Principles of Mindfulness — Science and the Freedom to do what works for you

For most people nowadays, threat is no longer external. Instead most of the threats we face are internal. These include fears and anxieties around failure and rejection. — Stan Rodski

I recently started a new book, The Neuroscience of Mindfulness by Stan Rodski and I was immediately grabbed by the author’s explanation of why anxiety is more prevalent in society. To sum up: our sympathetic adrenal medullary system (what controls our fight or flight response) was designed to deal with external threats from a dangerous world: wild animals, other humans and injuries from living a primitive lifestyle. The important point here is that these dangers are short-term and external.

As the quote above describes, based on our current living situation, we exist in a place of relative security where those immediate dangers are no longer our primary concern. Our brain has not adapted so when we perceive danger we still experience it as an external, life threatening situation and that generates a state of adrenaline that is meant to allow us to escape from the tiger that is chasing us. Again a very short term problem — we either escape the tiger or get eaten and the adrenaline dissipates either way.

With the shift to largely internal threats and anxieties the adrenaline no longer dissipates and that has lasting impacts on our minds and bodies.

Fear of rejection or failure can last for months, even years. The 'danger' is chronic and long-term. And this is the key to the problem: your body is not designed to handle long-term threats and danger.

The author argues that our fight or flight dysfunctions if it is stimulated to produce adrenaline for too long.

This resonated with me because my company has been in a phase of major and constant change for 6 years: we were bought by an overseas company, experienced several downsizing events, merged with our parent company and are now facing outsourcing. Needless to say our bodies have been under stress for a very long duration. There is only so far resiliency can take you and I’m seeing the effects in myself and my coworkers.

We are losing our ability to manage our energy as so much of our life is spent in a place where energy-depleting behaviours are the norm. As Rodski argues, our society rewards people who strive to be the best, to win and to avoid failure at all cost which leads to working long hours, not taking the time for yourself and internalizing the mistakes you have made.

We are so exhausted by the end of the day from being constantly in fight or flight mode that it is extremely difficult to take the time to identify and change these behaviours. This is why I am very grateful for my time away from work (despite its very scary beginning). My leave allowed me to step back and see just how unhealthy my behaviours were and allowed me to build up the energy to prioritize fixing them. I have a completely different perspective than most of my coworkers and I consider myself very lucky.

Which leads us to mindfulness.

Your body needs a way to release the adrenaline and switch to producing dopamine to calm your system down. If we never feel safe, we never get this release and the long term physical effects are not pretty.

Rodski defines mindfulness as “being aware of where you are in the moment and being able to focus on the activity you are doing to the exclusion of everything else.” To put this in context, you can be mindful while brushing your teeth as long as you are focused.

He goes further to defines a mindfulness practice as: “paying attention to something, in a particular way, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally.”

What I really enjoyed about this book is he stresses that a mindfulness practice must focus on the process and not the outcome and you must do what works for you. Not everyone is going to find mindfulness through meditation and that’s ok.

All Rodski stresses is that an effective mindfulness practice must have three elements:

• Repetition
• Pattern
• Control

The brain needs to create patterns, and these patterns are created through repetition, through habitual activities that are done within a control or boundary — colouring within the lines for example. When the brain has those three, it relaxes. The brain will be even more relaxed when those activities allow creativity in a non-competitive way

So his advice is to practice mindfulness by picking something you love to do that meets the above criteria, simple as that.

Personally I practice meditation, colouring and beading. Some days one works better than the other but regardless of what I do I take the time and feel better for it.

Remember that stress is not caused by an event — it is caused by your perception or beliefs or decisions about that event.

So take a purposeful action, listen to the signs your body is giving you and prioritize your energy management — make the time for your own brand of mindfulness and let your brain relax.