participants in the mindfulness and the support group interventions, mindfulness training had more extensive psychological benefits, which Carlson and colleagues reported on in a 2013 paper. 

So how is it that psychosocial practices can have physical benefits that extend down to the cellular level? Carlson explains that mental and emotional states have an effect on the body's biomarkers, particularly signs of stress. 

"We have known for a long time that psychological states affect biomarkers in the body, For example, depression is associated with inflammation in the immune system and heart disease, and stress results in activation of cortisol and other stress hormones, and increases susceptibility to the common cold and other viruses. How exactly this makes its way specifically down to the telomeres in the cells is currently unknown, however. It is a topic of much interest for researchers in this area." 

Previous research on the physical impacts of mindfulness practices have also found that meditation can limit the expression of genes associated with inflammation. 

Carlson's new study joins a growing body of research which has demonstrated mindfulness practices to have significant positive impacts for cancer patients and survivors. Meditation has been found to lessen some symptoms associated with cancer in teenagers, and it may reduce pain among children with cancer. Among survivors of breast cancer specifically, mindfulness meditation has been found to improve physical and emotional well-being. 

References: 

Doll R, et al.  Randomized controlled trial of Mindfulness-based cancer recovery versus supportive expressive group therapy for distressed survivors of breast cancer. Sep 1;31(25):3119-26.  

Carlson L, et al. Controlled trial of Mindfulness-based cancer recovery versus supportive expressive group therapy for distressed survivors of breast cancer. Journal of Clinical Oncology. 2013 Sep 1;31(25):3119-26.

http://www.albertahealthservices.ca/10604.asp

Mindfulness in the workplace

Office politics. Dictatorial bosses. Coworkers’ emotions bouncing up and down and sideways. Hi-tech tools that keep changing and updating. An uncertain economy and a volatile job market. Escalating levels of expectation. Loss of direction. Too much to do. Too little time. Not enough sleep. Sound familiar? 

Whether you work in a traditional or progressive environment, on your own or in a sea of cubicles, work life is full of challenges. Most of us are beholden to the income we receive from our jobs, and beyond that, we get up and go to work because we have a real desire to contribute to the greater good. Turning away from work is not an option for most of us, so we throw ourselves into the challenges of the workplace. Some of us are doing well, successful and satisfied. But too many of us are not happy at work. We’re stressed out and quite possibly confused. We may appear to be effective, but gnawing issues like those above can make work secretly (or not so secretly) a drag. That’s not great for us and it’s not great for the people we’re working with. So where do we begin if we want to improve our work life for ourselves and those around us?

Focus on the one thing we can control today

Ask yourself: what is the quality of my mind at work? What’s happening in my mind as the hours at work go by day in and day out? Is my mind focused on what I'm doing right now? Or is it continually wondering? 

The mind has amazing potential — for creativity, kindness, compassion, insight, and wisdom. It’s a storehouse of tremendous energy and drive. And yet it can also be a nattering annoyance, an untamed animal with the capacity to cause us great distress, and even disease. 

Sometimes we would like to just shut it off so we can get some work done or have a moment’s peace. Yet our mind is the one thing we can’t shut off. It has a mind of its own! 

Through mindfulness, we can train our minds to work better.

By training ourselves to pay attention to this moment though mindfulness, we can choose how we behave, and therefore bringing us out of autopilot mode.

Here are a few suggestions for how to bring mindfulness into our workplace. This won’t just give us some relief from stress; it can actually change, even transform, how we work.

Check Your Lenses

Do we see what is really there, or is what we experience filtered through our own thoughts and preconceptions? Maybe we should check how we’re seeing before we try to change what we’re seeing. First, we need to make sure our lens is clear.

Whenever you detect yourself falling into an old, familiar pattern, stop and examine what is actually going on.

Much of the suffering and discomfort we experience at work—and elsewhere—stems from our deeply held views, opinions, and ideas that become lenses through which we perceive the events of our lives.

Much of our stress comes from how we think about things, rather that what is actually happening in this very moment

No doubt the machinery of perception each of us has developed has served us well for the most part, guiding and supporting us at critical junctures. But the burden of adhering to set patterns of perceiving while we grapple with the drama and minutiae of everyday life can be limiting and, frankly, an invitation to misery.

When we’re convinced things ought to be a certain way and they’re not, we suffer. When someone refuses to act in the way we think they should, we suffer. When we don’t get what we want, when we want it—or when we get what we don’t want, anytime—you guessed it: we suffer. The workplace, such a microcosm of life in its entirety, is rife with opportunities to march straight into suffering. What we need to explore is whether our distress really derives from the workplace itself or instead from how we apply our default ways of perceiving to the challenges we face at work.

The mind will try to force any situation it meets into its favorite ways of perceiving and will react with distress when it meets resistance. Many years ago I had a coworker who consistently got me riled up. She had a way of doing things that just got under my skin. I would think to myself, “If she would only act this way instead of that way, we would all be happier and more productive.” This was pretty much a daily, and sometimes hourly, occurrence.

Of course, what I was really feeling was that if she acted differently, I would be happier and more productive. I was seeking the comfort of the familiar and the expected and yearned for my coworker to act in a way that precisely supported my needs. However, as soon as I realized that I was caught up in a particular way of perceiving, I found I could alter my perception and apply real choice to how I felt about her. And when choice entered the equation, I quickly realized I no longer needed my colleague to change—because I had.

It can be difficult enough to be open-minded toward others, but it is even more difficult to be open-minded toward oneself. It takes real training. To discover the ways of perceiving you’re apt to blindly apply, experiment with keeping yourself curious, attentive, and receptive.

Whenever you detect yourself falling into an old, familiar pattern, stop and examine what is actually going on. Notice the physical sensations in your body; notice the emotions that have bloomed; notice what stories your mind is generating that make your body tense and inflame your emotions. But it’s important not to disparage yourself for falling into an old and unhelpful pattern. Recognize the potentially explosive negative charge generated by your body, thoughts, and emotions. Accept that it has arisen, then make the decision to be in control of it instead of being controlled by it.

Put Some Space Between You and Your Reactions

Inflexible patterns of perceiving inevitably prove too small, too confining, for all that our minds need to encompass and accomplish. Inflexible patterns of reacting squeeze the life out of us. Each of us has our own pet scenarios that chafe against our expectations. When they pop up, they threaten to stir up jealousy, anger, defensiveness, mindless striving, and a stew of other possibilities. We may end up saying or doing something hurtful, something we’ll regret later and may have to apologize for. We leapt before we looked.

You may notice how the pounding heart, sweaty palms, and tightened shoulders you just experienced slip away along with the storyline you just let go of.

Conversely, when we stop to examine how we typically respond to situations, we create space for more creative and flexible responses. Ultimately, as we build the habit of mindfully examining our responses in the moment, mindful awareness becomes our new default mode.

In examining your thoughts, you’ll probably see a story forming. Once you can see this narrative open out before you like a book—once you have become the reader of the story instead of its protagonist—you have put yourself in position to let it evaporate. You may notice how the pounding heart, sweaty palms, and tightened shoulders you just experienced slip away along with the storyline you just let go of. You gently shift to a state that is more relaxed and, as a result, more confident. States of being, which can seem so permanent and monumental, are not in fact static. They shift moment to moment, and they can change in response to our awareness of them. It’s amazing how easily a grimace can morph into a smile.

The goal is to allow you to respond in a new way that frees you from old, ingrained, automatic patterns.

Make a Habit of It

For mindfulness to work at work, it helps to have both a formal practice of mindfulness and informal practices that extend mindfulness into everyday life. Formal practice involves learning a basic mindfulness meditation such as following the breath and practicing it on a regular, preferably daily, schedule. Informal practice, no less important, can literally take place any second of the day. It involves nothing more than focusing the mind on whatever is happening in the present moment, outside of the habitual patterns we have built up over a lifetime, and to be less judgemental regrind the events in our lives.

Mindfulness interrupts the conditioned responses that prevent us from exploring new avenues of thought, choking our creative potential. Each time we stand up against a habit—whether it’s checking our smartphone during a conversation or reacting defensively to a coworker’s passing remark—we weaken the grip of our conditioning. We lay down new tracks in the brain and fashion new synaptic connections. We become less likely in the future to default to patterns that can trap us into being satisfied with ineffective and outmoded strategies. We take steps to improve not only how we are at work but the work environment itself.

In this way, mindfulness is not just personal. It has a contagious quality that will change the culture in an organization—not necessarily in big, sweeping ways but gradually, incrementally.

Written by: Jeremy Limpens