Mindfulness and Meditation
In my new book, GetReal, GetGOING: The Definitive Roadmap to Starting the Private Practice of Your Dreams, I devote a chapter to things you can do to stay strong through your agency years -- and then on into private practice. Near the top of my list of advice is mindfulness. Mindfulness as a clinical practice has become prominent in our field in recent years. A mindfulness routine can sustain us as practitioners as well our patients. During your internship years, the hassles and demands of agency life can crowd out self-care. Staying strong and present means that you must find ways to take even small moments to clear your head.
Regular meditation keeps us in touch with the present moment. It frees us, if only briefly, from the anxiety and continuous problem-solving that consumes our energy (especially in our line of work). Most of the world’s philosophers, psychologists, and religions advocate practicing some type of mindfulness technique as a way to achieve inner peace and a sense of well-being. You can find a technique that melds with your beliefs and lifestyle.
There are many methods to develop mindfulness. Most involve becoming still and focused, which allows distractions and mental clutter to recede. This is usually accomplished by directing your attention to your breath, a particular object, sound, word, or image. There are myriad resources to facilitate enhancing your mindfulness, such as the apps MyLife, Headspace, Calm, and Insight Timer.
How does practicing mindfulness help us? In his book, The Mindful Brain, Dan Siegel explains how mindfulness techniques and meditation thicken the mid-prefrontal cortex, and this thickening of the mid-prefrontal cortex signals an increase in body regulation, attuned communication, emotional balance (mood management), fear modulation, empathy, intuition, response flexibility (an ability to pause before reacting), greater insight, and increased awareness of morality. That’s a long list of benefits! (Therapists might also be interested in Siegel’s follow-up book, The Mindful Therapist, about ways to bring mindfulness techniques into your therapeutic practice.)
In additional to Siegel, clinician, researcher and teacher Bessel Van der Kolk and a number of interpersonal neurobiologists and trauma specialists emphasize the need for mindfulness and meditation techniques—especially during times of stress and problem- solving. This practice will help you to maintain objectivity, receptivity, and openness while managing your reactivity amid stress.
Negative stressors place your sympathetic nervous system into a fight- or-flight response. Your heart pounds and your adrenalin flows. You need to balance that with its complement: activation of the parasympathetic nervous system, which slows your heart rate, relaxes you, and aids digestion. Developing the level of mindfulness that will activate the parasympathetic nervous system takes commitment and regular practice—after all, you are training your body to go from “fight or flight” back to “rest and digest.” Take that practice seriously. Your profession -- especially at this stage of your career demands it!
