The Slow Walk

Bring greater awareness with a change of pace

It often seems as though life feels to be getting faster and faster - it's relentless with no slowing down. You may feel that the only chance you get to change the pace and take it a little easier is when on holiday or on a lazy Sunday morning.

Here's an exercise to help you change the pace regardless of the time of year, or day of the week.

For 'slow walk', all you're going to do initially is to walk at a slower pace than what you normally walk at.

A simple way to instantly pay attention to, and to be more mindful of, whatever it is you are doing, is to change the pace of how you are doing the activity. By slowing down, in this case walking more slowly, you instantly change the habitual automatic way of doing the activity with the unfamiliar pace.

The activity suddenly becomes a little less familiar, perhaps even a little uncomfortable, and this makes you naturally pay more attention to it.

Mindful Walking

Bring attention to your walking movements

Observing yourself while walking slowly can be very interesting.

Some things to notice while walking:

— notice the actual moment when your heel first makes contact with the ground.

— can you 'follow' as the rest of your foot also makes contact with the ground?

— how do your feet actually feel? warm, cool, tingly etc.

— how does the rest of your body feel now you are walking slowly? Is there an urge to quicken

the pace? Does if feel as though it's just too slow?

— do you feel slightly self-conscious of the fact that you are moving slowly?

— do you feel that you are moving slower than everyone else? If so, don't worry about this - people are so busy and wrapped up in their own life that they are not going to give much thought and attention to someone walking a little slower than they.

Once you get past the initial discomfort and unfamiliarity, you may find that you slowly start and taking in more details of your surroundings.

It is best if you allow your arms to fall and swing naturally at your sides.

“Try at home in bare feet and enhance your awareness.”

This activity is probably easier to carry out at the end of the day, rather than earlier. Trying to slow walk on the way to work or school may seem frustrating, as a strong urge can arise that you have to get to your destination. Having said that, a lot of students are able to slow walk completely naturally on their journey to school.

Happy mindful walking

The Power of the Hug

Release of oxytocin increases compassion and trust

Oxytocin goes by many names, the hug hormone, cuddle chemical or the love molecule. Oxytocin has gained attention with its associated release in the body following social physical contact such as hugging. In particular, studies by Paul Zak 1, who recommends eight hugs a day, has shown the beneficial effects of oxytocin release from the power of a 10 second hug or 10 minutes of holding hands can linger up to 20 minutes.

Aside from its key role in reproduction, several health benefits have been linked to the release of oxytocin which include, an improved immune system, decrease blood pressure, increase compassion and social bonding.

The power of oxytocin has also found its way into the business world. Knowing the social benefits that accompany the release of the hormone, companies are looking at a various strategies to promote employee cooperation and trust in team building and group projects.

For those that cannot get their daily dose of hugs, there are other ways to achieve greater trust and compassion through the power of oxytocin. Three of these include the use of social media, massage and owning a pet.

Social Media

Beneficial but cannot replace the real thing

Many have criticised the use of the cell phone and related applications for a drop in human interactions. On the surface it appears to have led to a decline in face-to-face encounters with friends and family.

However the use of social media applications and the ability to reach out through text messages, an emoji or the ‘like’ button actually have a measur- able effect on oxytocin levels and health benefits.

Social media does have value, but the health benefits are not all created equal. Texting has value, but an email is better. From there, greater social value can be measured from the real voice in a telephone call, but even more valuable is video chatting. The champion of all of course is face-to- face interaction with a hug or two or three or….

Massage

Good for your muscles and social bonding

Massage is typically seen as a course of prevention and treatment for physical injuries. You can add it to the list of ways to promote the release of oxytocin and related health benefits.

Pets

Bonding with a pet produces oxytocin release

Anyone who has had a dog or cat can testify to the benefits of pet care. The act of petting and kissing your pet has a positive effect on oxytocin release.

“Getting a massage can be a substitute for a hug.”

Maintaining a level of social contact is essential to both our physical and social well being. As a start, develop a daily habit of physical contact when greeting friends and family members. If a hug is out of your comfort zone try at least a good handshake or high-five. During the rest of your day you can promote oxytocin release with social media, a massage or bonding with your pet.

Resources

1. Burkeman, Oliver (July 15, 2012) Meet 'Dr Love', the scientist

exploring what makes people good or evil. <https://www.the

guardian.com/science/2012/jul/15/interview-dr-love-paul-zak>

Mindful Listening

How to be a more effective communicator

You know that experience of when you are traveling from A to B, only to get to B and wonder where the journey went and that you were absent for pretty much the entire time?

Well, the same is often applied to listening as well. I'm sure you've experienced the situation where you've been in a conversation physically, but mentally you were off someplace else, perhaps daydreaming, or at the very least not giving your conversation partner your full and undivided attention. You've probably also been caught out while doing so on more than a few occasions and occurred the displeasure of our partner or whoever it was that was talking to us, even if they didn't verbally express it.

You've probably also found it quite annoying when the shoe has been on the other foot and we've been on the receiving end of someone zoning out while we are the one doing the talking.

So how can we become more mindful and effective listeners?

Steps to Mindful Listening

Direct your attention to the speaker

First of all, try really paying attention to the other person's voice - notice their intonation, their word choice, the volume. By doing so you're paying attention to more than just the words themselves, which we sometimes don't pay much attention to anyway.

Don't use the time that the other person is talking as merely an opportunity to start mentally rehearsing what you want to say next.

Don't use a phone or other gadget at the same time. Honor the other person by actually giving them your attention. If you look around when you are in a coffee shop, or some other place where people are talking, you'll see people carrying on conversations while having their heads struck in their phone or tablet. How much of their attention are they really giving the other person? Do they really care? The more people do this, the more they get used to doing so, and slowly, conversation-by-conversation, the quality of communication gets eroded. It can be difficult enough at times to maintain harmonious relationships with people even when our attention is fully engaged with them.

Be curious about the other person is saying, what might start off as a seemingly humdrum conversation could potentially turnout to be quite interesting and insightful. It may not, but don't assume that it will remain 'uninteresting '.

“Multitasking is a barrier to effective communication.”

Resist the temptation to cut in and give your opinion. Of course there's always some to-and-fro in any conversation, but don't try to cut in just to give an opinion for the sake of it, rather than to add some-thing to the conversation.

Remember that the more carefully you listen to someone, the more likely they are to listen carefully to you, and everyone appreciates a good listener.

The world around us

 

Look up you might just see something

A popular video shows a man standing on a boat looking at his phone while a whale surfaced just meters away. Maybe he was looking at pictures of whales on his phone...maybe he was engaged in something really important...probably not. Whatever it was that he was doing, he was missing a possibly once-in-a-lifetime opportunity going on right under his nose, if only his nose hadn't been stuck in our phone.

Maybe you haven't missed out on anything quite as dramatic as a close encounter with a whale, but how would you actually know what you've missed, what interesting people or happenings have passed you by, simply because your attention was fixated on a small screen 10 cm away rather than being aware of the world around you.

Perhaps countless opportunities have passed you by, perhaps it was only one thing or person, but it might have been the chance of a lifetime. How many potential lasting memories or lucky breaks might you have missed up until now?....and how many more might you continue to miss in the future?

But why is it so important to be more aware of your surroundings? The world can be a grey and intimidating place at times, maybe it is better to distract ourselves as much as possible? Perhaps it is a safer bet to rely on the steady little hits of dopamine that our phones provide.

Staying connected

Direct attention to the world not ourselves

There is a whole world going on around you. Okay, so the whale example was a bit of an extreme - we can't all go whale watching. Putting increasing attention on the world around us takes our attention away from our self and our own concerns.

What amount of texts and messages is equivalent to going nose to nose with a whale?

Or a chance meeting with someone....or stumbling across some object?

Also, the more you look at your phone, the more you want to look at it. Have you ever been fully satisfied with your phone, or are you always looking out for the next message?

If we only ever stay dwelling on ourself then we remain stuck in our own little world.

Keeping out attention on ourself reinforces the sense of self.

If we ever want to have a sense of connecting to something bigger than ourself, it makes sense that we should try to spend more and more time not dwelling on ourself.

One trap that is easy to fall into is of immediately relating to our surroundings by thinking about them, which immediately puts our self back into the equation.

So how can we avoid immediately jumping back into the picture?

Here is an exercise that simultaneously takes us out of our self and makes us more aware of our environment.

The shifty eye technique

For the shifty eyed technique, all you are going to do is to look around at things in your immediate environment. Fix your eyes on an object, it is probably best to use objects rather than people, as thoughts and feelings arise far quicker when looking at people. Don't allow yourself to gaze at the object, simply look at it for a few seconds and then move on and look at another object. Don't just merely glance at the object, really take in it's details. This doesn't mean that you are going to stop and analyze the object, but make sure that you look at it carefully, even though it will be for only a few seconds.

If you gaze at something it's possible to start zoning out or to start a change of thought based on whatever object we see. Once soon after a change of thought starts, we stop seeing the object as it is, and start seeing what we are thinking about the object.

If our vision latches onto something in our environment, then don't hold it for more than a few seconds - keep moving on and deliberately looking at different objects.

As well as being less likely to daydream or make up fantasies, you may also find that you start noticing details that you simply overlooked before.

A shout out to Dr. Charles Tart for the shifty eye approach.

Get more from your exercise training

Use mindful habits to enhance motivation and bring more consistency

We all appreciate the importance of including regular exercise in our lives. However, like any (old) habit, training can become routine resulting in a loss of motivation and consistency.

Many can relate to those days when you start to create a debate in your head, “…Do I want to go through all the hassle and train or just skip the session and go home and relax?” But what happens when we actually skip our exercise session?

As is often the case, when our intent was to be relaxing at home, we end upregretting the decision to bail on training and mentally beat ourselves up for doing so. This creates more negative thoughts, causing stress. Instead, if we had made the choice to train we would be arriving home feeling refreshed and positive about the effort we put in.

So, how can we minimize the tendency slack off from a training session and bring more consistency and motivated to our exercise routine?!

The following are 3 mindful approaches to get more out of your regular training.

Mindful habits for better training

Be realistic and mindful about your exercise

The following three mindful habits should help promote fitness and enhance well-being.

First, be realistic.

Be honest with yourself and acknowledge the challenges you will face maintaining a regular exercise routine.

Make a list of obstacles that are barriers to achieving a consistent training routine. List the obstacles you have encountered in the past and anticipate ones that may pop up in the future.

Often many of these obstacles never make it off the paper, and the following two mindful habits should help keep them there.

Second, be thankful.

Anyone who has faced an injury or family/work commitments that have not made training possible can think back to how much you wanted to train but couldn't.

So when those thoughts arise about skipping a training session, remind yourself, be thankful for the opportunity to exercise, especially if you are not sure when you can train next.

Third, reflect on the rewards.

When you start to question yourself about attending the next training session, remember the benefits.

“Bring success to training by being realistic, thankful and focus on the rewards.”

How good do you feel after training?

What are the benefits of an exercise routine?

Our thoughts tend to dwell too much on the on the negative aspects or inconveniences of training. Change the dialogue in your mind and remind yourself about all the good things. You could even make a list of why you like training?

We hope these mindful approaches bring more enjoyment and consistency to your exerciseprogram. HAPPY TRAINING

Danger makes you more Mindful

Danger makes you more Mindful

Increase concentration as you move about your environment

 

Welcome to the first ‘Off the Cushion’ newsletter.

What we aim to do with each newsletter is to present a short story or article

related to mindfulness, and then an exercise connected to the story to help you

practice in your daily life. Sometimes we will look at the opposite of mindfulness -

mindlessness - and what we can help do to reduce it as much as possible.

The town of Nieder-Erlenbach in Germany embarked on a radical experiment in

road safety by removing all the traffic signs and went even further by erasing

marked crosswalks. The only sign that was left was marked ‘common street’,

leaving a shared-spaced to be used by all. Removing the traffic signs has resulted

in all road users, whether motorized or not, behaving more responsibly, although

it is too early as yet to see the effect on traffic accidents.

One resident said that, ‘We now have to be careful all the time.’

The idea was the brainchild of Hans Monderman, a Dutch engineer who thought

that streets and towns would be safer with fewer rules, and instead both motorists

and pedestrians would have to ‘negotiate’ with each other with greater attention,

eye contact and other signals. Monderman has also put into place over 100

shared-shared schemes in the Netherlands.

Widening Attention

 

Bring attention to your commute.

The following exercise was inspired by the story about

Nieder-Erlenbach and it’s traffic experiment.

For this exercise, we are going to consciously try to

widen our field of vision. Instead of being foxed on a

point in the distance, or your phone in front of you, try

to be more aware of your peripheral vision.

All too often, we adopt a ‘tunnel vision’ when we are out

walking on the street. Not only can this potentially

create problems for us, such as failing to notice an

avoidable accident before it happens, but it also means

that we are missing out on so much of life going on

around us. Who knows what interesting things or

people we might have walked right on past, oblivious to

their existence.

It is probably best to first practice this in a quieter area

and not immediately plunge down a busy high street.

Choose a quieter street and walk down it, walk a little

slower than usual as this will help you take in the

surroundings more. At first it may help to notice more

obvious features such as lamp posts, trees, etc., that are

in your side-vision. As you slowly become more used to

doing this then notice less obvious details as well. The

idea is to slowly keep expanding your vision to take in

as much of surroundings at the same time as possible.

How do you feel when you do this?

Pause for a few moments to reflect and then try again

on another street.

Does it somehow feel as though the attention is now

less on you and your thoughts, and now more in the

“Expanding your field

of vision.”

whole around you as a whole?

Try it and see.

One quick way of making this exercise easier to do is to

walk down an unfamiliar street. When we are in a new

environment, we automatically become more mindful of

our new surrounding. So try this exercise on a less

familiar street first, before applying it to your usual

route.