- Boston DBT Groups

Three mindfulness exercises to use right now to quiet your mind and focus your attention

One of the reasons mindfulness is used is to get yourself calm. If you are a person with a lot of anxiety, your anxiety might get in your way of handling problems, thinking clearly, or addressing something with your full attention.

Mindfulness is one way to lower emotional arousal, center yourself, and help you get back on track. When emotional arousal returns to baseline, accessing the problem solving part of your brain becomes easier.

1) Inhale to the count of one, exhale to the count of two. Keep going until you get to the bottom of six. Start over. Do this for about three minutes. If you get lost or distracted simply start over. The point is to have something to focus your attention on; which helps cut the distractions of your mind.

2) Trace your hand. Inhale on the way to the tips of your fingers, exhale on the way to the crevice. This can be done with pen/ pencil on paper or with the finger of the opposite hand. This is a tactile way to “trace” your breath and focus your mind. Keep your attention on your breath.

3) Pause for three minutes and focus your attention entirely on sound. Try to tune in to every possible nuance of sound. See what you can hear that you typically don’t pay attention to. If your mind drifts, bring it gently back to the experience of hearing.

Starting college? Tips for managing social anxiety in new classroom situations.

Is the newness of college stressing you out? Some people have difficulty adapting to college because they suffer from social anxiety, which includes a fear of being scrutinized, judged, or standing out in the crowd. This can lead to avoidance of classes, diminished social contacts, and a slightly more difficult transition from home to college. Here are some tips for handling social anxiety:

1) Try to find something to focus your attention on when you go to class. In most instances, people who are socially anxious become pre-occupied with self-consciousness. The focus on being scrutinized or judged increases anxiety and becomes the “problem” in and of itself. Fixing your attention on other things will help reduce anxiety by getting your attention away from all the things that might go wrong. Here are some suggestions:

Bring candy with a strong sensory component (mint, cinnamon Altoids, black licorice) and focus all your attention on the taste. This may work even better if you have a strong flavor you don’t particularly like- because it will be harder to ignore.

Put a hand on your stomach and- when you breathe- focus on bringing the air down into your diaphragm so that the hand on your stomach gently moves up and down.

Try to identify as many sounds as you can- and notice where they are coming from. Gently shift your attention to sounds from within the room and outside of the room. See what sounds you can hear that you wouldn’t normally because you aren’t paying attention.

2) Keep your facial expression soft and your gaze curious. Often when people are anxious they close themselves off to social interactions. Their expression might read: Don’t talk to me. A tight and stiff posture may be how you are communicating your anxiety- even if you don’t intend it. Try to soften your face and smile gently at people you don’t know. Remember, if you aren’t looking for connections and friendships, it’s harder to make them happen- thus increasing your fear of being among strangers.

3) Don’t skip classes and make it a point to get to class early. Telling yourself “I will go tomorrow” may be setting yourself up for not going at all. The next morning it will be easier to skip because you will feel behind. When you go early, you have the advantage of not walking in late, knowing where the class is, and gently greeting new people who walk in the door. See if you can make it a point to learn people’s names so you can greet them when you see them. Greeting people make them more likely to connect with you- and when you have friends you are no longer among strangers.

4) If you’ve missed class already, go back. Define a small goal for yourself (ie, sitting through class) and don’t focus on all the information or material that overwhelms you. Instead, make eye contact, focus on your breathing, and sit quietly. Remember that you can solve problems later if you need to- such as meeting with an advisor or the academic support center if you need to change your schedule or drop a class.

Get your cartoon elephants (emotions) some air!

Here are some tips for breathing:

Put one hand on your stomach and one hand on your chest. When you breath deeply – into your diaphragm- the hand on your stomach will go up and down. This is one way to develop a feedback loop that will help you breathe in such a way that gets oxygen where it needs to be. Shallow breathing, hiccupy breathing, or shortness of breath can often induce panic like sensations, and can be reflected in the rise and fall of the upper chest.

When you breathe, think of ways in which are simply creating space for what you feel. Counteract urges to restrict, suppress, ignore, judge, or inhibit what you feel. Breathe in, around, and through emotions. Practice gently curiosity- soften your stance and allow what’s there to be there. Try softening your facial expression to encourage and invite the process.

Find a time during the day to check in with your breath. It’s often when we’re NOT paying attention to our breath that we can make the best use of this simple and accessible skill.

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Four brief ways in which mindfulness can actually be used to help you cope: Practical applications of being mindful.

Here are a few simple ways in which learning and using mindfulness can help people.

Quiet the mind. A simple mindful activity such as focusing on the breath for a few minutes can help people slow down racing thoughts, lower emotional arousal, and feel a bit more settled. If a person can take emotional arousal down a few notches, he or she may feel more prepared to face a situation that evokes anxiety.

Focus attention: When people are wholeheartedly involved in one task (focusing all of their attention on whatever they are doing), their mind is typically not racing, jumping, or scattered. Focusing on one thing can help a person feel less disorganized.

Become grounded, centered, or more connected to ourselves, our environment, or our surroundings. This can be important if you have a hard time relating, enjoying, or benefitting from pleasant experiences. Sometimes the focus of attention is on pain, threat, or impending crisis and it’s hard to absorb the stuff that makes us feel better.

Help you be clear on what you feel: We know what we feel because we sense it in our bodies. Some people spend a lot of time trying to ignore, hide, repress, or inhibit what’s going on inside. Being mindful can help us get back in touch with emotion, discomfort, and even desire.

Want to learn how to be mindful? Click here to try my 30 days of mindfulness program and receive one e-mail a day for 30 days with a mindfulness tip, suggestion, skill, or practical “how to”. If you’ve already done it, click here to do the 30 (more) days of mindfulness- for a total of 60 days of opportunities to learn mindfulness.

Mindfulness, DBT, extreme emotions, and doing what works:

One of the DBT mindfulness skills includes being effective: Doing what works. Learning how to sit for long periods of time and focus on one thing, such as your breath, can have quite an impact on quieting the mind. However, sitting for long periods of time can be rather difficult for people who are learning how to “be mindful”, and may not be helpful in solving other problems (ie, communicating, reading one’s environment accurately, interpreting behavior).

The persons I tend to treat have difficult with extreme emotion- and sometimes tolerating a single moment can seem like an eternity. The skill of “observing” in mindfulness appears deceptively simple- and yet the actual doing of the observing when it’s needed in real life- as it applies to solving painful problems- is a whole different story.

Observing and describing the cracks on the sidewalk or the ceiling tiles may be a way to be mindful. But here is where it can get tricky:

It may be an effective way to be present in the moment, to become grounded and connected to what’s going around you, and prevent you from dissociating, “floating off”, or disconnecting.
It may be a way to distract, avoid, inhibit feeling, occupy the mind, and avoid relationships. If you can become overly focused on things and not people, you can avoid taking emotional risks, connections, and opportunities to address conflict. Noticing a tendency to avoid may be a more effective use of mindful activity.

I’ve been working hard on getting together my free 30 days of mindfulness for my mailing list readers. The approach for learning varies and the agenda includes suggestions for trying new and different things. It’s experiential- which means that you get to participate in the exercises. I’m hoping that it will satisfy those who are looking for ways on how to be mindful as it relates to real life.

All you have to do is click on the upper right side of this blog post where it says Get 7 free steps for sailing through emotional storms when you join my mailing list. Sign up!

The 30 days of mindfulness are going to start February 8, so you will have to sign up before then if you want to be included!

An exercise in mindfulness: Thanksgiving turkeys

In my groups, we spend time at the beginning doing some sort of exercise to slow down, pay attention, come into the room, and notice what is going on. Some of these exercises are specifically directed at paying attention to the breath. When breathing is slowed, paced, and regulated, a person has a better tendency to think clearer and become organized. Using the breath to regulate emotion, attention, and physical arousal is a very critical skill that frequently gets forgotten about in the heat of the moment- especially a very emotional moment.

Breathing exercises can sometimes be difficult. If you were to spend five minutes trying to focus just on your breath, you may notice spacing out, thinking about other things, and generally not paying much attention to the physical aspects of your breath. Therefore, breathing exercises may sometimes be paired with counting, walking, or other more concrete methods to help you get in touch- and stay in touch- with your breath.

Here is an exercise that is a tangible way of following the breath– and can easily be taught to young children as a way to self-regulate. Place your hand on a piece of paper and trace around it. Every time you move up to the tip of a finger, inhale. Every time you move down to the crevice between your fingers, exhale. Try to work on slowing down your breath so that it is even and steady. When you are done, start over. Keep going until you notice feeling calmer, slower, steadier, and perhaps more connected. Be gentle and notice any frustration if it doesn’t “work” right away.

One way to do this exercise is to keep tracing and re-tracing back your hand on one piece of paper. Another way to do this exercise is to not use paper and pen at all, but to trace your fingers with your other hand. This method can be used when you are out and about, in a meeting, or (depending on subtly it’s done) even talking to other people.

However, if you trace a new outline on new paper each time, you can start to accumulate several pieces of paper. If you’d like to add a beak and draw in some feathers on your “hands”, you can start to ask yourself: How many turkeys does it take to get calmed down? If you get really good and regulating your emotions by regulating your breath, you may find that over time the number of turkeys it takes will eventually go down.