We’ve all experienced those moments in life when we stop and realise that we have no idea what just happened in the last five minutes, hour, or even day! It sometimes feel as though time has jumped forward, and it can be easy to rush through life and move on to the next thing without really living in the ‘now’. Mindfulness is all about becoming more aware of the moment by using techniques such as breathing, meditation, and yoga to help you to connect with the present.

Mindfulness can be described in the following ways:

• Being more aware of your thoughts and feelings;
• Being more aware of your senses – smell, touch, sight, sound;
• Purposefully paying attention to the present moment in a non-judgemental way, and actively bringing your attention to what it is you are experiencing.

What are the benefits?

The benefits of practising mindfulness have been well documented in relation to mental health and wellbeing. The organisation Be Mindful offers an online mindfulness course, which was put to the test in a research analysis carried out by Oxford University. The results demonstrated significant reductions in anxiety, depression, and stress from the 273 participants. Mindfulness has also been shown to impact on our physical wellbeing by lowering blood pressure, improving sleep and alleviating gastrointestinal difficulties.

How do I start?

There are many ways to practise mindfulness, and so if one way doesn’t work for you, try giving another one a go. We’ve come up with some simple suggestions to start you off:

• Practise basic meditation – sit quietly where you can’t be disturbed, and focus on your natural breathing. It might take a minute or two for your mind to stop wandering, and while you are relaxing into the moment, try not to be too passive. Remember that meditation is an active process where you must be engaged, focusing on your breath going in and out, and controlling your thoughts.
• Become actively aware of your senses and of what you are seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching, at moments throughout the day. Try naming them in your mind as you experience them, i.e. ‘sight’, ‘sound’ etc. Focus on the sensory experience, and then let it go.
• Allow feelings to be present – study your emotions as you experience them, without judgement, and practise recognising them for what they are. Try naming them in your mind, i.e. ‘joy’, ‘frustration’, ‘happiness’, ‘anger’, etc, accepting them, and then letting them go.
• Practise yoga – If you’re part of the team at Imperial, you can benefit from our Yoga Programme (email wellbeing@imperial.nhs.uk for more information). Mindfulness and yoga go hand-in-hand, and the breathing and relaxation techniques learnt in a yoga class can easily be used as mindfulness techniques in your everyday.

To really cultivate mindfulness in our every day it’s important to stick with it. Initially it might be difficult to concentrate on relaxing but if your mind starts to wander into planning, daydreaming or criticism, take notice and gently redirect it to the present moment. The mind is like a muscle and so the more you are able to practise mindfulness, the easier it will become to do so.

We have just completed mindfulness pilots on all of our sites and are excited to be rolling out a program from July. We will be sure to keep you updated on how this progresses and when you can start participating.

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