Mindfulness is the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us.
While mindfulness is something we all naturally possess, it’s more readily available to us when we practice on a daily basis.
Whenever you bring awareness to what you’re directly experiencing via your senses, or to your state of mind via your thoughts and emotions, you’re being mindful. And there’s growing research showing that when you train your brain to be mindful, you’re actually remodeling the physical structure of your brain.
The goal of mindfulness is to wake up to the inner workings of our mental, emotional, and physical processes.
Meditation is exploring. It’s not a fixed destination. Your head doesn’t become vacuumed free of thought, utterly undistracted. It’s a special place where each and every moment is momentous. When we meditate we venture into the workings of our minds: our sensations (air blowing on our skin or a harsh smell wafting into the room), our emotions (love this, hate that, crave this, loathe that) and thoughts (wouldn’t it be weird to see an elephant playing
Mindfulness meditation asks us to suspend judgment and unleash our natural curiosity about the workings of the mind, approaching our experience with warmth and kindness, to ourselves and others.
Mindfulness helps us put some space between ourselves and our reactions, breaking down our conditioned responses.
That’s the practice. It’s often been said that it’s very simple, but it’s not necessarily easy. The work is to just keep doing it. Results will accrue.
This meditation focuses on the breath, not because there is anything special about it, but because the physical sensation of breathing is always there and you can use it as an anchor to the present moment. Throughout the practice you may find yourself caught up in thoughts, emotions, sounds - wherever your mind goes, simply come back again to the next breath. Even if you only come back once, that’s okay.
The NHS has many uplifting resources - click here to find out if there are any that might help you
The NHS England website also has a number of short videos that have been designed to induce calm. If you follow the following link there is a short collection of videos is designed to provide you with simple tools and techniques to reduce stress wherever you are and effectively using what little time you may have to attend to it.
Each video is also provided with Closed-Captions (click on a video to reveal the CC option)
Headspace for NHS have just announced that they will be free for another year for NHS staff - sign up with your NHS e-mail
Note to staff other than Liverpool Hospitals staff
Please be aware that these pages are for Liverpool Hospitals staff and whilst general information is widely available to all Trusts who use LUHFT Occupational Health service, you may find that trying to access specific services (other than Occupational Health) is restrictive. If you work in another Trust, and you are unable to access any site specific links, your own Trust may have similar schemes for you to access. Please check your own Intranet
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