Today in Day 6 of 31 Days To A Better CFS Life I’m going to talk about the benefits of mindfulness, and give you some very simple mindfulness techniques to start you off in the practice of mindfulness.
So what exactly is mindfulness?
We often hear the word these days, but I’m not sure that everyone understands what it means – sometimes I even get a bit confused myself! 🙂
There seem to be various definitions for the concept of mindfulness, so I’ll give you my definition to start with.
It’s come from a lot of reading and experiences, but it may be different to the definition you have of mindfulness.
Mindfulness, to me, in it’s simplest form, is merely being completely in the present moment.
It’s focusing completely and totally on what I am doing, feeling, hearing, saying, smelling, tasting. Using all my senses to anchor me in the present moment – in the now.
Mindfulness is being fully present, right now, right in this moment.
Being Present In A World Of Distractions
We tend to be fully present in our lives to a lesser and lesser degree in the very busy world we’re living in these days.
With all our electronic devices that call for our attention, we tend to be more and more distracted from just being in the present moment.
When we’re dealing with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS / ME) and other chronic illnesses, all these devices can be beneficial in allowing us to be distracted from our illness.
If you’ve read my last few blogs, I talk about the joys and the benefits of distraction – distracting your mind away from your thoughts, away from the present moment.
However, I’m only advocating the use of those techniques when overwhelming negative emotions are trying to take over our minds.
There IS a time and a place for distraction in managing CFS, but there is also a time and place for mindfulness – ideally, right NOW! 😉
The more I practice mindfulness and being present, the more I see the benefits in doing so.
I find it provides a greater level of peacefulness in my life and in my ever-active, Type A mind.
So How Can You Be Mindful?
There are an almost endless number of mindfulness exercises you can practice, and a huge number of resources online for learning them.
So what I’m going to do is suggest to you 7 simple mindfulness techniques that I’ve used myself and/or that I use on a regular basis. That way, I’m talking from experience rather than theory.
7 Simple Mindfulness Techniques To Use While Managing CFS / ME
1. Focus On Your Breathing
A really simple mindfulness exercise is to just focus on your breathing. Notice and feel yourself in the act of breathing.
Feel the cool air flowing in through your nostrils, and feel the warm air as you breathe out.
Notice your chest getting wider as it fills with air, listen to the noise it makes as you breathe in and out, notice how your stomach moves too.
Become totally present to every tiny movement that breathing causes throughout your body.
Notice how, when you breathe out, your torso (chest/stomach) sinks down like a balloon that had its air taken out of it.
With your mind’s eye, follow the air into your body and go with it to your lungs, and then out again.
I find that having my eyes closed during this mindfulness practice is the easiest way to stay focussed, but you might like to experiment with doing it with your eyes open, therefore also adding a visual component to the mindfulness.
It’s the simplest of mindfulness exercises, and the simplest of meditation methods.
Mindfulness IS a form of meditation, as it helps to still your mind.
2. Watch A Flame
There are many mindfulness exercises that you can do with your eyes open. In fact, I find such exercises extremely powerful.
An extremely simple open-eyes mindfulness exercise is focussing on a flickering flame.
For centuries, people have done mindfulness exercises around staring at a candle or watching fire in some way.
I’m sure we can all relate to times where we’ve been sitting in front of a campfire or open fire, and have become totally absorbed in watching the flames. That’s basically a mindfulness exercise right there.
I bet you weren’t thinking of anything too deep when you were staring at those flickering flames.
When you allow yourself to become totally present to the beauty of the flames, very little else exists.
It’s the same when you use a candle and just focus completely on the candle.
There’s an incredible peacefulness about it, which is what I find is the greatest benefit of mindfulness – giving the mind a sense of calm and peace.
3. Watch A Young Child Absorbed In Something
An amazing mindfulness exercise, that I’ve found over the years, is to watch a young child completely and totally absorbed in what they are doing.
You want a lesson in mindfulness?
Watch a child doing something they are totally engrossed in.
They’re not concerned about anything other than what is right in front of them. The essence of mindfulness!
I once watched my 1-year-old niece fully engrossed in plucking grapes from their stems and popping them into her mouth.
The look on her face as she carefully grasped the grape, plucked it from its stem, then put it in her mouth and started chewing (with the subsequent reactions as the flavours exploded in her mouth) was an amazingly peaceful thing to watch.
It was beautiful, and what I found was that I took on her peaceful, present-mindedness while I was watching her.
I was mesmerised by her innocence and the way she found such fascination in such a simple task. I envied her in her innocence!
But we can all be that present. Most of us are just a little out of practice!
4. Progressive Muscle Relaxation
Now, I seem to find a lot of cross-over between relaxation techniques, meditation techniques and mindfulness techniques.
Frankly, I think they’re all in the same basket. It just depends on what our desired outcome is as to what we call it.
I’ve used progressive muscle relaxation since I was about 11 when I experienced migraines (eventually found to be caused by chocolate, though thankfully a few years later that resolved itself after having my appendix out. Don’t ask! I don’t know why, but I was VERY pleased!!).
A relative who had had cancer (and who was considered a little bit “out-there” with her ideas in the early 80s) guided me through a progressive muscle relaxation to ease my headache.
That one was the type where you progressively work your way from head to toe, flexing each muscle, then relaxing it.
I guess this could be called mindfulness, as we’re focussing completely on each muscle when we constrict it, but for many years now I have dropped the flexing part out of the progressive muscle relaxation.
I merely concentrate my attention on each section of the body – or muscle – and just by focussing my attention on it, that area of my body relaxes.
I’m calling it a mindfulness exercise here because I believe it is the fact I am being totally present to each area of my body in turn that ends up relaxing it, and, in the process, calms my mind as well.
Mindfulness really can be practiced by giving our total and utter attention to whatever we are doing. It is, as I’ve said, merely being fully present in the moment.
5. Doing The Dishes or Other Simple Tasks
I find this one interesting because I’ve never enjoyed doing the dishes, but when I do it in a mindful way, whether I’m enjoying it or not becomes irrelevant because it’s not being done “in order to” enjoy or not to enjoy. It’s just being done.
Focussing wholly and completely on the feel of the warm water, the suds on my hands, the sound of the sud bubbles popping, the noise of the water and the dishes … it’s an incredibly sensual experience.
Who would have thought?!
And when I allow myself to focus on the physical sights and sensations of doing the dishes, I feel an incredible calm wash over me.
As long as I can stop my thoughts from coming in and interrupting, I can stay in a state of bliss while doing a task I usually view as a chore.
It just shows me that it’s all in how we perceive certain things in our lives, and the meaning we give to it (almost always based in our past), that complicates life and contributes to our stress.
Being completely in the present and being mindful doesn’t allow those thoughts and perceptions to even get a look in.
(In a strange twist, I’m finding that just writing about this mindfulness exercise is taking me into that peaceful physical and mental state I get while doing the task. I guess I’m being fully present in my writing!! 🙂
6. Focussing On The Back Of Your Eye-lids
One of my favorites ways to practice mindfulness is just to focus on the black behind my eyes. Completely and totally focussing on just that.
And what I find when I’m totally focused on the black behind my eyes – or on anything else when I’m completely focused on the present moment – is that I suddenly take a deep, deep breath, which is incredibly satisfying.
It’s a breath that is somehow deeper than what I usually take. It’s deeper than the type of breath that I take when I force myself to breathe deeply.
It’s almost like every part of my body relaxes in a deep, deep sigh when I’m fully present. I need to do it more.
7. Walking Mindfulness
Yes, you can be mindful while you’re walking. You can be mindful while you’re doing anything.
All it is is totally concentrating your attention on the act or vision or sensation you are experiencing right now.
I find walking mindfulness is a bit challenging because there is more to see when you’re out walking, and thus, more to trigger your mind off into the various directions it likes to be pulled in.
But doing moving meditations can be as simple as just taking care and attention for what you are doing right this instant.
Whether it’s eating a meal (a great time to practice mindfulness as it aids digestion when your body is calmer), or vacuuming the floor or standing under the shower.
Being totally present in the moment and consciously feeling all the physical sensations attached to that moment take you out of the miasma of thoughts that is your mind, and anchor your mind in one place – the present.
The more we can appreciate the simple things and see beauty in the dust mites as they flicker in the light that comes through our window of a morning, or the sound of birds chirping, or even the silence of late night, when everyone’s in bed and there’s a beautiful stillness to the world, the more peaceful and calm we will feel as a consequence.
I find that the more I practice mindfulness, the more I see the benefits of it, especially to a person like me who’s mind is always so active, and consequently, I’m always in often in a rush – and often stressed!
I know I don’t practice mindfulness enough.
It’s really funny how, often the things that are really easy for us to practice, are the things that we ignore.
We look for the big, complicated answers to our problems in life because we think the simple stuff just seems too simple.
But anyone can do mindfulness, anyone can practice mindfulness and the more I do so, the more I see the beauty in very simple things, and this is a to gift to people with CFS or with other chronic illnesses or pain.
Because if we learn to really fully appreciate the simplicity and the beauty in life, there’s a lot less frustration in what we’re not able to do and in what what we’re not able to experience due to our illness.
Today’s Action Step
Your action task for today is very simple. Just be present. Whatever you’re doing, wherever you are, however you feel, find something to focus on and just be fully present and experience it completely and see the beauty in it. Then let me know how you go. Tell me in the comments section, on the Facebook page or on Twitter. What was your experience of being mindful? How do you practice mindfulness? Let me know.
Hanggang bukas (Until tomorrow in Filipino)
Keep Smiling
Louise
PS. Books to check out – The Power of Now and A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle. I LOVE A New Earth on Audible as it’s read by Eckhart himself.
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Day 2: 31 Days To A Better CFS Life – It Is As It Is. Choose It!
Day 3: 31 Days To A Better CFS Life – 5 Ways To Control Our Thoughts When In Overwhelm & Despair
Day 4: 31 Days To A Better CFS Life – 6 Things You Can ALWAYS Do Despite CFS / ME
Day 5: 31 Days To A Better CFS Life – 7 Ways To Focus Your Thoughts On Something Uplifting
Day 7: 31 Days To A Better CFS Life – Learning To Ask For Help – 5 Simple Tasks You Can ‘Outsource’ To Help Manage CFS
Day 8: 31 Days To A Better CFS Life – Discover Podcasts – 5 Steps To Finding & Listening To Good Podcasts
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Day 11: 31 Day To A Better CFS Life – 5 Ways To Combat Spoonie Mother Guilt on Mother’s Day!
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Day 17: 31 Days To A Better CFS Life: What Are You Doing WELL In Managing CFS / ME / Fibro? What Are You NOT Struggling With?
Day 18: 31 Days To A Better CFS Life – 3 Things I Struggle With At The Moment & How I Manage Them
Day 19: 31 Days To A Better CFS Life – 101 Ways I Manage CFS / ME & Electrosensitivity Pain
Day 20: 31 Days To A Better CFS Life – 5 Benefits Of Writing To Help Manage CFS / ME
Day 21: 31 Days To A Better CFS Life – Gratitude is Healing – 5 Ways To Practise Gratitude
Day 22: 31 Days To A Better CFS Life – A Letter To Partners Of People With CFS / ME
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